Star Wars: Andor

[pukunui]

Let’s not forget that Rey speaks with Daisy Ridley’s natural British accent despite having grown up an orphan on a desert world.

That alone seems to render accents in Star Wars pretty meaningless.

That and the fact that Andor didn’t lose Diego Luna’s accent despite growing up surrounded by people with different accents.

 

[jian]

Let’s not forget that Rey speaks with Daisy Ridley’s natural British accent despite having grown up an orphan on a desert world. That alone seems to render accents in Star Wars pretty meaningless. That and the fact that Andor didn’t lose Diego Luna’s accent despite growing up surrounded by people with different accents.

Yes, it’s very possible that accents mean nothing at all (or at least nothing reliable or predictable) in SW, which is completely fine.

 

[pukunui]

Yes, it’s very possible that accents mean nothing at all (or at least nothing reliable or predictable) in SW, which is completely fine.

Like, if you look at the OT only, it would seem to suggest that it's the classic American take where British accent = bad guy and American accent = good guy, with a few exceptions (e.g. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mon Mothma). Like, that even got lampooned in the Thumb Wars movie ("I have a question: Why do we all speak with British accents, when we're from outer space and there is no Britain?" Pop!).

The PT introduced a variety of non-European accents in various racist ways (e.g. the comically evil Neimoidians have a comically evil "Asian" accent) while mostly maintaining the British accent = bad (human) guy and American accent = good guy theme.

But the subsequent films and TV series have muddied the waters, and perhaps rightly so, because they have also admirably increased the diversity of peoples and accents on the screen. Obi-Wan is no longer the only protagonist with a British accent (see also Jyn, Rey, Vel, etc), and there are even some antagonists with American accents (Syril). And there are a lot more people with other accents who are both good and bad guys. Those non-Anglo-American accents aren't just for the comically evil aliens anymore!


(And let's not get started on the Mandalorians, who seem to have their own jumble of accents, even among those who aren't foundlings.)

 

[jian]

(And let's not get started on the Mandalorians, who seem to have their own jumble of accents, even among those who aren't foundlings.)

Are you suggesting that Mandalorians aren’t all space Kiwis? Let’s not mock Din’s speech impediment! Or Sabine’s, or Bo-Katan’s, or the Viszlas’…

Another obvious point is that most planets are pretty large and so there’ll be accent variation across the planet anyway. Lots of planets have a North.

 

[Ryujin]

Are you suggesting that Mandalorians aren’t all space Kiwis? Let’s not mock Din’s speech impediment! Or Sabine’s, or Bo-Katan’s, or the Viszlas’…

Another obvious point is that most planets are pretty large and so there’ll be accent variation across the planet anyway. Lots of planets have a North.

As Doctor Who famously noted...

 

[pukunui]

Are you suggesting that Mandalorians aren’t all space Kiwis? Let’s not mock Din’s speech impediment! Or Sabine’s, or Bo-Katan’s, or the Viszlas’…

No! Because of course a lot of them are adopted, like Jango Fett and Din Djarin were. But you've also got Duchess Satine Kryze speaking with an aristocratic British accent while her young sister Bo-Katan speaks with a harsh American one.

Another obvious point is that most planets are pretty large and so there’ll be accent variation across the planet anyway. Lots of planets have a North.

Yes, and I guess that's something that the Disney+ shows have been hinting at. Accents on Star Wars have long been like all its single-biome planets. It's good that Disney is mixing it up now.

It would be nice if they could give us a Neimoidian who doesn't have a cartoonishly bad Asian accent, or even a Gungan who doesn't have a bad Jamaican accent.

Having all the clones speak with a Kiwi accent* makes sense, and I appreciated that they got two Kiwi actresses to voice the female clones, Omega and Emerie, in The Bad Batch series.



*or at least what American Dee Bradley Baker thinks is a Kiwi accent - his clone voice has always sounded more Australian to me, but then so did actual Kiwi Michelle Ang's initial accent for Omega. Her voice for Omega became less Australian and more Kiwi as the series went on, though.

 

[jian]

No! Because of course a lot of them are adopted, like Jango Fett and Din Djarin were. But you've also got Duchess Satine Kryze speaking with an aristocratic British accent while her young sister Bo-Katan speaks with a harsh American one.

I’m going to assume that Satine has that accent since she imprinted romantically on Obi-Wan when they were teenagers, and that Bo-Katan has mocked her mercilessly about that ever since.

Sabine and the Wrens are another interesting Mandalorian case since they were mostly* clearly and consistently South Asian in Rebels (Tiya Sircar, Ritesh Rajan, Sharmila Devar; Devar as Ursa, Sabine’s mother, has a very clearly Indian accent) but Sabine got changed to half-Chinese (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) in Ahsoka.

*Sabine’s dad Alrich is voiced by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, on the other hand.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That and the fact that Andor didn’t lose Diego Luna’s accent despite growing up surrounded by people with different accents.

I did find him easier to understand in the second series, but I think that was probably acting - as Andor grew in confidence he stopped mumbling.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

For the non-UK folks "public school" in the UK = "private school" in North America.

Even posher, actually. Public schools are an an elite tier of private school, basically the Ivy League of private schools - i.e. old, very expensive, offer the opportunity to make connections if you go there (in theory), typically high academic achievement, etc. And we call what people the US call "public schools", "state school" (albeit thanks to various confused efforts of politicians over the last 80+ years there are various types of state school too, which are often specified). Only some of them are boarding schools (though the most internationally famous ones like Eton and Harrow are).

I went to all three types myself - state school up to age 10, a science-focused non-boarding ("day") public school to 16, and then a slightly hippy arts/drama-oriented private school.

I don’t think of my accent (public school English) as RP - I think of RP as how the Queen spoke, which was RP as it was first defined in the 1920s - but I concede it’s probably what people think of as RP now.

Yeah RP has shifted and broadened meaning-wise as it was taken up by the English middle/upper-middle class over the 20th century. They sometimes try and give it a new name, like "Standard Southern British English" for example, but RP is the only one that's stuck (SSBE is now basically just a synonym for RP). There are a lot of arguments among linguists here of course - the nuttiest one I've come across is attempt to rename all Southern English outside of London, the West Country and East Anglia to "Estuary", which is like, no, that's a specific thing and distinct.

 

[jian]

Even posher, actually. Public schools are an an elite tier of private school, basically the Ivy League of private schools - i.e. old, very expensive, offer the opportunity to make connections if you go there (in theory), typically high academic achievement, etc. And we call what people the US call "public schools", "state school" (albeit thanks to various confused efforts of politicians over the last 80+ years there are various types of state school too, which are often specified). Only some of them are boarding schools (though the most internationally famous ones like Eton and Harrow are).

It’s worth noting that many US private schools, despite being (or indeed because they are) much younger than many UK public schools, are at least as posh, exclusive, and wealthy as Eton at its height, as well as being a much better place to make future connections.

Recognising this, many UK public schools (in fact, I think Eton is almost the only one that hasn’t) have franchised internationally to at least catch up on the money front, opening branded schools all over Asia and the Middle East in order to offer the cachet of the name of Harrow or Charterhouse to those who can afford it but don’t want their kids to board in England. I think Harrow alone has something like 17 international franchise schools to rake in the cash. It’s an opportunity for UK trained teachers, if nothing else.