PT The battle droids' changing voices.

Ever noticed how the battle droid voices changed from TPM to ROTS along with their personality? In TPM they didn't really have a personality, were emontionless, had lower pitched voices, and their voices were individualized (each droid seemed to have a unique voice). By ROTS the battle droids had a silly personality, standardized voices that are high pitched like cartoons, and expess some emontions such as fear and contempt. It is a noticable change in them.

 

I'm guessing this is one of the quirks of mass producing an army on a Galactic scale. This is just speculation on my part, but perhaps the Droid Army at the time of TPM could afford to be given more individualized personality chips since the TF had the luxury of not being a part of a huge war. Their army in Episode I served the purpose of enforcing their Makers interests. When it came time for The Clone Wars, however, they needed to be quickly and adequately made to invade any planet the Council saw fit to invade. Also, the Jedi seemed to be shutting down their factories one by one. Perhaps their individualization was a side effect of being reproduced by several different independent entities.

 

That differently sounds possible.

Here are some examples of the battle droids.



Here you can hear the officer droid and the corporal droid have individual voices. Also when they are cut by the Jedi they don't say ow or ugg.







The quality of this clip isn't tooo good, but you can still tell there is a difficerence in the portrayal of the battle droids from TPM and AOTC. Here their voices are uniform and seem to be able to feel pain as they say ow when cut. I do prefer the TPM and AOTC portrayals over the ROTS portrayal.

 

In TCW, Trade Federation droids are not usually controlled by a central computer anymore.

 

Did they have an episode to explain it? There is a deleted scene from AOTC where Ki-Ai-Mundi captures the bridge of the control core ship, and deactivates the droids. However, the droids reactivated themselves and Ki-Ai exclaims they are now independent of the controls which is a bit vague.

 

Liberty on Ryloth:

a droid commenting on a destroyed droid:


Droid: "Look, it's RB-551. No wonder he got blasted, he was one of those older models, controlled by a central computer. Not us, we're independent thinkers!
All the other B1's in the patrol: Roger roger.

 

Rewatching the fight between GG, Obi, and Ani I noticed one droid yelled "ouch" when its hand was hit by an electro staff and a super battle droid saying "My eyes!" when hit by R2s oil but I only remember them saying "roger roger" in AOTC? correct me if I'm wrong.

 

I don't recall them responding to pain in AOTC like in ROTS. I remember in a article I read somewhere about the making of ROTS, the design of the CIS, ships were given porcupine backs full of antennas for Droid control signals.

 

I believe that they only say roger roger in TPM, when the droids are sent to deal with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan on the battleship.

The only battle droid that talks in AOTC is the one who's head gets swapped onto C-3PO's body.

 

The battle droids should have been voiceless during the entire PT...they would have been more menacing if they didn't, if you ask me.

 

I think that was kind of the point though. By the time of ROTS we are supposed to be questioning whether the Separatists are the real threat. I've always thought the lighter tone for the Ep3 droids was a reflection of this.

 

they got a software update

 

Right. In-universe they're no longer controlled by a centralized CPU, so there's room for individual personalities to develop.

In RL, they sound silly or cartoonish because Lucas wanted to show that they're not the real threat.

 

I prefer how their voices sounded on TPM. They weren't competent, with some exceptions, unless they were in an overwhelming force. But they were ominous to a certain extent. It's like ROTS turned them into cartoon characters for some reason. I don't mind it in TCW, especially in that Season Two episode in which Anakin and Ahsoka are pursuing Cad Bane. It was funny to hear battle droids say things like, "It won't matter," "Sir, there's a Jedi. He looks very unhappy." Lol. But in ROTS, it was just plain silly, and there were problems with tone at the beginning of that film.

 

I rewatched Ambush (TCW Season 1 Episode 1) and the Super Battle Droids have much deeper voices than I remembered (deeper than in ROTS too, as far as I recall).

 

I'm curious as to who the voice actor was for the battle droids in TPM and AOTC.

 

I did a Google search but only found peter serafinowicz as a battle droid commander in TPM

 

Perhaps one guy did do them all but ILM altered the pitich and other stuff to make each battle droid sound like they have an individual voice?

 

Could be? the main guy apparently in TPM and AotC isn't credited. Growing up I thought it was the same person in all 3 but with a different tone the world may never know.

 

I wonder. They probably did something with his voice. I mostly remember the commander--OOM-9, I believe--saying, "Open fire!" They may have created the voices with a computer, though. As I recall, that's what they did with Jabba's voice in TPM...or so I assume, since he was credited as "himself."

 

TPM, AOTC, and Clone Wars (2003) handled the droids much better in a serious manner. It wasn't until ROTS that all that "silly" nonsense became standard. I forgive them being silly in the ROTS intro above Coruscant though, as it serves as a lighthearted last hoorah clone wars adventure for Anakin and Obi-wan to balance out the rest of the movie as the vibe shifts to the more depressing dark times/OT-esque theme. It wasn't until Filoni and TCW (2008) that the droids got cringe-worthily stupid.

 

From memory, there's some stuff about voicing the battle droids towards the end of this clip from 'Science of the Movies':