Chewbacca tribute: Euronews pays respects to Star Wars actor Peter Mayhew

Chewbacca tribute: Euronews pays respects to Star Wars actor Peter Mayhew
By Jez Fielder

Chewbacca's unique cry transcends language, but we here at Euronews HQ wanted to try and emulate the sound with our multiple language teams to pay tribute Peter Mayhew, who died this week.

A long time ago in a Galaxy far, far away, there was an enormous Wookie that went by the name of Chewbacca, or Chewy to his friends, not that he liked many people, certainly not anyone who beat him at chess.

This Wookie was inhabited by London-born actor Peter Mayhew, who died this week aged 74.

Mayhew played the role in the original "Star Wars" trilogy in 1977, 1980 and 1983 and reprised the character in "Revenge of the Sith," in 2005, and "The Force Awakens," in 2015. He was a consultant for the most recent instalment, "The Last Jedi," guiding his successor, Joonas Suotamo, a Finnish basketball player.

Chewy's trademark cry has charmed and perhaps alarmed generations, and although the voices in the iconic franchise were dubbed when the film was released in different languages, the Wookie sound remained for everyone.

Since Euronews has a unique wealth of language teams within one building, we wondered what the sound may have been like if it had indeed been dubbed!

This is our tribute to a movie icon.

Video editor • Nicolas Coquet

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