Burtt’s creations—the distinctive drone of the lightsaber, the bleepity-bloops of R2-D2, and the sinister inhalations and exhalations of Darth Vader—are as essential to the soundtrack of Star Wars as the music of John Williams. By Return of the Jedi,Burtt’s pioneering work had led to the creation of Skywalker Sound, a facility that today provides sound design, mixing, and audio postproduction for multiple movie projects a year, including some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters. Burtt himself was also behind the sounds of the Indiana Jones movies, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,the 2009 and 2013 Star Trek movies, and Pixar’s Wall-E.
