Duel of the Fates vs Across the Stars......

ooh, I need the get the piano music too. I'm getting tired of my others.

By the by, you are not alone in liking AtS the best - I second your love of it.

 

I like The Duel of Fates the best because i can use it in my lightsaber duel of my fan film.

 

This is tough...the phrase apples and oranges really does apply here...You guys are mean...making me choose like this...but if I have to I'd say ATS, but that's only a hair above DotF.

 

I would say AtS all the way. Now, Duel is an amazing piece, but the subtleties of AtS is much more amazing. JW is setting up the Leia theme already, and in AtS we hear the minor 6th leap implying that this love theme is doomed from the start. It is so sad. Then, when in ANH we hear leia's there, the minor 6th leap is now a major 6th, giving a feel of hope and heroism to it. Lastly, when you hear the Leia/Han love theme, a love that seems to be doomed, we again hear the major 6th, plus a great deal of other element from AtS, and the music is giving us a subtext that this romance, unlike the earlier, is fated to go well. How powerful is the scene in ESB, and how much more with a hopefull love theme as they seem to be ripped apart.

Listen to the two themes side by side. the sadness and hopelessness in AtS creates a new flavor for later themes. That is why it is better...

 

Oh, man....personally I find it far too hard to compare them and say that one or the other is better. To me, they are *both* better, both excellent. I've always thought it too hard to compare them so subjectively (or is it actually objectively? Well, anyway, to my point) because they differ so much.

"Duel of the Fates" is one spine-chilling cue that to me perfectly, if at times terrifyingly, evokes a varying mood of war, verging into triumph, then fear and dread....and then a threat at first hidden, then showing its face with devastating consequences....then, finally, ending with that rousing triumphal chorus which is, I've always thought, at once chilling and enticing....triumphant and unnerving. Small wonder, I suppose, given the meaning of the Sanskrit lyrics.

But "Across the Stars", on the other hand....the first time I heard it, just the first few notes, I was in tears - because the theme so perfectly encompasses the intrinsically and deeply-woven tragic nature of Anakin and Padme's love.

At times tremulous, slowly-and-gently flowering, even uncertain....something so sweet and tender, like the softest brush of silk upon one's skin....then it verges into the true triumph of the love theme and seems itself to harness those all-encompassing emotions, the consuming love and devotion and possession that, if they're meant to destroy a person....maybe they'd gladly accept that fate, only so long as they could simply love. I feel like I get that feeling.

But then, a few minutes into the theme, with that low, rhythmic thrumming undercurrent of the strings....it does seem to evoke a darker, more foreboding and even grim, dreadful despairing feeling, and in the midst of the love theme itself - this is something I find rather heartbreaking, actually. Fascinating as all get-out, to be sure, but still....very emotional, at least for me.

But then, by the end of it....the theme gently, tenderly segues back into the light, sweet epheremal song of the harp....just a few little gossamer notes they are, yet for me at least they reinforce the fragile, tenuous, triumphal yet ultimately doomed nature of Anakin and Padme's love.

It is at its core, I think, all about that tender joy and consuming passion, that contentment and happiness....verging into the darkness. And for sure that's just part of the reason the theme at once inspires a profound happiness in me....at the same time as it breaks my heart in sadness for what is to come.

And I think it's all of this that has led me, personally, to know that I can't ever compare DOTF and ATS and say that one is better than the other, because to me....they are *both* fantastic and highly powerful and evocative....differing moods, differing themes, yet ultimately entwining into the mesh of galactic events that are to come. Different themes, same future....just slightly varying points on the same path, and both of them wholly beautiful, chilling, fascinating and involving....as I reckon it.


Dawn.

 

As I understood it, Acrsoos the Stars is really the music used in the video, and the love theme is part of it.

I dunno... I love it anyway...

 

DOTF is better. Not only do I find the music more appealing, but I sense the tension in the music...the sense of something big happening.

ATS is a love theme. Sure. I can obviously sense that. But IMO, its overdramatic. The love scenes in AOTC were so poorly done and unbelievable (IMO) that it cheapens the music. I cant help but laugh everytime I hear ATS because I dont believe in Anakin and Padme's love for each other. So I dont believe the theme is as effective as a result.

Just my 2 cents.

 

Dual of the Fates, NO CONTEST! Yes, Across the Stars was pretty and romantic, Dual of the Fates is powerful and fit the climatic Jedi Vs. Sith battle very well.