Star Wars: The Force Awakens prominently features many returning actors from past Star Wars movies – it’s pretty hard to miss Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Anthony Daniels and the rest, but there were also some cameos that were easier to miss. Specifically, both Yoda (Frank Oz) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) made voice cameos in movie.
Spoilers ahead for those who haven’t yet watched The Force Awakens.
The voice cameos come when Rey picks up Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber for the first time and is flooded with visions from the future and past. It’s a trippy scene, with a lot of imagery and voices flying at you at once, but if you listen closely you do hear the voices of Ewan McGregor and Frank Oz reprising their famous roles. J.J. Abrams discussed the scene briefly with Entertainment Weekly…
“You do hear a little bit of Yoda and you hear Obi-Wan at the end say, ‘Rey…these are your first steps.’ We asked Ewan McGregor to come in and do the line. And he was awesome and we were very grateful. He was incredibly sweet and handsome, and all that stuff. Then he rode off on his motorcycle. Literally the coolest voice over actor ever.”
McGregor’s voice being in the film is interesting, since it’s pretty much the movie’s only reference to the prequel trilogy. Ah, but McGregor wasn’t the only voice of Obi-Wan present in the scene. Using some editing magic, Abrams also got original Obi-Wan, Alec Guinness, to talk to Rey.
“We took a line from Alec Guinness saying ‘Afraid.’ You hear the performance – he’s saying it the way I would have begged Alec Guinness to have said it. So when you hear Obi-Wan talk to Rey it is both Alec Guinness and Ewan McGregor doing the voice.”
I was kind of surprised by the lack of Yoda and Obi-Wan in The Force Awakens, so it’s nice to know they were present in the movie, albeit in an under-the-radar sort of way. It’s also good to know Ewan McGregor shows up to voice recording sessions on a motorcycle like a badass.
(Via Entertainment Weekly)
