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History of a Famous Star Wars Scream
An anonymous reader writes "There is a very famous scream in Star Wars (Episode IV) that occurs when one of the stormtroopers falls into the Death Star chasm. No doubt all geeks are familiar with this scream, but may not know that it has been used in dozens of other movies and even has a name - "The Wilhelm". There is a fascinating interview (transcript and audio) from NPRs "On The Media" that discusses the now cult-like following and history of this scream."
The first one I am nearly sure about is the swordfighting sound from civilization is the same as the black night scene from monty python and the holy grail.
I keep hearing the same whoosh sound that is in Doom when you use the rocket launcher in movies and on TV. Is it a standard sound that people keep reusing or do they just sound simmilar.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
Last year when I was writing dialogue for the Star Wars Galaxies online roleplaying game, I named one character "Wilhalm Skrim" in honest tribute to this scream.
How many sound effects have names and followings? =)
How about the sound at the end of Doom II, when the spawn-cubes shoot out??
~Berj
I don't completely get it... So a sound file was used again and again...isn't this common place?
:)
Yes, but can you name another one-second sound clip that's used in nearly a hundred movies and TV shows?
What's interesting is that despite the popularity and cult following of the clip, the origins of it are unclear. They have an original recording of the Wilhelm, but the actor who actually made the clip remains a mystery. He should have set up some kind of royalty agreement, he'd be cashing in on it now.
I dunno that scream doesn't sound too familiar to me, maybe I need to watch Stars Wars again? What I've always been amazed by is how many movies/commercials have used sounds from the game DOOM. I've heard its rocket and dying imp sounds in tons of things.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
No doubt all geeks are familiar with this scream, but may not know that it has been used in dozens of other movies and even has a name - "The Wilhelm".
What they don't mention is that is that the name "The Wilhelm" is a subtle reference to Wilhelm Wundt, considered by many to be the most important figure in the history of Psychology. This is because Wundt ran the first psychological laboratory, helping pave the way for the scientific approach to the study of human behaviour prevalent today. Wundt was professor of physiology at Leipzig, where he studied human perception. He is famous for founding the introspectionist school of Psychology, in which highly-trained subjects were asked to report on Just-Noticeable Differences between two stimuli of almost equal intensity, and sensory thresholds.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Was Luke's scream that was added to the Empire Strikes Back Special Edition, when he falls down the shaft on Bespin after fighting Vader and losing his arm. First of all, it sounds nothing like Luke. Second of all, it changed the entire meaning of the scene where the scream meant Luke's fall was accidental rather than intentional. A guess Lucas never heard of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
Leprechaun 4 (Leprechaun in Space) (which is a very bad movie, BTW, and I recommend against wasting any of the precious seconds of your life, watching it) uses Doom's door opening and closing sound effect.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
When I read the title of this article, only one scream came to mind, and I'm sure many of you will remember it. I have heard it used in many places, but the two most notable are these video games:
Dark Forces: Whenever you knock a Storm Trooper off a ledge to his death.
Starcraft: Whenever you select the Academy structure.
From Wherever to Whenever.
I heard this exact scream TWICE during Return of the King. Within 2 minutes of each other no less. Once from an Orc and once from a human during the main battle sequence. Kinda jarred me for a second. Only heard it once from the Two Towers.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
"Doctor Blair, Doctor Blair... Doctor Hamilton, Doctor J. Hamilton..."
Listen for it in hospital scenes - I heard it in an episode of Arthur that my daughter was watching the other day when someone was in a hospital, it's in a Queensryche song off of Mindcrime, I've heard it on various soaps that the wife watches...
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
I was at a Christmas party for a sound studio here in LA, and they had a 20-30 minute video filled with clips of people using that screeam.
It was hilarious and strange - everything from gladiators to aliens, and they were all screaming exactly the same. I really commend the guy who did the research to put it all together.
Dang, I wish I had a copy of that tape.
If you listen to some of the Peter Jackson interviews on sound effects in TTT, he mentions that people have to to expect that sound (and indeed mentions Monty Python as well) so they more or less have to put it in or people thing it will sound fake...
It is commonly touted that geek originally meant a sideshow performer who bites the heads off chickens or snakes. While this is a sense of the word, it is not the original one.
Geek is actually a very old word. It is a variant of geck, a term of Low German/Dutch origin that dates in English to 1511. It means a fool, simpleton, or dupe. Geck is even used by Shakespeare in Twelfth Night, V.i.:
Why haue you suffer'd me to be imprison'd. And made the most notorious gecke and gull That ere inuention plaid on? The geek spelling is an American variation, even though Shakespeare uses the spelling geeke in Cymbeline V.iv., but this is probably just a misspelling. Geek first appears (outside the single Shakespearean usage) in 1876 America. American usage adds the connotation of offensive or undesirable to the original foolish and stupid sense. The Carnival sideshow sense appears in 1928.
(taken from Here) its low german/dutch! and you can't pronounce it? for shame
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I wa at a parachute dropzone in the late 90's videoing friends skydiving. One of the guys was a prick whose canopy fully collapsed - a real roman candle. At about 1000 feet he dumped his reserve withut chopping the main so his reserve fouled his main. result? a big bag of non aerodynamic washing flapping over his head.
He knew he was going to die and we heard him screaming in terror all the way in. I was near where he fell and videotaped it all. It was impressively awful.
He was an asshole I always hated so it should have been a dream come true. But that scream shit chilled my bones. A big tough hard guy squealing and screeching a like a girl. I felt cheated by feeling guilty when I should have enjoyed it.
The trouble is he didnt die, he lived - even though he was all busted up. However I still masturbate to the video sometimes - I should convert it to DivX and Kazaa it.
AAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHH -nononoNONONONONONONO.
THUD
bwah haha
No, no actor can fake that.
Actulally, there was a short story by Harlan Ellison called 'laugh track', I think, in his book 'Angry Candy'. It was about a man whose aunt was recorded for a laugh track, and is now obsessed with freeing her voice from the TV studios... wierd stuff, I definitely recommend Ellison's work :P
Personally, find it annoying to hear it so much. I watch the Lord of the Rings and think of all the hard work that was put into it, and then I hear the same canned scream that was in virtually all of the Star Wars movies (and a bijillion others). It just makes me think "cheap". Using the same old sound as everyone else. I don't care if it's paying "homage" to some mythical voice actor or not, it simply reminds the audience that your movie isn't that different from all of the others after all.
Another glaring example of this is the police dispatcher sound played when you click on a police station in Sim City. Seriously, you hear that everywhere. Worst example: X2 - when the police show up to the kid's house. Listen...it's there.
Sorry about the rant...for some reason that Wilhelm scream just really gets my goat.
A little story from a LOTR set here in Wellington (related to me by a friend who worked there): The Nazgul scream sound effect was a bit naff, and the hobbits jumping in shock and surprise weren't really getting into it. So Fran Walsh (scriptwriter, producer, and partner of Peter Jackson) crept up and when the Nazgul scream sound effect was supposed to happen she let loose with the loudest, highest-pitch scream you can imagine. Hobbits jumped in surprise and shock, as they should. Peter Jackson chortled and filmed. So they redid the sound effect, basing it on Fran's scream.
I was watching Terminator 3 on DVD a couple of weeks ago and in two instances I clearly heard the "Wowrraar!" scream of a panther/cougar/wildcat/"Thundercat"(TM):
1) When the crane flips over and hits the conveniently located truck carrying welding gas tanks..boom..wowrarrr!
2) Near the end when the Terminator crash-lands a helicopter into a tunnel and slides along the ground. booom...screech..wowrarrr!
These cat screams jolted me out of the movie. What the heck was a cougar scream doing in there? Is it supposed to make it "cool" or something? The Terminatrix's scream is different, much more mechanical, so I doubt it's supposed to be her.
the Wilhelm has been in use dating back the to 40s in the original western it came from.. you'll also find it in nearly everything Indiana Jones related, and I've noticed it in the last two LOTR movies.. in TTT as an orc gets tossed from a ladder at Helm's Deep and in the ROTK it occurs during the battle scene when Legolas throws a guy off his Oliphaunt
I think you are more familiar with Wilhelm than you might think... that's the one.
When the orcs arrive at the river after Frodo has had his encounter with Boromir, and Aragorn is stepping forward to meet them in slow-motion, you can hear a very loud sheep baa-ing. Twice.
"Sufferin' succotash."
The wet splatting sound that seargents and imps make when they blow up, if played backwards, is just some guy screwing up a piece of paper.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife