The sound of the ‘Star Wars’ TIE Fighters is actually the sound of elephants and cars
Sound design is particularly important to any blockbuster movie, but it is especially so in films of the sci-fi genre. As there are several fantastical concepts to showcase, the sound design must create a layer of reality, so the audience believes the world they are experiencing. One sci-fi franchise that used sound design to significant effect was George Lucas’ Star Wars.
Take, for instance, the iconic buzz of the lightsabre as it zaps into power. Interestingly, several of the iconic sound moments in Star Wars come from unconventional sources. For example, the sound of the Imperial TIE Fighter spaceships are actually recordings of elephants and cars driving through puddles of water.
The sound designer Ben Burtt claimed that he had drawn inspiration for the TIE Fighters from the noises that the elephants make in the film Roots of Heaven. He recorded his own and then combined them with the sound of cars driving through the water. He said, “Swoosh, the car would come by, and you heard this car ploughing through the water. I took that sound, still thinking that I was making a laser of some kind. I’d really put it in because I had no other alternative. But it got great reviews, so naturally, it became the sound of the TIE Fighters.”
Discussing the iconic lightsabre sounds of the film franchise, Burtt confessed to having to use all his resources and relying on the objects around him for inspiration. He admitted that the lightsabre sound had actually come from a film projector and a TV set.
“Immediately something went off in my mind, and I had a feeling for what they would sound like.” Burtt said. “In the booth where we projected the films, those projectors made a hum. The motors would sit there with this magical, mysterious humming sound. I thought, ‘that’s probably what a lightsabre would sound like.'”
Yet sound design was not the only special effect that Star Wars relied on to achieve its glorious reality. Several battle scenes were filmed using inventive lighting and camera techniques. Many of the aliens, fauna and props were made using plastic and then shot at curious angles to enhance their believability.
The massive 74-foot AT-AT Walker, for example, is a tiny figurine, so small that you could actually hold it in the palm of your hand. The Star Wars Youtube page explains, “The models came in several sizes to match the scale of different live-action shots. It took nine months to design and build these models; each articulated part of the model must be moved no more than a fraction of an inch between each single frame exposure in stop-motion sequences.”
