Who saw the new "Star Wars?"
Apparently a lot of you around the world since "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" has brought in $800 million dollars at the box office, and counting. I saw the movie recently too, and it was awesome, albeit a little long. I loved the tension between Kylo Ren and Rey, since they technically are the last jedis (plural). I also loved seeing Carrie Fisher throughout the entire film which I wasn't expecting due to her untimely passing last year.
But you know what I loved most? Those cute little porgs on the island where Luke Skywalker was hiding. And I wasn't alone. Many people walked out of that film talking about how cute the little critters were with the big eyes. While I was watching these little guys run around and bug Chewbacca, I noticed there was something oddly familiar about them...
As they squawked and flapped and made Chewie feel bad for roasting one of their own over the fire, it came to me: these are chickens. As I looked deeper into how the porgs came to be, I found out how their sounds were recorded thanks to Cinema Blend.
According to sound designer Ren Klyce, the idea came to them because there is a chicken coop on the Skywalker Sound property. Actually, there is a lot of beautiful wildlife around the studio to help designers find the most organic sounds to mix into George Lucas films.
So the porgs got some real-life bird sounds!
Here's how Klyce described it:
At Skywalker Sound there's a chicken coop with these little chickens, and Coya Elliott, our first assistant, went down and recorded those chickens. And then we took that sound and slowed it down and stretched it out and found little chirps. We found this man who releases doves at weddings, and we asked him to come down so we could record them...So we have a little snippet of that [turkey call], a little bit of chicken, a little dove, and cut it all together.
The combination of all those different bird sounds became the cute little voices of the porgs, while still sounding a bit other-worldly. Speaking of being from another world, there is even a theory floating out there that porgs may become an invasive species since Chewbacca brought a few sea bird stowaways aboard the Millennium Falcon...
In fact, there were a lot of new whimsical creatures in "The Last Jedi." There were the ice foxes, or vulptexes.
And there were the fuzzy horse-like creatures that were abused at Canto Bight, the gambling town. These guys were named fathiers.
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Mainly, I enjoyed the new "Star Wars" because of the creative new animals brought to life on screen. And the fact that Rey is a badass.
If you haven't seen "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" I suggest going if only to see the animals and Princess Leia one last time.
Have you seen the movie? What did you think? Tell us in the comments below.
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