I edited out and subtitled a few of my more favorite Chopper moments. It took me till season 3 to realize Chopper curses like a sailor and is actually talking vs making random noises.
Did a second video of random clips here. It's late so I hope it doesn't get buried, so if you enjoy it keep it alive till morning.
This is art
I'll try and do a bit more eventually. I've seen a lot of translation videos on youtube and a lot of them were completely wrong in places. He actually mimics english language words when he speaks a lot of times, and what the fuck and oh fuck tend to be his favorites. It took me a while before I could understand him. Some parts I'm still trying to get what he says .
Have you noticed he also does little whooping sounds and flexes his little grabbers when he thinks he has accomplished something big, I thought that was one of the best parts about chopper, well that and him actively pulling pranks on Zeb and Ezra
Ya it adds that dimension of body language and it's awesome. Chopper is by far my favorite.
It still just sounds like random stuff to me so people can put in whatever they want really
Holy crap this is hilarious
That what the fuck ever one when Sabine told him to get the Phantom is my favorite. There's also one part in the show when Zeb finds him lying on the ground and smacks him to get him working and he says "Oh fuck" like 15 times super fast and it went right by me the first time around..
Here clipped that scene. He says OH fuck a good dozen times followed by what the fuck a few more..
It's interesting now when you have added the translations I can clearly hear what's he saying. I did think that the YouTube translations I saw felt off.
I think the subtitles are just priming our brains to hear those words in what's actually nonsense. I guess in this case it's speech (they did write dialogue for Filoni to read), that's been turned into nonsense that still has the rough cadence of speech, so it's even easier to read into it. Like playing a record backwards and only the people who are expecting Satanic chanting actually hear it.
I think it's prety clear as I said in another comment this is actually what Chopper is saying for all intents and purposes. I am aware of that phenomenon of course, but as I said the other translations have always been "off". Because this is speech more or less.
Yep. You can tell he recorded his voice and added the effects of chopper after. You can hear clearly what he says most the time once you learn a big part of the words he says. Some of choppers longer dialogs I haven't got down yet and some smaller ones are tough but I been trying to get them down a bit at a time from listening to people's responses to him.
Nope. He's actually speaking. Dave Filoni kept it a secret he voiced the character till the end of the run of the show. He is basically saying stuff and adding the chopper effect to make it sound like chopper.
I don’t think he’s actually saying words though, from what I’ve read. This article says he makes droid noises, so I guess he does the basic sounds with his voice, Frank Walker-style. It certainly seems like they at least add an electronic-sounding filter on top of it too.
So there’s probably not really recorded words for Chopper, just noises that Filoni makes with the right pace and intonation of the written words. How close those noises are to the written words depends on Filoni.
Here's him pranking Ezra. He says focus twice and you can clearly hear they recorded the word focus and made It sound like chopper after. Chopper talks. Trust me. They don't just say they can understand him in the show.
Why do you think agent Kallus could understand him and never been around him before? He says to Ezra and Kanan about Kallus "Trust him" "Trust him" and Kallus says. "Your droid trusts me. "
Here's another video. I included clips where he is clearly saying what I subtitled. https://www.reddit.com/r/starwarsrebels/comments/jf6yls/chopper_with_subtitles_part_2_people_liked_the/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
He's saying words. Trust me. You can hear them in many many parts. One clip I added below where he pranks ezra you can hear focus clear as day. Trust me he talks.
You’re so wrong, but you’re speaking with heavy confidence.
Not at all as when he says “blah blah blah shut the fuck up” is the reason I found these by googling it as I heard it clear as day when I began watching this show a couple days ago
It took me a while to pick up on it. Once you catch on it's hard not to notice it anymore..
It's so weird to imagine Filoni cussing, even in droidese.
Ok but the fact it actually fits with the bleeps is EVERYTHING
Because that's what he's saying. He talks , mimicking words with the noises he makes. You can't always understand him but many times you can.
No way that's insane
Watch the show. I did another clip video that shows some better ones you can see that he's saying what I sub titled.
I've watched the entire show 2 times and I haven't noticed this lol. Deffo will watch your clips they're cool af
Took me a while to notice. It was with his talking to AP5 I picked up on it. Then went back and slowly learned. There's translation videos I found later but many are just making shit up and off.
One of my favorites is the first episode of the show when Kanan goes into the cockpit and Hera says “You said this was a routine op. What happened down there?” Chopper then responds “Yeah, what the fuck?” Another one is where Chopper attacks a ship captain with a stolen leg (S2E19 The Forgotten Droid). When Chopper (spoiler alert) kills him, he says “Goodbye asshole.” Chopper is the best droid in the galaxy. Does R2D2 curse?
When hera's dad shocks him he says "Asshole"
In TLJ, Luke tells him, “Holy island - watch the language!” So, R2 cusses equally as well.
I think Dave Filoni actually spoke out a lot of these and added the droid effects after. Some of his language is really clear.
There’s more clips from the OT of Luke telling R2 to watch the language as well.
Yeah R2-D2 canonically curses, beyond the TLJ example in the comics Triple Zero calls him out for colourful language.
If Chopper isn’t getting bleeped for the f-bomb then we know Artoo must be firing off some insane racial slurs. /s
“Blah blah blah. Shut the fuck up” was said with such force I love it
He hates being told what to do when he's already doing it. He don't always like being told what to do but that really pisses him off. I think an exception is Rex because Rex is a Clone Wars veteran too so he jumps at Rexs orders .
I had no idea this droid was legit swearing but hey, I'm lovin it.
He talks thru the whole show. Takes time to learn to understand him.
Can u make a part 2?😂😂
I know a bunch more. Eventually. I'm trying to understand some tougher ones first .
Good luck, I can’t wait 😂
I got a 2nd one done but gotta wait till daylight to post it. It will likely die this time of night .
I put a second video up here. It's late when I uploaded it so I hope it don't die by morning time. If it does I'll just pull it and reupload it when more people on.
Just saw it 😂😂
I remember a scene where he clearly says “yeah you stupid bitch”
THE GOAT!!!!
S1E4 at the beginning, Ezra is trying to levitate a bowl, Chopper is sitting there with him and I swear he goes, "What... the fuck?"
I clipped that and linked it above to someone who doubt he talks. He actually says "Focus" "Focus". It's clear as day and you can tell they recorded Daves voice there and made it sound like chopper.
Lol I assumed everyone knew it was curses. His main noise sounds like "what the FUCK?"
This is amazing
After two seasons I actually understood what he said. Like, I just watched it for so long my brain started to kinda translates his beeps and body language to something he most likely said.
During my first watch through, I did really enjoy being able to pick up on what Chopper was saying from time to time. It never occurred to me how much he swears, but I think it adds for character to the.. character.
This was really funny to watch, I’ll be looking forward you possibly seeing more!
I did another one but it's too late to post it I think. It will get buried. Post it in the morning .
"Blah, blah, blah, shut the fuck up"
This is exactly how my girlfriend and I watched the show. So great to see we weren't the only ones, lmaoo
If I wasn't reddit poor I'd give this a medal
Wait so chopper is like the Star Wars Kenny from South Park? I love this
This has been known for a while. Also BB-8 is modeled after voice acting of Bill Hader and Ben Schwarz, so he’s def a raunchy mofo also.
I've loved that rusty little smart ass from the start. I always knew he was saying something nasty.
OH MY GOD I FUCKING LOVE IT! I'd actually realized that there were words hidden underneath his beeps, and I sometimes made up the most suitable one for the situation, but I thought it would be this hilarious.
Potentially unpopular opinion (maybe not in this sub) but Chopper is by far the best astromech, maybe best droid, in Star Wars (sorry R2)
Perfect. Just perfect.
Honestly wouldn't surprise me if Dave filoni actually cussed
Well, he was injured during the invasion of Ryloth, which is a harsh planet for any droid to be stranded
Omg I laughed so hard to this. I’m saving this for rough missions ahead
holy fuck
I would love to hear the unmodulated voiceover from Dave Filoni...and other people's rxn onset/studio.
And the best part about all this is that Dave Filoni himself is the voice actor for Chopper!!!
Took me a while too
That was awesome
This is some quality content right here!
Chop! 🥰🤗 My favourite! I love that scene of sabine petting him and him purring.
This is the greatest fucking thing I've ever seen! Thank you!
Oh my fucking god
Love this little chode so much
I love the video but, unless Filoni's specifically said somewhere that he was swearing (which seems unlikely), I doubt that those are actually the real words. Some of them might be close, just based on the cadence of human speech, but the "shit, shit, shit" could just as easily be "no, no, no", for example.
It's more likely to be audio pareidolia - you're expecting something to be there and your brain is just matching it to a known pattern. And once you've added the subtitles and primed our brains to hear those words, we're all hearing them too.
There was an episode of a skeptics podcast years ago where the host played a snippet of a song in a foreign language (Hindi, I think), which was incomprehensible to me. Then he said some English words he thought it sounded like, played it again, and I swear I could hear them saying exactly those words. It's also what leads people to see the Face on Mars in some craters or hear Satanic messages when you play records backwards. It's a really powerful effect.
tl;dr Brains are weird and Filoni probably wasn't cursing his head off in a Disney sound booth, unfortunately.
Here's a clip of Chopper pranking Ezra with the cup. He clearly says Focus twice. I subbed it in at the exact part. Just because you don't understand him doesn't mean he don't talk. He talks thru the entire run. https://youtu.be/fAEqDlXqFtw
Also watch when he talks to Sabine. When he says her name you hear him actually say her name.
I think you're right there, it probably is actually words that are just dubbed over or redone with droid noises in the same cadence. But I don't think you can say for sure what those words are. Especially with the swear words, which I doubt Filoni would've said (if only because the script or the original recordings might leak and Disney would be very unhappy).
Like I said, "shit, shit, shit" could also be "no, no, no". "Focus" does seem likely in that video but it could also have been some other plausible two syllable word said slowly, like "careful", "nearly", or "almost".
He doesnt say no. He's saying shit. You hear the it at the end. No doesn't have it in it and there's not many words you bash your head against something while saying that end in "it"
He talks. His speech is always the same. Over time you can get to understand him plain as day.
I'm just not hearing that "it" sound. Honestly, it sounds to me more like the old Elite "wort, wort, wort!" from Halo and that actually was just reversed dialogue from the marines.
One of the writers confirmed on Twitter that they did write full dialogue for Filoni to read out. A few people ask him about swearing but the only reply was to a now-deleted tweet, which was maybe asking about it, maybe something else, and the answer's not definitive either way.
It seems so unlikely that they would write dialogue with swearing, Filoni would read that dialogue, and then either Filoni or whoever was editing his voice work would leave in any recognisable remnant of that swearing. If it ever got out at any step in the process, that's career-ending stuff for multiple staff members.
EDIT: After a little more digging, it seems like Filoni made the noises as noises, which means there at least wasn't a risk of curse-filled recordings getting out. I'm still convinced it wouldn't have been in the scripts though.
Did you see the clip I linked above. He literally says oh fuck like 12 times rapidly. He's saying shit dude. Starts with an S ends with it. He talks. Trust me. It's not imaginary. You start to understand him over time. It's simply Filoni adding mech noises to shit he says.
Y
I saw that "oh, fuck" clip and I'm not hearing that either. It's the same sound over and over but I get the impression he's glitching out while trying to say something, not that it's actually dialogue.
I'm sure Chopper's lines are droid noises added to or dubbed over or synced up to sound like speech, sure, and from context I reckon a lot of your translations are plausible. But I don't think that original speech contains all the swearing you're hearing.
I'm not trying to say you're deliberately making it up or that you're hearing voices or something, I hope I'm not coming across as insulting. It's just given how unlikely it is that the production staff would write and record that swearing (or even that Filoni would improv it to match the animation) and then leave it even vaguely audible, I think pareidolia's a more likely explanation.
Maybe some tell-all book or leak of the original script will come out that proves me wrong but until then, but until then...
Here go listen to him and AP5 argue. You hear him say "No you can't" at the end of this when arguing with AP5. That's how chopper talks.
It almost certainly is, yes, but one reason we're hearing that is because it's really obvious from the context of AP-5's lines. It's also a perfectly reasonable thing for the staff to have written and recorded. I don't think that's true of the swearing.
Also lastly led me add definitive proof he talks and you can understand him. Kallus on the episode where they break into the factory and get caught rescues Kanan and Ezra and takes them in an elevator to get away.
He tells them his secret and he clearly has conversations with Chopper although he's never been around chopper before.
Kanan and Ezra discuss whether they can trust Kallus and Chopper says twice "Trust him" "Trust him" and Kallus replies "your droid trusts me". Now you can argue Kallus just knows how to talk Astromech but it's not that as chopper talks very different than other Astromechs. He also later discusses choppers proficiency and chopper says "Wow, somebody notices"
Personally I don't think it matters, because in intention I think it's clear that Chopper is meant to be very rude. Sure Filoni might be officially saying say "hell" and "no" or something, but he might as well be saying "fuck" and "shit". I agree with OP that all the YouTube translations I have seen are certainly off and this is much more accurate.
Oh, they definitely meant him to come across as rude. "Likable jerk" was Filoni's exact description. I just think it's wrong to authoritatively claim that the swear words are what he's actually saying when that probably wasn't in the script and we can't know what Filoni and the audio editors were thinking when they made those noises.
I think there's a difference between what Filoni might have said and what Chopper is actually saying is my point. This is more in line with what Chopper would be actually saying. And the only reason Filoni might not have said it is because it's a kids show.
I mean, if we're assuming that the in-universe dialogue is different to what the script said, he's probably still not saying "fuck" or "shit" because that's not how people swear in-universe. It's probably "frak" and "poodoo".
Shit is canon. Because "poodoo" sounds a bit ridiculous most of the time. Whilst it's implied that fuck is canon.
Fun fact I discovered while googling this - “poodoo” officially translates to “fodder”. I’m not sure I believe that was the original intention but “jizz” was seemingly an accident so...
In not sure if there’s any other instances but yeah Lando said it in Solo. They cut him off for comedic effect but it’s definitely a word used.
Dude. He cusses. It's clear as flipping day in places. Of course he's not going to admit he cursed on a Disney show ffs. He took his words and then edited them to sound like chopper after.
He isn't saying words exactly but is mimicking those exact words. It's like if I hum youre a dick head I may not be saying you're a dick head but it's still saying you're a dick head.
I can show you the clip where Hera's dad betrays them and he plain as day says "Asshole". When he's trying to get Ezra to lift a cup with the force he says " focus, focus. ". It's not imaginary. He talked the clips out and edited them to be chopper.
I love this and want more! Great work, OP.
This is good( I’m leaving a comment so I. Can come back to this post)
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i’m so late, but this was absolutely hilarious and ik he talks to the crew and i’ve tried to guess but this is just chef kiss
Holy fucking shit I thought chopper was my favorite droid before this but now??
He’s even better xD
u/DirteDeeds I actually personally DO think that, where you subtitled the bit of dialogue (or translated the grunts and random noises) where Chop nearly cuts Kanan's head off, closing those doors, I do personally believe those grunts and random noises could have generally been "blah blah blah shut the fuck up".
I need a writer to resubtitle the entire thing with Chopper’s actual dialogue.
At least I know I haven't been hearing things. I thought my mind was just filling in words lol
In the Lando episode he says “these motherfuckers!”
“Blah blah blah shut the fuck up” 💀💀💀
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This is the greatest. Thanks