AOTC/ROTS Complete Scores **Official Thread**

First of all, sorry if I was a bit harsh. It's a pleasure to discuss about this with you. I just think that there is an irrational hatred towards the prequels and specially Williams' music for Episode II amongst his so-called fans; I know you don't share those sentiments, but I wanted to clarify some points, though.

While that's certainly true, my point is that Episode II is (in a way) the "original" one, and Minority Report and Harry Potter II reused some of the elements from THAT score; therefore, you can't really criticise the music of Episode II of lack of originality. And since Williams started working on Episode II in September-October 2001 and recorded the music in January-February, it seems that he DID have enough time (as much as in the other prequels and twice as much as episodes IV and V) to develop the music.
In any case, you should point your criticisms of lack of originality/time to write towards Minority Report and Harry Potter II.

And saying that Williams on auto-pilot is much better than any other composer doesn't diminish the disrespect towards his work. I really believe that Williams puts his soul in every project he works on. And it shows. Yes, even in Episode II, it shows.

I don't like Ben Burt much either. But, although the Arena music was just excellent (I guess that wasn't Williams on auto-pilot then?), I have come to accept that the music has to serve the movie, and certain excellent cues are better left unused. I think the Arena sequence works without the music.

About the "trade off"... I know that Burt tried to do the Conveyor Belt sequence without the music, but in any case they decided to have the music, and Williams did compose it. A great, fun and totally original track, composed before Minority Report. Again, it wasn't properly used, but not because of Ben Burt.

On Jwfan.com you can see the slate numbers for Episode II that indicate that the tracking was just as planned as in Episode III. For better or worse,they decided to go that way after episode I.

But you're talking about your feelings. I agree that Episode I was a labor of love, and Williams probably didn't like the way they handled it. Yet, it wasn't the first time, nor the last time. Episode V had a lot of unused music: maybe Williams didn't like the fact that it went unused. The Lost World is a mess. And think about Harry Potter 3: the score gets a lot of love... yet nobody seems to be aware that almost every single cue was edited down in the movie.

In Episode I, there are lots of moments where the music is heard just as it was recorded... virtually every dialogue scene. And even some of the action pieces from the beginning of the movie. All the scenes on Tatooine up to the Podrace, all the Coruscant scenes... Really, was the score SO butchered in the film???

 

Yea...again, what I read (which I am trying to locate presently) said he wasn't happy with the final product of Episode I.

I do love Episode I's score and Episode III is a good score although it doesn't resonant with me as much but it is WELL done. Episode II is kinda a soft spot for me. Hearing it in its extended form, I do enjoy a good deal of it, but there are moments where it doesn't seem so strong.

And I'm glad that I can talk to someone. I do think that on some level we agree, I mean no disrespect to Williams at all in my terms, and I do agree that Williams works phenomenally hard on everything he does. I just think that some scores are stronger than others.

There are moments, key moments in Episode II where Williams did well, but Its been said that it's not the themes that showcase how strong a composer is, but the elaboration and construction between them. In the case of Episode II, I think some of the 'connective tissue' between the set piece cues aren't as strong as they are in his masterpieces, Episode I or AI for example.

Studying Film, I can understand a great deal for the changes done to the scores and how they benefit it, but I do think that Williams was short on time when he did COS, Ep II, and to a lesser extent Minority report. It's almost implied by the "involvement" of William Ross who, by his own admission, was brought on to help Williams who had little time to work on the score (but must have found the enjoyment of writing for it and the time to do so and wrote a great deal more than what was expected).

As for Episode I, there is a great deal of editing done (but mostly minor looping changes but here are a list of some of the bigger changes I recall)... but yea... I wouldn't neccesarily say Hack job, it just means the film required lots of micro edits... but the finale was completely redone.

I imagine you've heard the original finale how it was intended (or best we can surmise).

I don't really disagree with anything you're saying here heh

 

When I first heard the music of Episode II in the cinema, I was wondering why it seemed like a carbon copy of Episode I's score with just some additions?

 

Actually, the music WAS that butchered.

The Podrace has most of its music either dialed out, or replaced with tracked music.

The original versions of some cues were re-recorded with different/reduced (especially DOTF)

Some cues had the percussion unpresented.

The true concert arrangement of DOTF is not officially released (DOTF on the OST is an edit of the End Credits)

 

Part of it was, which is (sadly?) a common practice nowadays.

But 75% of it wasn't butchered. All the music from the first hour of the movie (up to the Podrace) was left as recorded, with only small edits on some of the action cues.
The original music for the Podrace sequence was replaced, yes. .
Again, the music following the Podrace up until the final battle is mostly unedited.
And even the final battle music, although edited, was left were it belonged overall.Some of the edits were due to editing changes, and some because the filmmakers wanted something different (the duel).

To record alterante versions (with more/less perscussion) is common practice. Don't forget we're not talking about a Symphony, or a finished musical piece that is edited to fit the movie. We're talking about movie scores: there are frequent changes, additions, alterantes, and edits made by the composer himself (before and during the recording sessions) to fit the current version of the movie or the wishes of the director. It's an organic process, there is no such thing as "finished-perfect-and-unique-score that has to be left as it was recorded on the movie".

Anyway, I would like more information about the concert arrangement of DOTF and the original music for the duel, I've always been a bit confused about that.

 

Just thought I would leave this here, to show what we have at this point.

 

Is it just me, but I hear Game of Thrones theme around 3:40 mark?
Checked the comments on YouTube: nope, it's not just me

 

It's been a LONG time since I've posted on this forum but the "Ultimate Edition" for The Phantom Menace is nice to have for the previously unreleased music but other than that its a horrible listening experience.

Making a close to an intended edit (without the sheet music) is a lot better than before. The games have provided a wrath of new material.

Now grant from Battlefront up to both Force Unleashed we have had some previously unreleased music for AOTC but I was surprised and happy when The Old Republic contained A LOT of new music nearly the entire score. Grant a lot of cues has clean intros and endings but the music in between was an "Ultimate Editon" style but was for the most part was easy to undo. I am not sure why the game music editors decided to use material from the music only portion of the film stems instead of the recording sessions like TPM and ROTS.

Also as we know from Battlefront up through The Old Republic we have nearly all of ROTS. We're missing just over 7 minutes of music to make it 100% complete and clean.

Either way I wish they would get a legit release.

 

Not sure if this has been posted in this thread yet, but I dont have time to search through all 22 pages of this thread, but I just found the complete ROTS score at youtube:

Sorry. Can't allow copyrighted material to be posted.-Darth Boba

Some guy somehow must have isolated the score from the movie and edited it all together.

 

This is a silly tangent, but hearing the 20th century fox music by itself (something that is not usually on a soundtrack, so I don't think I've ever heard it disembodied from the image), I realize it is quite marvelous.

 

I guess you never bothered to read previous post, especially mine which is above yours!

This is just a fan edit using music from the OST, DVD (for percussion only pieces aka war drums at beginning). There's even SFX!, so this is by far not an accurate edit at all....

 

If you read my post I clearly stated that I really didn't have the time to read the thread and I gave a "disclaimer" that I really wasn't sure if it had already been mentioned or posted in this thread or not.