How John Wayne’s The Searchers Inspired Star Wars – Old western – My Blog

Wayne’s final movie was 1976’s The Shootist, where he played a dying gunfighter, and the actor would pass away three years later. While The Shootist was his final onscreen performance, he actually made a small, uncredited contribution to Star Wars. Sound designer Ben Burtt once revealed (via Star Wars Blog) that alien spy Garindan was created using a synthesizer “… triggered by a human voice.” He later realized the voice track he used came from an old Wayne Western, and while it’s near impossible to tell it’s his voice when Garindan speaks, his voice is mixed in there.The influence of Westerns on Star Wars can be further seen with Boba Fett, with the bounty hunter’s mannerisms based on Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name. John Wayne continued to inspire Star Wars beyond The Searchers, through family ties. His grandson Brendan acts as the body double for Pedro Pascal’s Din in The Mandalorian; in fact, he played the physical side of the role entirely for the first season’s fourth episode “Sanctuary,” as Pascal was working on another project. Fitting enough, that outing also paid homage to The Magnificent Seven, itself a remake of Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai.