I have thus far enjoyed the new Star Wars films, and my all time favorite SW movie has come from that lot, that being Rogue One.

One thing I noticed immediately was the tendency of the sound effects guys to....well...use the wrong sound FX. Most notably, I've found this with the X-wing laser sounds, and the sound FX of the Millennium Falcon's AG-2G quad lasers.

All three new films have these misplaced sound effects.

With the X-wings, most of the time, yes, their laser sound effects are the familiar "FWIP FWIP". But then, they go to what is supposed to be a sort of energetic "ricochet" sound effect.

The sound effect is supposed to be reminiscent of the old "ricochet" sound effect from old Western movies.

In the original Star Wars, this "ricochet" sound effect is made clearly noticeable in the gun battle between Luke, Leia, and the stormtroopers on the chasm in the Death Star. The sound effect is repeated again when Luke fires on the Death Star surface a couple of times during the final space battle.

In the new movies, the "ricochet" sound effect has unfortunately represented the X-wings actually firing, instead of impact sounds where they belong. Then again, they are weapons firing at the speed of light, so I suppose that after the first couple of hits, you would hear nothing but ricochets instead of laser fire.

The AG-2G quad lasers on the Falcon are supposed to have a sort of an energetic machine gun sound effect, or the sharp "PSH PSH---PSH PSH PSH PSH PSH PSH!" sound, but in the case of Eps VII and VIII, they sound more like "BAWP BAWP BAWP!" (I know, this is the best onomatopoeia I can make of the sound effects...LOL!)

Anyhoo....these are simply observations. They don't ruin the enjoyment of the movies. They kinda take me out of the experience a little bit, but they don't kill the movies for me.

Anyone else kinda notice this?

I did, and very quickly. I also noticed that they like to use the firing sound of the proton torpedoes from TPM by the N1 starfighters in TFA and RO when the X-wing fires them. As for the falcon I just sort of assumed that they replaced the guns at somepoint over the 30 years, though it does bother me with the ST gun sounds are used in games or anything else during the OT. I think the first Battlefront used the ST sound effects for Han's OT falcon, and I think they used it a couple other places too. I do have to wonder what sound the falcon's guns will make in the new film considering it will have different guns, or if they will give it any real thought.

I dunno know about the falcon, but the x wings in the new trilogy are newer models (T-70s?) and I would assume the fx would be different

(heh...I'm still learning how to use this forum...multiquotes and such)

40 minutes ago, Animewarsdude said:

I did, and very quickly. I also noticed that they like to use the firing sound of the proton torpedoes from TPM by the N1 starfighters in TFA and RO when the X-wing fires them. As for the falcon I just sort of assumed that they replaced the guns at somepoint over the 30 years, though it does bother me with the ST gun sounds are used in games or anything else during the OT. I think the first Battlefront used the ST sound effects for Han's OT falcon, and I think they used it a couple other places too. I do have to wonder what sound the falcon's guns will make in the new film considering it will have different guns, or if they will give it any real thought.

Hi, Animewarsdude. That had occurred to me that the Ep VII-VIII Falcon probably had replaced the AG-2G's with a different quad gun set, and it is a possibility.

33 minutes ago, toyoda said:

I dunno know about the falcon, but the x wings in the new trilogy are newer models (T-70s?) and I would assume the fx would be different

Hi, Toyoda. They used those misplaced sound FX with the T-65's in Rogue One as well. (And yeah, you're correct, the new X-wings in VII-VIII are T-70's )

Glad there were others who noticed the sound discrepancies.

But, like I said, didn't take away from the enjoyment....just kinda caught my ears.

I agree the Falcon quads sound wrong, but I figured the laser cannons were updated and upgraded on the newer T-70s Xwings

I didn't even notice, but my ears are utter garbage after years of working in loud places.

Aside from this, does anybody else feel that something just isn't quite right?

Like nowadays I'm actually preferring OT SFX and VFX compared to the more modern ones.

In general, sound waves propagate rather poorly in vaccuum.

15 hours ago, E-Man720 said:

Aside from this, does anybody else feel that something just isn't quite right?

Like nowadays I'm actually preferring OT SFX and VFX compared to the more modern ones.

I loved the OT sound effects. They were so organic to that universe. There wasn't really a lot of changes, you know. You could close your eyes and tell the difference between an E-11 stormtrooper blaster, and Han's DL-44, or the Rebels' blaster pistols (the latter two mostly sounded the same). You could tell the difference between a TIE Fighter laser and a turbolaser (except for the rare moment, like at the beginning of Ep IV where the ISD seemed to be blazing with both turbolaser and TIE fighter laser sounds). You also occasionally heard singular TIE Fighter blasts coming from E-11 trooper rifles. And the "energy ricochets" were in the right places....very reminiscent of the old West movie gunfights in the 60's/70's. Sound effects remained largely consistent with their origins, all the way through the OT.

By the prequel trilogy, some of the fighter laser sound effects sounded rather generic....electronic, almost disco sounding....especially in the final space battle of Ep I.

For the most part, the sound effects in Rogue One remained consistent, except for the few errors I noted earlier.

For the most part, I agree with you, E-man, about the sound effects.

As someone who dabbles in amateur CG effects, I take more of a shine to CG effects as they've progressed today. They've gotten a lot better since the days of Babylon 5. A lot more convincing. But, I still love the practical effects of old....and I was so glad to hear that for EP VII they went back to practical effects for the most part. They looked really good, and held up well against modern CG effects.

15 hours ago, Green Knight said:

In general, sound waves propagate rather poorly in vaccuum.

Nature abhors a vacuum. That's where Hollywood stepped in. Let's give 'em sound effects in space. There....nature's happy again.

4 hours ago, martok2112 said:

I loved the OT sound effects. They were so organic to that universe. There wasn't really a lot of changes, you know. You could close your eyes and tell the difference between an E-11 stormtrooper blaster, and Han's DL-44, or the Rebels' blaster pistols (the latter two mostly sounded the same). You could tell the difference between a TIE Fighter laser and a turbolaser (except for the rare moment, like at the beginning of Ep IV where the ISD seemed to be blazing with both turbolaser and TIE fighter laser sounds). You also occasionally heard singular TIE Fighter blasts coming from E-11 trooper rifles. And the "energy ricochets" were in the right places....very reminiscent of the old West movie gunfights in the 60's/70's. Sound effects remained largely consistent with their origins, all the way through the OT.

By the prequel trilogy, some of the fighter laser sound effects sounded rather generic....electronic, almost disco sounding....especially in the final space battle of Ep I.

For the most part, the sound effects in Rogue One remained consistent, except for the few errors I noted earlier.

For the most part, I agree with you, E-man, about the sound effects.

As someone who dabbles in amateur CG effects, I take more of a shine to CG effects as they've progressed today. They've gotten a lot better since the days of Babylon 5. A lot more convincing. But, I still love the practical effects of old....and I was so glad to hear that for EP VII they went back to practical effects for the most part. They looked really good, and held up well against modern CG effects.

Nature abhors a vacuum. That's where Hollywood stepped in. Let's give 'em sound effects in space. There....nature's happy again.

If you like practical effects, you might want to look at the prequels abit too, they feature more of them than in any of the OT films, this video might be interesting.

Very cool!

I checked this out at the YouTube page, and then scrolled down the comments. Lots of young folks who grew up with the prequels...glad to see they weren't stygmatized with nostalgia the way some of the older, more easily butt-hurt OT only fans were. And the cool thing was, even though a lot of the younger posters said they favored the prequels, they at least fell in love with the originals.

I agree... On reflection, it seems the prequels used a lot more practical effects than most were willing for which to give them credit.

I love all of the Star Wars films. Best prequel, Rogue One. Best Star Wars movie EVAHHH..... Rogue One.

Eps VII and VIII were far from unenjoyable. I did enjoy them. But, they also lacked a lot of the lustre of the originals.