Why is Yoda's Theme there?

I liked it there. I think it shows Anakin at a higher, more powerful level.

 

I like how it mirrors Empire, when Luke is following Boba Fett in Bespin. It?s not so much implying that Yoda should be there, but insinuating his wisdom and guidance.

The Empire rendition is better of course because of the piano solo.

Although, I don?t think there was really any symbolism intended in Clones.
I wonder who was in charge of the jumble of all those different cues anyway.

 

The difference between the use of Yoda's theme during the conveyor belt and during the Cloud City escape is that Williams didn't intend it to be there.

The cue "On the Conveyor Belt" reflects what Williams wrote for the scene as it was presented when he scored it. Later, Lucas stupidly decided to insert an episode of the animated droids TV series into the middle of the sequence. This made the scene longer and hence necessitated "tracking" music from other parts of the score.

In the resulting mess, most of "On the Conveyor Belt" was tossed and replaced with a lot of the Coruscant speeder chase, the arena battle, and the Yoda theme statement from the duel with Dooku. IMHO it's use made no sense whatsoever, unlike in TESB when the use of Yoda's theme as we see Leia (both when Luke arrives at Cloud City and later shooting at troopers) reminds us of Yoda's words and hints that she could be the other. The use of Leia's theme when Ben dies provides a similar hint.

 

The use of Leia's theme when Ben dies provides a similar hint.

That's stretching it, don't you think? Do you think that JW knew in 1977 that there even was an "other" and that it was Leia? Did GL even know?

It works out nicely after the fact, yes.

Whatever the reason for the conveyor belt music, I liked hearing Yoda's Theme and the Force Theme there.

 

I suppose I've always thought that Leia's theme was used during Ben's death sequence simply to remind the audience of the mission at hand. This seems to be sort of backed up by the quick use of the rebel fanfare.
Just a thought.

 

"I suppose I've always thought that Leia's theme was used during Ben's death sequence simply to remind the audience of the mission at hand. This seems to be sort of backed up by the quick use of the rebel fanfare."

I agree.

 

i thought that was the force theme that was played during the conveyer belt scene.

 

It was.

 

aeryn, the theme is called yoda and the force. They are one and the same...

 

I like the connection idea, but I think it has more of a tragic meaning : when Anakin kills the Sand People, Yoda feels it and tells Mace something terrible has happened.
On the conveyor belt... Anakin kills living beings. A lot of them. So I like to think it is there as an indicator of Anakin's fall by reminding what Yoda said, a bit like it was as a reminder of the mission in ESB (as suggested in previous posts).

 

Yes, the use of Leia's theme when Ben dies was done, according to Williams, because it was the most sweeping melody. Despite what Lucas says, he had no idea what his story was going to be or that there was "another" etc. It just worked out well after the fact. However, before Williams scored TESB, he saw the film and would have seen Yoda's mention of "another " and then Leia receiving Luke's telepathic distress call. Hence he may have thought that using Yoda's theme over Leia fighting troopers could possibly (unconsciously) reinforce the question of whether Leia could be the other, whether or not it actually turned out to be true.

Also, to clarify, the tracked sections of the conveyor belt scene use a statement of Yoda's theme from the duel with Dooku and a separate statement of the Ben/Force theme, which was not used elsewhere in the film but was originally supposed to go with Dooku's escape. It is on the OST at the beginning of the last track.

I personally abhor the hacked up music in the conveyor belt scene and the scene itself. A Star Wars lowpoint!

 

I guess it doesn't bother me a whole lot. I like the themes there.

I do wish that Lucas would give JW a chance to score the finished cut.

 

I like your style, princess!

and, as a response to killing live beings, that makes sense, because when you hear the Force/Yoda theme, it is when Anakin is using the force to move the arms and knock the creatures out of the way... dealing with the danger withough just hacking through them with his light saber. It could be that here, he is using the force for good, acting vs. reacting.

 

"I do wish that Lucas would give JW a chance to score the finished cut."

Indeed. Note to Lucas: do the score sessions during April. Or a pickup score session anyway.

 

The track "On the Conveyor Belt" is not a concert version. It's what Williams wrote for the scene before Lucas decided to change it by adding the ridiculous C3PO head switching nonsense (looked like an episode of the Droids cartoon show). That forced the editors (Ben Burtt says Ken Wannberg did ALL the music editing) to patch something together with very little time to cover the expanded scene. I'm sure no one cared that Yoda's theme was quoted. Most of the tracked music is from the Coruscant chase, so obviously there was no time to care. Whether it works or not is beside the point. The problem is that Lucas sees music as wallpaper rather than as an important artistic component of a story. The difference between this and the use of Yoda's theme at Cloud City or Leia's theme when Ben dies is that Williams chose to use those themes there. The last minute botch job on AOTC and also TPM leaves him no choice but to accept the butchering.

 

"Whether it works or not is beside the point."

No, that is the point. That is what film score is. It is not its own medium. It is a component of a medium, filling a purpose. It is FUNCTIONAL MUSIC. The film is supposed to draw a viewer in, put them in the story, let them feel it, experience it. Music is a means to this end. It is really only in the past 10-15 years that Film Music snobbery has been prevelant. For 50 years before this, music was used, manipulated, and cut to create the atmosphere. Film Score composers now are being part of the process, creating subtext for the movie and the plot, but it is never, NEVER supposed to rise above the movie in the way that people glorify it today. When that happens, the music loses its very reason for being.

 

"The film is supposed to draw a viewer in, put them in the story, let them feel it, experience it."


When you have an important body of work like Star Wars orchestral music -- music that that will be deconstructed and analyzed forever thanks to John Williams brilliance ? having tracked-on music -- an abundance of tracked-on and rehashed music from the same or previous episodes -- is distracting. It takes you out of the story.

I mean why stop there? Why not for Episode III just get Johnny to write 1 new theme and then have the rest of the score be tacked on from other episodes? It would work.

 

Even if that's the point, then, for me the botch-editing for the conveyor belt didn't work. In fact the scene didn't work for me at all. I thought it was stupid. It does nothing to advance the story and clearly seems tacked on as an afterthought. Adding the droid crap only made it worse.

As for music being rearranged and manipulated, sometimes it works. Examples:

Music from "The Bride of Frankenstein" (Waxman) used in "Gone With the Wind" (Steiner) when Scarlett sees her mother's body. I like it better than what Steiner wrote for the scene.

ALIEN: I like all of Ridley Scott's decisions, even though Goldsmith was royally screwed. He was made to rewrite at least 10 cues, then most were not used. Some were used in places they weren't scored for. Three cues from Goldmsith 60's score "Freud" were tracked in, and Hanson's 2nd symphony was used over the finale and end credits.

These examples are unique. In the case of GWTW, it's just a brief moment. In the case of ALIEN it's a standalone movie (yeah, there are sequels but all by different directors and composers.) With STAR WARS, the music has always played a prominent role in the overall effectiveness of each film and was a noteworthy and distinctive orchestral composition on its own. TESB had a lot of dropped, rescored, and moved around music, but it's mostly early in the film. With AOTC, all of the botch-editing comes at the climax when the natural tendency and expectation is for the score to reach a compositional climax based on the musical ideas that have been developing for 90 minutes. This never happens, and so it makes it feel cheap. If AOTC were a standalone story it would not be noticed, but when you already have four other entries in the series to compare it to (by the same filmmaker and composer) it obviously falls short and is disappointing.

This is a long-winded way of again saying that the point is not whether or not it works but that Lucas has decided he values tinkering time more than the contribution of his gifted composer.

 

Has John Williams ever complained about this, or are you literally the only person in the world that cares?

 

Williams complained at the time of TPM, admitting that he offered to go back and rescore the climax based on the final edit, but Lucas wouldn't pay for it. Lucas also made Williams pay for his own orchestrators on the score. They treat him miserably because they know that Williams' weakness is that he doesn't want anyone else doing Star Wars. The Mcneeley score to Shadows of the Empire was a test to see if fans would accept a non-Williams Star Wars score, and a threat to make Williams cooperate. At this point I'm sure Williams will be glad when this thing is over and for the next three years he's just going to grin and bear it. I really wish he would just tell Lucas that he has written over ten hours of music so he can surely find enough material to track the entire third movie.

 

"...but Lucas wouldn't pay for it. Lucas also made Williams pay for his own orchestrators on the score."

Ha-ha, wow. How uncommon is it for a director to have his composer pay for the orchestrations?