Impressive sound effects have always been a hallmark of the Star Wars franchise, ever since the original Star Wars took home an Academy Award for its brilliant use of sound in establishing the film’s outer-space adventure theme. Over the course of seven films, the franchise has won three Oscars for its sound editing and been nominated an additional three times — with the most recent nomination honoring last year’s Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens.
A new, fan-created video showcases the sound effects that earned The Force Awakens its Academy Award nomination, and the supercut of isolated audio is truly a treat for the ears.
Titled Hearing Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the video is the creation of Vimeo user and film student Zackery Ramos-Taylor.
Ramos-Taylor previously created a supercut of sound from the film that won last year’s Academy Award in the category, Mad Max: Fury Road, and explained his reasons for taking on The Force Awakens in the description of the video.
As the second supercut in my “Best Sound Editing Oscar Nominees 2016” series, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is no stranger to the use of sound. This film allows the viewer to experience sounds that have been used before, whether it’s Luke’s lightsaber, Han’s blaster, or Chewbacca’s growl. There are also new sounds that add to this auditory sci-fi world such as BB-8, Kylo Ren’s lightsaber, and various aliens. Together, they allow us to become engaged with what we hear by creating a sense of realism and fantasy at once. The Force Awakens not only reminds us of the classic sounds but introduces us to a world full of new ones.
The supercut of The Force Awakens sound effects is fascinating not just because it reminds us how iconic the audio element of the franchise is, but by grouping the effects together by similarity instead of presenting them chronologically, it showcases the different “families” of sounds that make up the movie. The subtle differences between Chewbacca’s various roars or BB-8’s beeps, for example, all come through in the cut.
Ramo-Taylor has indicated that he’s planning to create a supercut for all of last year’s nominees in the Sound Editing category, so we can expect to see similar videos for Bridge of Spies, The Martian, and The Revenant at some point.
