Customer Reviews

The Sounds of Star Wars

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Length:: 3:57 Mins

An amazing book. A must read (listen!) for any Star Wars fan. A great gift book-

XOXO

Being a fan of sound effects myself, though nowhere near to that of Ben Burtt, this book is great. I've always wondered what was done to make a specific creature voice or laser blast or spaceship engine sound, etc. in the various Star Wars films. This fascinating book covers them all, with the actual sounds to hear along with the information. My only complain would be that the sound unit on the side is a bit big. I can tell that 50% of the interior is probably air. Being that memory chips and electronics can be quite small these days, there was no need to make the unit so large, or as heavy. As for the book itself, it is a massive treasure trove of background information on all of the Star Wars movies to date. Any sound effect used in them is covered in detail with various pictures either from the films or behind-the-scenes shots pertaining to the sound. If you are a Star Wars or even just interested in sound effects in general, this is a must-have book.

This book is amazing and to think of it no one' has actually done a book on the making of sound design in film. Matt Wood , David Acord and Ben Burrt are good Sound Designers and this book is great as well. This book has amazing stories on sound design work in all 6 star wars films as well as the clone wars tv series. J.W. Rinzler has again written another winner here.

This is a great book for Star Wars fans, film students, sound engineers. To read how the various sounds were created and to listen to the result have wrought pure joy. However, the one thing that keeps me from giving this book five stars is that you can only access the sound by pressing the forward or backward buttons. It would have been great if one could enter the files number to hear the sounds. I am starting to worry that I will break the sound module from overuse.

I saw a preview of this book at Celebration 5 in Florida. Ben Burtt was there, telling stories on how the sounds came to be. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in sound effects and how they can influence a movie. I have had more fun reading the book and playing the sounds. You do not have to be a Star Wars fan to enjoy this book.

Rinzler's book on the sound of the STAR WARS films is really wonderful; incisive and fun (the digital component with the sound box is not gimmicky -- it makes you read further). The STAR WARS movies are so rich in detail that I find it is pretty great some attention can be paid to the soundtrack and the book explains how those tracks were created without being too technical (and it is a hi-tech field). But how about a Rinzler book on John Williams' scores?

I eagerly look forward to the EMPIRE book and hope there's a making of JEDI in the future (even if it's production is less dramatic than those of the original STAR WARS and EMPIRE).

The text of this book is fantastic if you're interested in sound design. The little playback unit is a neat idea, but mine broke less than a week after receiving my copy. I got it for Christmas, opened it, played a few sounds, took it home from my parent's house and by the time I got home it was no longer working properly.

Interesting concept with decent explanations of the various sound effects from the Star Wars movies, and a soundboard to play them as you read about them. Turns out there's barely 300 sounds, though, so it's not as thorough as it could have been. But what's there is very good and would have made this worthwhile. The book itself would have been a 3 or 4 star product. But...

The problem is that the sound player's display on my copy stopped working after about a week. Changing batteries didn't help. The sounds still played, but that doesn't do you much good if you can't read the display to find the sound effect you're looking for. I'd write this off as a fluke and just ask for an exchange, but reading several reviews here and elsewhere, it seems that I'm not the only one who has had this exact problem. I'm going to ask for a refund rather than risk getting another defective copy.

BUYER BEWARE. This is a faulty product that will be virtually useless if you experience the persistent problem that a number of us have encountered.

Great book. The hidden story behing all those amazing sounds. Great to play with the sounds. My kids loved it too.

This would have received a much lower rating if Amazon was not on the ball in terms of returns. First one arrived and the LCD program would not properly display the track number. This would be a great product if you could skip to particular tracks rather than scroll using the up/down arrows.