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I was just thinking about who performed the voice overdubs in the first SW. A lot of the incidental British cast were redubbed by Americans, as well as the Stormtroopers. Not many people talk about this, but a few famous voice actors can be heard.
Some of the Stormtrooper voices were done by Terry McGovern, who was also in THX 1138, and voiced Launchpad on DuckTales and Darkwing Duck. He was the Stormtrooper who gets mind-tricked by Ben. "These aren't the droids we're looking for."
McGovern also says "The Death Star plans are not in the main computer", "All right, check this side of the street. The door's locked, move onto the next one." (That's what he says he said; the "It's secure" version in the mono mix is not the same person) and "Stop that ship! Blast him!"
According to McGovern, other Stormtrooper voices were Scott Beach, Morgan Upton and Jerry Walters, but they may not have done *all* the trooper voices; Colin Michael Kitchens says that he performed the line "Look sir, droids!"
John and Tom Sylla did Cantina background chatter; Tom Sylla is the voice saying "All pilots to your stations" in the Rebel base.
Here's where it gets interesting. All of the people I just listed were working out of the San Francisco/Marin County area where Lucasfilm and American Zoetrope were based. However, I spotted several voices of people who worked in Los Angeles; some of them are famous or well-known in voice circles.
The Death Star officer who tells Vader "There's no one on board, sir. According to the log, the crew abandoned ship right after takeoff" is dubbed by none other than Harry Shearer, of "The Simpsons" fame. Only a couple places online mention this, but I spotted this one myself first. The voice he uses sounds kind of like Kent Brockman (the news anchor on The Simpsons).
Shearer may also be the voice of "There goes another one" and the Rebel pilot (Gold Two?) who says "Computer's locked. Getting a signal" and "The guns...they've stopped." The site that said this doesn't seem to exist anymore, but the voices for both those characters do sound like Shearer to me.
According to the old Starwars.com Homing Beacon newsletter, Michael Bell dubbed the voice of Commander Willard - the guy who says "You're safe. When we heard about Alderaan, we feared the worst." Michael Bell is a well-known cartoon voiceover, he did Duke on the original G.I. Joe, Prowl on Transformers, Zan of the Wonder Twins on the Superfriends cartoons, Lance and Sven on Voltron, and too many other voices to name here. Listening to Willard's voice, it definitely is him, though he's doing a very subdued performance.
Now here's one I'm not sure of, and I can't find any info anywhere to back me up. The Cantina owner sounds like he was dubbed by Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime on Transformers. Listen to "We don't serve their kind here" and "We don't want them here." The way the guy doing the voice drags out the "eer" sound in "here," it always makes me think of Cullen's gruff Optimus Prime voice. Anybody else think it might be him?
You'll notice I didn't mention Aunt Beru. That's because I believe it's actually Shelagh Fraser dubbing herself using an American accent, in both the stereo and mono mixes. Last year, Moth3r started a thread called "Beru's voice" where this was discussed.
Anybody got any other info on the voice dubbing in SW?
