Tell me why half the Episode Two score is from Episode One

Did anyone who's saying "oh, it was only a minute or two of music from TPM" actually read the breakdown of the score that's at the URL MoffJake posted above?

Everyone who's tossing in their two bits in this thread MUST read this before mouthing off any further:

http://jwfan.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=60&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

In light of the information that comes out about what got re-tracked from TPM as well as other sources, this should put a definitive end to this entire thread, frankly.

Riv

 

The sound mix in AOTC is one of the worst of all time. We say this with confidence, knowing that previous Star Wars movies (especially The Phantom Menace) have had some pretty bad mixes. It's one thing to not be able to hear any of the action music under sound effects. It's another thing when every single track of music in the movie -- including those where there is virtually no ambient sound, effects or dialogue present -- is dialed down to an inaudible level. The whole movie sounded like someone had left a John Williams radio station on in the background. It was as though Lucas was ashamed to have the music in the movie -- it was literally treated as ambient noise.

I am not sure what is wrong with these people's ears. Star Wars films have had some pretty bad mixes? Excuse me? Not to be insulting but they must be deaf. Plain and simple. The Star Wars films have some of the best movie soundtracks and sound editing ever done. They are reference level work and are used to TEACH sound design in Film Studies programs. The Phantom Menace has one of the most aggressive and detailed surround sound mixes I have ever heard.

As for the music, Star Wars films have always featured amazing music that is VERY prominently featured in the film and it's sound mix. TPM and AOTC are NO exception. I honestly was completely floored by the statements of this "article." I am very critical of sound and music. I was able to hear all of AOTC's score just fine. These people must simply be deaf.

As for the rest of the article about the hacking up and editing of the AOTC score and the cut and pasting of TPM tracks, sadly this is the case and I agree...


do you guys what some cheese with your whine??? seriously, it was a good movie, that had a very powerful score! and not even 5 minutes of music was taken from tpm! valens is right, LIVE WITH IT!

Not even five minutes? Seems to me if I add up everything laid out for us in this article at jwfan.net that it adds up to 13 minutes. That's an awful long time to hack up tiny little 30 second cues that don't flow well. And it's about 11 minutes more than any other Star Wars film ever. 13 minutes is a sizeable chunk of any film.

 

In direct response to the question, we must keep in mind that originality is no longer the goal as the epic is coming to a conclusion. Like characters, dialogue, and plot points, we are seeing and hearing much material from the previous episodes. The music not only unifies the stories, but it serves as a reminder of certain scenes that are important as we view the new ones. Instead of being upset by the use of previous music, we can find it challenging to wonder why it is being re-used. Is it just a good tune, or is there a meaning that we need to think about???

 

"we can find it challenging to wonder why it is being re-used."

That wouldn't take very long.
It's because George edits the movie too much after the score's completed.

 

you're really bitter about this aren't you Sithman?

 

Just to add another voice of concern- Sithman et all are not alone in their disappointment about the reuse of TPM music and chopped up original music as in the conveyor belt sequence.

While each time I see it, it continues to bother me less and less, there is still no excuse for it, IMO.

But that's all I'll say here, as most of it has already been said. And frankly I'm just trying to get over it.

 

Am I bitter? Quite.
Am I trying to get over it? Yes.


And in fact, I am bothered by it less and less each time I see it. Mostly because I know that it's there and I just deal with it.

But yes, I'm rather bitter because it shouldn't have happened. :-\

 

Let me just reiterate for you jedivalens. You are in the MUSIC FORUM. Of course we are going to pay special attention to the MUSIC. And when something like this happens to the MUSIC, we are naturally going to react a bit stronger than the average Star Wars fan.

 

Whoa, I think I just read something logical... [face_shocked]

 

I remember feeling rooked when, back in 1983, ROTJ used the gun turret score from ANH as the battle music as the Rebel ships flew into the Death Star, and thought it was a bit cheesy for the Sail Barge score to incorporate chunks of ANH's Death Star Battle music.

But at least they were re-recorded and not just spliced in instead of newly-composed music!

I hadn't listened to the soundtrack when I first saw AOTC, but even so I could hear that large chunks of the TPM soundtrack were being used, especially during the Arena fight and the Droid/Clonetrooper battle, and they didn't sound to me like they'd been re-recorded. I wondered if maybe there was something wrong with John Williams and he hadn't had it in him to write a full score for the movie.

It now seems as if there WAS new music written for these scenes, and that for whatever reason Lucas chose to dump it and splice in segments from the TPM soundtrack. IMHO, this is very unfortunate. One of the great things about new Star Wars films is that they've always had these fantastic new John Williams soundtracks to absorb. And as much as I enjoyed AOTC, I certainly don't feel we got our money's worth music-wise. What we got musically was akin to a gourmet dinner interspersed with trays of leftovers.

Lucas needs a serious wake-up call here, because this is very disrespectful to John Williams and the effort he went to to write the AOTC score. I hope this doesn't put Williams off so much that he refuses to score Episode III... a Star Wars movie without a Williams score? Especially Episode III?? I don't even want to think about it...

 

I'd go for Howard Shore if Williams refused.

Though I'd be very sad to see that happen.

 

Despite how his scores for these last two films have been handled, there's no way John Williams won't complete the musical cycle he's begun. As long as he's healthy and able, he will score the final film.

My suggestion next time out though, is that Lucas wait until at least March before he has Williams conduct the score against the film. That way, more of the editing will be complete. Just a thought.

Paul

 

Yah, heck, I don't care if the movie comes out a little later, just get the score done RIGHT!

 

I've got to think this had SOMETHING to do with the worldwide release and Skywalker Sound being overworked.

 

I think it had everything to do with the worldwide release date. And being from England, that decision pleased me very much. BUT...we have to ask ourselves:

Was a disjointed score a worthy price to pay?
Will our words be heeded?
Will it be done again for the same reasons?

 

So do a world-wide release closer to the end of the month. AOTC did release very early as opposed to the other SW films.

[image=http://bestanimations.com/Sci-Fi/StarWars/Emporer-01.gif]
~Sithy~

 

So now we are blaming the worldwide release... when then did LOTR not have this problem? They filmed THREE at once... finished the first one and released it worldwide without rehashing score from something else, hacking it up, re-editing at the last minute, etc...

Put the blame where it belongs. George Lucas. He likes to edit up to the last minute and now that he has AVID he can do so much more extensively and yet do it quickly and easily. Only problem is somewhere in the last 20 years, he stopped caring about how this affects the music. We all learned from him: "Sound is 50% of the picture" and music is so critical. Now he seems to have ignored this in favor of playing with his toys until Rick McCallum takes em away and sends the movie off to be shown.

 

Yah, as you know (I'm talking to stri now on AIM), I changed my mind, stri's right.

It's George's editing that does it, not the release date. In fact, pushing the release date back further would allow more atrocious editing by George.

 

I guess the real question is, since GL is obviously going to continue tinkering with the films's scores, would we rather he recycle music from the same film (as in using the same piece of music for both the escape from Naboo and the pod race), or use music from a separate SW film so that, hopefully, music doesn't repeat within the same movie?

If our choice was exclusively one or the other, which would you choose?

Personally, I'd choose what he did with AOTC over what he did with TPM.

 

"Personally, I'd choose what he did with AOTC over what he did with TPM."

You mean because you can hear TPM music in AOTC anyways?


[image=http://bestanimations.com/Sci-Fi/StarWars/Emporer-01.gif]
~Sithman~

 

Just got back from a third viewing.

Previously on this thread, I tried to defend the music...

not anymore.

The rest of the movie keeps getting better every time I see it. But the music during that battle is absolutely enraging. as Luke might say... "What a piece of junk!"

I seriously wonder what they're going to do with the UE soundtrack, because I don't think there's any way you could possibly release what I just heard.

My best case scenario is to have the DVD with the music scored properly, and the feature length soundtrack released at the same time.

It'll never happen, but it's something to hope for.

 

You mean because you can hear TPM music in AOTC anyways?

No, because it means I'm not hearing the same exact piece in the same exact movie twice.

 

"No, because it means I'm not hearing the same exact piece in the same exact movie twice."




Foiled! You hear quite a bit of the music from Zam's speeder chase later in the movie as well.
Sorry, you can't win with the movie score (though the soundtrack CD was good).

 

Ha! I can do you one better! Every SW film except for ANH has repeated at least a fragment of music somewhere. ESB did it by using "Hyperspace" music for the Snowspeeder search; ROTJ did it by altering some of the score for the Ewok battle. It's by no means exclusive to the PT.



What I meant was that no complete cue was repeated, which was the case with TPM, where you heard an entire cue more than once, not just fragments.

 

ROTJ also used a one minute snippet of Yoda and the Force from ESB during the Brother and Sister scene. But one minute is a very different beast than 13 minutes of music tracked in bits and pieces from TPM.