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What’s Missing From These Oscar Nominations?

Posted by Bret on 01/31/18 at 12:15 PM Category: Star Wars Misc
Here are the 4 nominations for The Last Jedi:

Sound Editing: “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” Ren Klyce, Matthew Wood
Sound Mixing: “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” Stuart Wilson, Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick
Original Score: “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” John Williams
Visual Effects: “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” Ben Morris, Mike Mulholland, Chris Corbould, Neal Scanlan

Take a closer look at the first two nominations. Someone is missing. Well, maybe I'm the last to know, but it seems that Ben Burtt has been kicked to the curb by Disney. After his involvement in every Star Wars film from A New Hope through The Force Awakens, Ben Burtt was not asked to be a part of Rogue One or The Last Jedi.

According to an article from December in Vanity Fair, Burtt was snubbed by Disney after his work on The Force Awakens in 2015. A Skywalker Sound representative stated:

On The Force Awakens we had veterans from previous Star Wars films work with the new generation of talent and in many cases the new talent then took the baton and ran with it on The Last Jedi. Ben will always be a treasure at Lucasfilm but we also want to give the new generation of talent an opportunity to shine as well.”


Burtt is listed on IMDB as "sound design" for The Force Awakens. This is not to be confused with having the title of an actual Sound Designer. The above statement essentially makes clear that Burtt was present on the set to share his wisdom with the next generation, and then get out of the way. Apparently, he's supposed to get out of the way of Matthew Wood (two nominations, listed above), known for his voice work on movies, video games and television. He's particularly known by fans as the voice of General Grievous in Revenge of the Sith and The Clone Wars. The article notes that Burtt did work on the Forces of Destiny microseries that aired in 2017, as well as on an untitled Star Wars video game that was shut down (presumably Visceral's title). Also, for what it's worth, Ben Burtt is listed on IMDB as Sound Designer for Episode IX.

This is an interesting look into Burtt's award-winning career and his methodology for gathering sound bits that he uses in his his work. But he feels that time is passing him by, and that there is no "patience" today from filmmakers and studios for the type of plodding, sound-gathering field work on which Burtt built his legacy.

I don’t see that happening at all today. Not just with Star Wars, but in general. They know there are big libraries”—created in part by Burtt—“that people can just click and drag things out of and make a lot of noise.”


Vaniity Fair points out that Disney was not interested in contributing or commenting to the article, and the author asked Burtt about his relationship with the entertainment giant.

I don’t know if there’s bad blood. “Nobody . . . I was just never consulted or hired to do any of them. No one’s ever told me why. No, I was told—on the new regime, I was just told, ‘Just stay in your room and make sounds and just send stuff to us. We’ll decide what to do.’”


Today, Burtt is working to convince Skywalker Sound to build a museum using his large memorabilia collection of Hollywood artifacts.

“You know that line in Indiana Jones, ‘It belongs in a museum’?” he says. “That’s me. I’m a museum piece.”


Read the full article here.





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