If you’ve ever wanted to hear Darth Vader’s heavy breathing over the phone, this is your day.
Right before the opening of the Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back they had the idea of using a free recorded phone message to promote the movie. Recently, Craig Miller, Lucasfilm’s first director of fan relations, found some old cassette tapes of the recordings and posted them to StarWars.com.
Here’s what they would have heard accompanied by, possibly inappropriate, heavy breathing:
“They managed to rescue the princess and destroy the Death Star. But, this time, the rebels won’t be so lucky. The power of the Death Star was insignificant compared to the power of the Force. And, with Obi-Wan Kenobi gone, I am the master. See it, as the Empire strikes back.”
Head over to StarWars.com to listen to it along with four other sound clips from C-PO (Anthony Daniels), Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). The sound quality is pretty good, although some of the readings are kind of stilted. Still, in 1979, there was no Youtube or Internet, so this was as close to a trailer most people were going to get.
Would you have called the number to hear Vader and friends?
[Image Source: otherlandtoys.co.uk]
