Star Wars - A Musical Journey / In Concert

I'm really surprised to hear that they didn't edit more Episode III material into the show. The "A Musical Journey" DVD was released prior to Sith's premiere, so I can understand Lucasfilm holding back a bit...but it's over 4 years later and I was hoping that they would've added some more footage from Episode III. I haven't seen the show yet (Jacksonville on October 29!!!) but maybe someone who has seen the show can confirm if any new Episode III footage found its way into the show. As I recall, Battle of the Heroes was the only Sith-centric piece on the DVD.
Any info is appreciated.

 

I'm seeing it tomorrow, so I'll be able to elaborate a bit more after that. From my initial impressions, there's probably going to be some ROTS footage in Across the Stars, Anakin?s Theme, and Battle of the Heroes. Maybe The Imperial March, as well.

 

It's playing in Seattle on Tuesday, and I'm planning to go. The last Star Wars concert I attended was at Celebration III. While I heard from several people who enjoyed that one, I thought the sound in my section was awful, and the two orchestras needed a little more rehearsal. Five people around me left at intermission and didn't come back. The previews/articles about SW-AMJ look encouraging, though.

 

I saw it today. My first thought coming in: Holy crap. My last thought coming out: Holy crap. It was astounding. Epic. Jaw-dropping. Magnificent. Powerful. Deep. Hilarious. Brilliant. In short, if you get the opportunity to see it, then see it!

The exhibit was great, featuring Han in carbonite (my favorite), concept art, and costumes from Padme to Palptine to the Red Guards. Anthony Daniels' narration was fantastic, and moved the concert along in a way no one else would have been able to pull off. The clips from all six films were edited with a finesse that really made this seem like a saga, one tale of many stories and many facets, and that was truly beautiful to see.

But the real pride and joy of the whole operation, the true guts of the whole thing that pulled it all together, was the orchestra itself. Let me make it clear that these were distinct pieces of music that you will never hear if you don't attend the Concert. These were renditions of the greatest tracks in the Star Wars saga done in a completely new fashion. As you will see if you attend, this is integral to the way the whole production is put together.

One thing I noticed that struck me particularly as interesting was that the puppet Yoda from TPM was changed to a CGI Yoda, which looked infinately better, actually. A sign of things to come?

 

I'm going to the show when it comes to Indianapolis in December. I'm stoked. The press announcement is Tuesday in Indy. I'll be attending and posting pics on my facebook.

 

No, they're not. Unless I'm much mistaken, the program consists of various concert suites Williams has done over the years with a few slight edits (e.g. film version ending of "The Asteroid Field"). You haven't heard most of these on the original soundtracks, true, but they're widely available on albums such as Williams' Skywalker Symphony and Charles Gerhardt's recordings of Empire and Jedi. The claim that Williams did much of anything with the music for this concert is just misleading PR.

 

Well, it was stuff I've never heard before. And it sounded great. Misleading or not, it would be even more deceptive to claim that this ruins the integrity of the whole show.

 

Hey QGR, how early did the doors open? How much time is there to go to the exhibit, and purchase merchandise before the show starts?

 

I was told that they open an hour before the show, but we got there about an hour and twenty minutes before, and they were letting everybody in. So that left a good amount of time before the show started to hit all the exhibits and buy some stuff. However, the best time to see anything you missed and browse for merchandise is right after the concert. We were lucky enough to get seats kind of close to the door, so we made a quick exit and were first in line for the T-shirts.

 

Sweet! I'm gonna try to get there early too! All in all how much money did you spend? What was the average cost of t-shirts, and did that program really cost 30$?

 

Shirts were 35 bucks, programs were 30, and jackets were 50. We got two shirts, two jackets, and one program. Do the math.

 

So 250?

 

Something like that. But hey, this is a once-in-a-decade sort of thing!

 

Yeah I know. I wish I saved money for merchandise, I will only have a hundred, but oh well at least I get to go.

 

I get to see it in two days!

Wow, those shirts are expensive!

 

Expensive and brilliantly designed. Sadly, the cost was prohibitive in my case. I was there both nights in Los Angeles, volunteering as Princess Leia. Had a great time, and even got in to see the show the second time around. Took some smooth talking on Obi-Shawn's part, but his gambit paid off and we had some of the best seats we could have asked for. The concert itself was pretty much the same as the Star Wars Spectacular show I went to back in 2006 (volunteered as Padme that time... costuming has gotten me into some nifty concerts ), just with the addition of a whole lot of shiny stuff. And without the aerialist, who I think would have been lost somewhere between the smoke machines and the giant LED screen.

 

Interesting that they used a digital Yoda in TPM scenes. On the Musical Journey DVD, the Yoda from TPM is still a puppet. So, this is not a direct port of the DVD program.

 

The Indianapolis press announcement went well. I shot a couple of pics with my iphone.

You can see them here.

 

I went to work today and my bosses surprised me by giving me 2 tickets to go on Friday!! Woo hoo! My coworkers convinced them to get tickets for me by reminding them I am a cancer survivor. Sometimes, cancer pays.
It sounds incredible!

 

I saw it on Tuesday night in Seattle. Amazing. Wow. I was surprised by how moved I was...Anthony Daniels' narration really resonated with me--he captured the heart of Star Wars with humor and little in-jokes infused with the epicness of it all. I went away with even more appreciation for the music than I already had.

Actually probably the best part was seeing the children getting indoctrinated into Star Wars by their overgrown fan boy fathers

 

Yes, the Seattle show was great!

On one side of me, there was a dad explaining Star Wars to his son. On my other side, there was a son explaining Star Wars to his dad.

I posted some of my pictures on my Flickr site here. I would recommend the show to anyone.

I didn't think to bring enough cash, else I would have bought stuff.

Photo Knight

 

See, I'd say I was probably standing next to you, but you could've been standing at any given place in the Key Arena and that was going on around you. My favorite conversation I overheard was a father explaining the imperial guard costumes to his son:

"See, the blue costumes are for the guards when he's Chancellor Palpatine, when he's a bad guy in hiding. The red ones are for his guards when he's Emperor Palpatine, and everyone knows he's a bad guy."

Another hilarious moment was when I heard a beleaguered mother say: "*sigh*...Alright, we'll go see 'Kit Fisto' before we go inside. But hurry up, it's about to start."

 

I'll be there tomorrow!!!!!

 

Hmm...

I just watched a couple videos of this thing on YouTube, and while I'm sure being there in person IS a somewhat different experience, I'm finding it hard to want to part with all that money for this thing.

Like others have said, the arrangements are nothing new, and perhaps because I WAS watching on YouTube, I couldn't help noticing how little difference there is between the show's montages and the thousands of similar "music videos" that people have been posting to the internet for years.

What's really disappointing is how lacking in musicality the edits are. There's no real rhythm to the cuts - it just seems like somebody strung together whatever clips they could find that sort of related to a given piece. In some cases the clip selection and edits seemed to actually work AGAINST the flow of the music.

So I'll most likely skip this one.

P.S. I will confess to one moment of pleasant surprise. In the Throne Room/End Credits suite, they cut to a couple clips of Anakin and Padme's romp on Naboo in AotC, and for the first time ever I felt something for those two in that scene. Their relationship suddenly seemed incredibly sweet and lovable. That bouncy rendition of the main title from the credits made all the difference; I never realized how much the maudlin "Across the Stars" as much as the bad acting played a part in my distaste for that scene.

 

Some of the video cuts did not make sense. If it's music that it from only one movie, why show something completely unrelated to the music?

Still, despite that gripe, it was still an awesome show!