(I apologize for not being a Star Wars fan, so I don’t know any of the minor character’s names.)
We have a running argument in our house about how to pronounce “Leia”.
They played the original on TV last week and we taped it. Her name was actually only used twice. The rest of the time she was “The Princess” or “Your Highness”, etc.
Once was by that guy who blew up Alderon, who pronounced it “Lee-uh”.
And again, the rebel commander who’s pointing to the charts she’s supplied who thanks her by name as “Lee-uh”.
Showed everyone the tape. Thought that would end it.
But now last night they showed “The Empire Strikes Back”
And there somebody calls her “Lay-uh”.
Then Billy Dee Williams shouts a warning to her “Lie-uh”
And finally Luke mumbles about her as “Lay-uh” while he’s hanging upside down off some aerial under the space station.
So . . . .
Is there any official statement about this?
It must come up at those famous conventions.
That would work. Yoda and Jar Jar have pronounced accents.
I think it’s more just not knowing how to deal with a word with 3 consecutive vowels during a first script reading. And once you’ve got it pronounced one way in your head it’s hard to shake. Especially when the name only appears a couple of times over months of shooting.
George Lucas doesn’t even spell things consistently, let alone care about the pronunciation. For some reason it’s something that doesn’t concern him too much.
Well if you listen, Carrie Fisher has a slight Brit accent while she is held captive on the Death Star. I guess she was influenced by being around the all Brit cast. When she is with Ford and Hammil she goes back to her US accent.
I’d say the “correct” pronunciation is the one that she uses herself, as the Lords said already in this thread.
To me, having various pronunciations of names actually makes the movie seem more true-to-life. I have a very simple first name, and it sounds quite different when pronounced by Americans, Brits, anyone with a French accent, and so forth. Why wouldn’t that be true in the Star Wars universe?
I always thought it was kind of strange that Luke and Leia had regular old Biblical Earth-names*, but everybody else had weird, non-Earth names like “Lando,” “Boba,” “Tarkin,” and “Bibb.”
(*This is assuming “Leia” to be a variant of “Leah.” If it’s not, then Luke has the only regular old Biblical Earth-name.)
Cross-posted with jackelope there. But there’s also Han, Owen, and Obi-Wan’s nickname Ben, plus many of the background characters who have names that are never mentioned except in the credits (I think Attack of the Clones had an Elian, for instance).
