How are you supposed to type out the infamous grunt of Peter Mayhew's Chewbacca? The giant Wookiee's signature noise was cobbled together from a wide range of animal sounds by Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt, and it has shocking emotional range: he can sound angry, forlorn, excited, heartbroken, and amused, all with the same throaty gurgle. Here's a testament to the difficulty that comes with textually rendering Chewie's signature noise: I just watched every line he's ever spoken in chronological order — well, chronological within the Star Wars universe — and I still have no clue what letters to use.
The video above crams all of Chewie's "lines" from Revenge of the Sith (his "first" movie appearance) through Return of the Jedi into just under 10 minutes. It can actually serve as a decent refresher on the state of Star Wars if you don't want to spend six hours getting caught up before The Force Awakens premieres on December 18th. Action, drama, tragedy, character development, celebration: it's all there, albeit soundtracked by Chewie's constant wailing. By the time the video wrapped, I felt like I could almost translate every new line with relative accuracy. The last time I checked, it's hard to find a decent language class on Kashyyyk — in the meantime, this'll have to do.