Few films have ever created more memorable sound effects than Star Wars. The franchise didn’t just need to invent a plethora of space noises, it also needed to give voice to untold alien species and droids. It’s such a massive undertaking that Lucasfilm has their own sound design studio…but we think there might be a way for the studio to maintain the quality of their sound effects without busting their budget. They can just hire this bird that sounds exactly like R2-D2, laser blasts, and other sci-fi noises.
We only just came across this video posted a couple of years ago by the YouTube channel Howudoin, but we don’t know how we lived without it before. This fantastic little Australian lyrebird, who possesses an “otherworldly ability to mimic sounds from its environment” including man-made noises, is basically a real life recording studio for the animal kingdom. And clearly someone was fond of showing this bird the Star Wars movies, because he runs through a wide spectrum of sci-fi sounds that should get him a job with Skywalker Sound.
If you play that for someone without letting them watch the video, how long would it take them to figure out it was a bird making those noises?
But a better question is whether anyone has shown that bird The Force Awakens, because we’d love to hear him do BB-8 next. What other movie would you love to have the lyrebird watch so he could recreate the sounds? Sing your favorite suggestion in our comments section below.
Featured Image: Lucasfilm
