George Lucas pronouncing names...wrong??

Aye.

 

It's kind of like in A New Hope: is Leia pronounced Lee-ah or Lay-ah, cause it's pronounced both ways throughout the course of the film!

 

"Even Anakin calls it a "lasersword" in EP1."

If I recall correctly, Anakin was a nine year old boy in Episode I, a nine year old boy who had been a slave all of his life and had presumably, only heard stories of the Jedi in passing. In my opinion, it is more believable for Anakin to only know an epithet for lightsaber, than the actual weapon's term.


Ah, in any case, I honestly do not think that George puts much time into coming up with his pronunciations. Nor do I think that he cares too much about how his words are pronounced. To George, and understandably so, it is more about the story than the place and people names. For instance, George misquotes his own dialogue all of the time. Its no big deal. It is not that he doesn't care about his universe, his universe was put in place to tell us a story, and that is how its done.

A prime example of pronunciations is in The Beginning documentary on Episode I. Pernella August asks George if they have decided yet on how to pronounce her characters name. At that point in time, he had not.




Mace Windy,
making the evasion of spoilers look breezy!

 

Ok maybe it's just me, but has anyone else noticed that Lucas pronounces a lot of things the same way as Yoda? ( And YES, I do realise that even Yoda's voice is done by a human actor) But I just think that's kinda interesting and somewhat on topic.

 

I love the "Star Wars" saga as much as anyone else, but I think this topic reflects on how poor of a director George Lucas is.

If he indeed pronounces planets and names and whatnot different from how they are said by the characters in the films, then he is not providing adequate direction to his actors.

He should say "Cut! No, Sam [Jackson], it is pronounced 'NAY-BOO,' not 'Na-boo.'"

I just think he is too much in love with his special effects that he fails to notices stuff like that and other little things, along with acting.

Concerning Episodes I and II, only Lucas could get such bad acting out of so many great actors. It seems like everything is done in one take or something.

 

As the writer, they are his words and he can pronounce them however he wants. But as the director it's part of his job to make sure the actors pronounce the words the way he wants them to be pronounced. That said it's not a big deal and as long as the characters are generally consistent on how they pronounce the words then there's no problem. The only example I can think of where the characters have different pronunciations for the same word is Leia, and that's understandable because there are most likely other people in the Star Wars galaxy with that same name. It might be pronounced both ways depending on the personal preference of the Leia in question.

 

It turns out that in most instances, the words are pronounced the same most of the time in the movie.

All the complaints about Lucas pronouncing anything differently from the movie, is just a curious little factoid, but says nothing about his abilities as a director or the quality of the movies, since in the movies most things are pronounced the same.

Now if we got 5 different ways to say Naboo and we the audience couldn't tell what tha heck the character in the movie is referring to, then yes it's a problem. As it is, this is not a problem. I see already that this has become another way to justify the "Lucas sucks" mentality. Better try another angle guys, this one a bit too desperate.

 

The most important Lucas pronouncement:

Let there be Star Wars.

And there was.

Good enough for me.

 

Oh, and if you watch The Beginning Documentary again, you'll see that George does care about his actors pronouncements. Just ask Jake "Corus-****" Lloyd.




Mace Windy,
making the evasion of spoilers look breezy!

 

Or, if you watch it again, you see that he DOESNT!

"Pernella August asks George if they have decided yet on how to pronounce her characters name. At that point in time, he had not."

 

I heard it did it on purpose so he could go online & watch discussions like this.



Really though, I've heard him do it to. I think he's just messin with everyone.

 

"Or, if you watch it again, you see that he DOESNT!

'Pernella August asks George if they have decided yet on how to pronounce her characters name. At that point in time, he had not.' "

Listen carefully to TPM. They never once mention Shmi's name in the film. What does it matter how it is pronounced in rehersals?

Obviously, they decided on a pronunciation by AOTC, when they needed it.





Mace Windy,
making the evasion of spoilers look breezy!

 

oooh.
Good point. I love posts like that. So true.