The old Star Wars movies didn’t originate the so-called “Wilhelm Scream,” but they did help popularize (and ruin) the generic sound effect for modern movie fans who can no longer hear it without being immediately pulled out of whatever they happen to be watching. Apparently, as a tribute to the guy who made those old Star Wars movies and his love for classic cinematic in-jokes, the people who made some of the new Star Wars movies snuck in a generic scream sound effect from George Lucas himself.
Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker sound designers David Acord and Matt Wood apparently hid a “special scream” in the film and won’t say when it happens or whose voice it is, but ABC News’ sources say the scream is a voice clip recorded by Lucas for 1973's American Graffiti that is “affectionately called ‘The George.’” It also supposedly appeared in Rogue One and The Last Jedi, but again, nobody involved will confirm that.
There are some interesting details in the link up above about doing the sound in Star Wars movies, but what we’d like to figure out is where “The George” happens in The Rise Of Skywalker. The obvious answer is a big battle scene, possibly while a Stormtrooper is falling into a bottomless chasm, but we think there are some moments in the film that are better suited to a scream from the creator of Star Wars. Like, say, the moment it becomes clear that the old footage of Carrie Fisher is going to be a major part of the film that they keep going back to even though it was horrible in every way.
Or maybe it was when Luke revealed that he had been sitting on a lightsaber that Leia made at some point and nobody ever thought to mention it. Or maybe when Rey buried the lightsaber in the desert and then took out her own brand new lightsaber that nobody ever thought to mention, even though this was supposed to be “the end of the saga” and there should theoretically be no need for her to have a lightsaber anymore at all. Oh, maybe it was when Chewbacca died? Well, not when he died, but when they said he died only so they could immediately reverse it. Seriously, snotty comments about the movie aside, if we had to make an actual guess about when “The George” happened, we’d say it was probably just played on a constant loop at a low volume throughout the entire movie.