George Lucas, born May 14, 1944, faced a problem that no filmmaker had solved before. He wanted to make a movie set in space with laser swords, talking robots, and roaring spaceships. None of these things existed, so there were no real sounds to record. Lucas hired Ben Burtt, a young sound designer, to create every sound from scratch. The lightsaber hum came from combining the buzz of an old film projector with the interference from a television set. Chewbacca's voice was a mixture of walrus, bear, and badger sounds blended together. The blaster shots were created by hitting a metal guide wire on a radio tower with a wrench. Darth Vader's breathing was simply a scuba regulator recorded in a small room. These sounds became so iconic that people recognize them instantly, even without seeing the movie. Lucas understood something important about storytelling: sound affects how you feel more than what you see. A scene with no sound feels empty. The same scene with the right music and effects can make your heart race. Before Star Wars, most science fiction films used electronic beeps and buzzes for everything. Lucas insisted that his sounds feel organic -- like things you might actually hear in a real galaxy.