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The Blockade Runner Blaster Fight

How Pew Pew Pew became a playground standard

Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope

Writer: George Lucas

Director: George Lucas

If you’re talking about great Star Wars moments, you’d be hard pressed not to start where it all began: the opening moments of A New Hope. On May 25, 1977, unsuspecting movie fans settled into their seats (non-stadium, reserved seating without the ability to lounge back in the chairs. How did movie fans of the ancient times ever actually enjoy the movies they waited in line hours to see?) and were collectively blown away by the image of the Imperial Star Destroyer Avenger flying over their heads in hot pursuit of the soon-to-be-loved Princess Leia’s Blockade Runner the Tantive IV. It was a sequence that literally changed cinema, fandom, and lives. Yes, actual lives were changed that day. What a moment. A true Hall of Fame Star Wars moment.

But let’s talk about the moments right after that and the reason it provides to love Star Wars and one of the greatest gifts it gave fans: the sounds of blasters. Let’s dive into the Pew Pew Pew of it all.

Sound designer Ben Burtt has as much to do with the success of the Star Wars franchise, particularly A New Hope, as any one because he was able to create sound effect after sound effect after sound effect that stuck with you long after you left the theater. His sound design became the voice of Chewbacca, the breathing of Darth Vader, and the roar of the Millennium Falcon. Yes, the story, the characters, and the sequences that fans saw were important, but you cannot overlook the tremendous impact of the sounds you took home with you.

It was unintentionally brilliant marketing. In backyards and playgrounds everywhere, Star Wars was being played out by all these new fans. Whether it was with the Kenner figures (the ultimate marketing strategy) or something as simple as a stick for a lightsaber and your hands for a blaster, the sounds of Star Wars became one of the reasons you loved it.

Pew.

Pew.

Pew.

Now it’s a meme. A beloved wink and a nod to the sounds you made as a young fan. A shared sound effect amongst fans. Pay close attention and you can even see Laura Dern as Admiral Holdo mouth “pew” as she fires a stun blast at Poe Dameron’s mutinous cohorts in The Last Jedi. And it all began in that hallway.

Many were still processing the sensory overload of a Star Destroyer rumbling over their heads when the next sequence began. Worried Rebels, members of the Alderaanian security team, ran past some talking robots; one was gold and seemed really uptight, and took somewhat defensive positions against an unknown threat. A door starts to burn, their faces get tense, and blasters are raised.

Stormtroopers enter. The faceless “bad guys.” And the fight is on. Sometime later fans would come to know (and study, memorize, and brag about knowing) that the blasters were E-11s, standard-issue Imperial weapons, and the overwhelmed Rebels were wielding DH-17s. Cool details that flesh out the world, but all that matters in that moment were the sounds the blasters made. It was familiar, but it was clearly from out of this world. It felt like science fiction, yet it wasn’t hokey or over the top. It was metallic, yet part of it floated through the ether. It was immediately that sound you knew these space guns would make.

Ben Burtt is a genius.

By now, how Burtt made these sounds is the stuff of Star Wars behind-the-scenes lore. While on a family vacation, Burtt, who always traveled with his trusty Nagra recorder, climbed up a hill in the Pocono Mountains to reach an old radio tower. Striking a rock against the cables supporting the tower, he created the sound that would fuel the fire of many a playground Star Wars reenactment. According to his late father, Ben knew right away that it was how an “imaginary laser gun ought to sound.”

Indeed, it was.

So, come for the dramatic tension, visual storytelling, and life-altering impact of the opening minutes of A New Hope, but stay for the sound effect that became the universal signpost for a battle amongst the stars.

Pew Pew Pew.