Star Wars Trash Compactor

One of the dubious perks at the Richmond bird cleaning center  (I believe it was Egg (Stephanie Mueller) who coined the sobriquet, “Richmond Ornithological Resuscitation and Sustenance Sanctuary” and its acronym, “RORASS.”) was riding the ancient multi-ton monstrous freight elevator from the ground floor up to a storage area to fetch pine shavings and other supplies. It moaned and it clanked and it whirred with disturbing volume. Coincidentally, the original Star Wars movie (Episode IV, “A New Hope”) was in production during that time. I have no idea how that elevator came to be known to the production crew, but one day several of them came with audio recording equipment and recorded that elevator’s noises.

You, too, can listen to that freight elevator; in the movie, it is the sound of the trash compactor coming to life in the Death Star.