3PO Storytelling to Ewoks

During the storytelling session with the Ewoks, does 3PO mimic or did he record all the sound effects he uses to tell his story of our heroes.

The Vader breathing, the engines of spacecraft, etc.

So is it "mimiced" or does he keep recordings of every single thing he hears?

Also, anyone remember the laundry list of effects he utilizes in the story?

 

Hmm...


TIEs, X-Wings, AT-ATs, the carbon-freezing chamber, Vader's breathing. I can't really think of any others.

Although how 3PO knows what an AT-AT sounds like, IDK.

 

That sort of thing could be hardwired into his programming, or perhaps he was just mimicking it. I don't know if there's a definitive answer.

 

Eh, to me the HOW isn't as important as the irony of Threepio saying he's no storyteller in ANH- then turning around and telling their story so well, he keeps an entire VILLAGE enthralled in ROTJ.

The ONE time Threepio's MODEST- and he's so hilariously WRONG.

 

C-3PO seems to have gained the storytelling skill in the course of two movies.

 

How the hell do you translate terms like "carbon freezing chamber" to the language of stone age teddy bears?

 

Simple. Ice box.

 

I think it translated as "Lando scrubbed Darth Vader's back in the hot tub".

(Picture big hamster faces "Ooooooohhh, Aaaaaaahhh")

C-3PO was one hell of a story teller.

 

Look, maybe we will never get the Ewok translation - maybe 3PO embellished the story, dumbed it down, etc ...

But the question remains unanswered - did he record every single freakin' thing he heard?

Or did he mimic sound effects the best he could?

 

That is one of the great and under recognized themes of the OT. All the characters from ANH become what they weren't by the time of RoTJ

Threepio becomes a story teller
Luke goes from farmboy to Jedi Knight
Han goes from lone wolf smuggler to team player
Leia goes from orphaned diplomat to love bird with a brother
Darth Vader goes from villain to hero
Old Ben goes from failure to redemption

 

I don't think there's any distinction between the two - he's a giant computer and should be able to play back at any time what he has stored in memory.

 

Wasn't R2 the Foley Artist for most of the sound effects? Other then Darth Vader and 3P0 saying 'toronto gosh!', for the AT-AT's, R2 did the sound for that story. Maybe I'm wrong. If thats the case, sorry.

 

Actually there is a big distinction.

C-3PO has either "DAT tape" capabilities that allows him to memorize and replay accurately everything he hears.
or
C-3PO is similar to a Human Beat Box (like the Fat Boys, Doug E. Fresh) that can emulate sounds.

 

Of all the sounds C3PO produces during 'storytime', did he encounter their sources during
his adventures? In other words, does he produce a sound for an object he never met or heard?
If so, he'd been originally programmed to produce these effects; why.. who knows? Maybe he
has a smokin' chess program tucked in there as well.

C3PO: You betta chchchcheck yourself before ya wrrrreck yourself

R2D2: Word

 

All the effects seem like they are recordings.

But that does not rule out the possibility that 3PO is doing a Beat Box mimic.

The AT-AT sound (that he never really heard) lends support that he in fact emulates sounds - and does a great job.

I really am hoping some protocol droid experts can solve this question.

 

Turn on your Tv's closed caption or the subtitles.They do a pretty good job of how he worded it,but sometimes the captions are incorrect and incomplete.
But Its pretty cool to read what hes saying when he says it.

 

3PO mimes and tells the story.

R2 provided the sound effects.

 

Given that he's fluent in over six million forms of communication (forms, which implies everything from dog barks to Wookiee grunts to potential music/sound based ways of getting a point across) and most likely can actually speak in many of them, he's probably got some very complex sound creation hardware/software. So I suppose it wouldn't be far fetched that he could mimic just about any sound he can come up with. In theory, it would be a more efficient use of his system resources to emulate rather than keep a library of sounds.

If they are recordings, then he's still fabricating some of them. As has been said, he didn't have an opportunity to hear an AT-AT up close (or without the walls of Echo Base to muffle them) and the only time he really had any opportunity to catch Vader's breathing was in the otherwise VERY noisy carbon freezing chamber, so both of those sounds, if recorded, had to come from other sources (which is very possible, even though they improbably wound up sounding dead on). One can argue that they sounded like played back recordings because that's what they are and it would've been more complex and time consuming to try to make emulated sounds for the movie.

This is a case where we're probably analyzing something exponentially more than the makers intended. As a kid, I always thought they were simply records... and as a kid I always assumed it was Artoo providing the 'Foley Artist' (as someone said) work in support of Threepio's story.

 

Thank you for that response - I can see that you thought about this issue and your post makes sense.

In fact, your argument has been the most convincing either way -- it would certainly seem "cheaper" or more effiencient to have a protocol droid have a sound effect hardware instead of vast memory for recordings.

Great answer!

 

During the scene R2 is in some kind of 'play' mode with his main light in a mellow blink. Being that he is equipped with the holographic projector and recorder, it is R2 making the 'real world' sounds to accompany 3PO's story.

Since when did 3PO ever display the ability to make 'sound fx'? He speaks, he doesn't go 'vroom vroom!'

 

Odds are, IMO, that he has them stored somewhere. His fluency in six million forms of a communication is, after all, programmed into him. He doesn't hear a new language and just pick it up immediately.

 

bac to the FUTURE

 

That was the name of my welcome thread when I became a mod.

 

I figured he just heard that stuff at some point, and "sampled" it. You know, like a synthesizer or something. Makes sense to me.

True, we don't see him present for some of those sounds in the saga, but he may have heard them in between episodes or something. i.e. 3PO could've got the sounds for TIE fighters and AT-AT's from the Empire's invasion of their base on Yavin, shortly after ANH...

 

Belo your post is not clear.

Your term "sample" indicates that they are actually recordings.

And your "synthesizer" analogy actually seems like you think 3PO is making the sounds - not recordings.

More like an "interpolation" of the sounds - using prior knowledge, yet actually making his own version of the sounds - utilizing his own audio technology.

So, no recorded sound? Is that right Belo?