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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."
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In the Netherlands, the Wilhelm is actually even the national hymne.
The SCO scream:
"What the fuck are they smoking?!"
The Goatse.cx scream:
"Aaah! What the hell?!! My ass hurts just LOOKING at that!"
The Windows BSOD scream:
"Ah well, time for a cigarette."
They had to use a fake scream for a guy falling in a chasm? What's next, fake applause during a sitcom?
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 way, I heard that scream coming from the audience during Episode I.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
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
Stormtrooper #9: aaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
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.
My personal favorite is the BBC audio "spooky werewolf" sound effect. You still hear it all over the place. It starts with the sound of a wolf (or old junkyard dog?) howling, then immediately follows that up with a cat giving two aggravated-sounding meows. The actual sound effect (you can get it on old BBC sound effects records; your library may have some) repeats this sound about 3-4 times, and it's always the same: Wolf howl, cat. Wolf howl, cat. It cracks me up when modern movies actually let the tape loop run through more than one sequence, cuz it's one of the goofiest things I've heard.
Breakfast served all day!
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".
why? cos shes prolly never seen a skinny naked guy with +4 bifocal horn-rimmed glasses? :P
Let's start with analyzing the sound effects in Star Wars...
Breakfast served all day!
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 remember hearing this scream in RotK somewhere, during one of the battle sequences involving Minas Tirith. However, the 'stealing' of sounds (that scream sound isnt stealing) is more common than people suspect. Though i can only think of 1 movie off hand that did so (Leprakaun 4: in space, haha), MANY scifi movies have ripped sound effects from video games, most notably Doom2, specifically door effects. I cannot tell you how many times I've heard a Doom II door opening sound used in TV or a movie. However, its more than just Doom II; I've heard video game gun shots, explosions, and so on; never do these recieve any credit. I can only imagine the amount of trouble some of these movies or shows would get into if they were discovered to be using non-royalty-free/non-folly sounds.
On a side note, I've been to sound studios before where they do mixing for movies and tv, and these guys often have huuuuuuuuge sound archives, both folly and royalty-free, and very often if you are working on a project for someone and they hand you a CD filled with audio effects made for their show/movie, you copy that effects cd for yourself for later use. So if you look out and have good audio memory, you can hear every once in a while a sound thats been used in other shows/movies. This is doubly true for TV where the schedules are tighter as well as money.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
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!
I always thought it was a reference to Wilhem Podunk, the aspiring 1940s star of the never released MGM epic "The Romans". Playing Julius Caesar, Podunk was expected to perform on his horse along two thousand extras, each one holding a pike aimed at the Hun army in front of them. The scene required Caesar to command his men to prepare for an attack, turn left and then charge toward the enemy.
Podunk reportedly strode down the line of pikers majestically, presented his lines heroically and, unfortunately, turned right before spurring his horse on.
The clip of the resulting scream is all that remains of "The Romans", even the recording of Louis B. Mayer's shout, "Your Other Left!", has been lost; leaving a sad legacy for a man that could have been a bigger star than Cooper, if only he had a better sense of direction.
myke (last day of work for 2003)
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Here is a website that tries to list all of "The Wilhelm" occurrences in films.
They claim "A series of short painful screams performed by an actor were recorded in 1951 for the Warner Brother's film "Distant Drums." They were used for a scene where a man is bitten and dragged underwater by an alligator. The recording was archived into the studio's sound effects library -- and it was used in many of their films since.
"Star Wars" Sound Designer Ben Burtt tracked down the scream recording - which he named "Wilhelm" after a character who let out the same scream in the film "Charge at Feather River." Ben has adopted the scream as sort of a personal sound signature, and has included it in many of the films he has worked on. He and a small circle of sound effects people, including myself and Richard Anderson, continue the crusade to keep Wilhelm alive. The Wilhelm Scream continues to be heard in new films every year."
Homer: How'd you get to be so good?
June: Oh, just experience I suppose. I started out as Roadrunner. [as Roadrunner] Meep!
Homer: You mean "meep-meep"?
June: No, they only paid me to say it once, then they doubled it up on the soundtrack. [to herself] Cheap bastards.
-- "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show"
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
This story from Yahoo! News reports:
That'd make me scream like that.
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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.
http://download.theforce.net/video/wilhelm_48mb.mo v
Most of those sounds are in Sound Ideas' "The General" 6000 series, copyright 1992.
"Method Actor"
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.
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Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Here they are A New Hope: 88m39s of film The Empire Strikes Back: 28m12s and 94m57s The Return of The Jedi: 33m00s
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