Ewan McGregor On Why "Every Single Line" Of Star Wars: Episode Two Was Re-Recorded
While it's sometimes enjoyed ironically as much as it is naturally, the dialogue of the Star Wars prequels is a major part of why they are so memorable. Though often maligned at the time, the prequels have thrown up more classic quotes than the more revered original trilogy, even if the films themselves are less popular than the series that spawned the universe. However, the dialogue almost didn't survive at all. In a recent press junket for the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi show, McGregor tells us that the entire script of Episode Two needed to be re-recorded after the new technology caused major problems.
"Episode Two was my first experience of shooting on digital cameras, and those cameras were like dinosaurs," he says. "They were cutting edge technology [then], but compared to what we shoot on now, they had huge umbilical cords coming out of the back of the cameras, it would take like half an hour [to change lenses] so everything was just shot on a zoom lens. They made two digital cameras on two technocranes, and they just moved the cranes and zoomed in and out. And the umbilicals led to this big tent in the corner of the stage that literally hummed. It was so noisy. And when they went into post production, they realised that the noise they made was exactly in the frequency of the human voice. So we had to ADR every single line of Episode Two. None of the original dialogue made it through."
Related: The Joys of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic’s Gibberish Alien Language
ADR stands for Automated Dialogue Replacement, and sees the actors re-recording their lines in a sound booth after shooting, using the quieter environment to make mixing and editing an easier process. Movies typically have around 30 percent ADR to 70
Read more on thegamer.com
