Leitmotif in the original trilogy

Has John Williams ever spoken as to why there is hardly any leitmotif in the new trilogy? In the first one that's all there was!

 

I don't know if he's addressed it or not, but it's a very good point.

My guess (and this is a guess, mind) is that with the first trilogy he was still -relatively- unknown as a composer, (he had Jaws, of course, and the theme to "Lost in Space" as "Johnny" Williams, but not the standing he has today--due in large part, of course to Star Wars and Indy), so Lucas felt it necessary to include more 'direction' on the score end of things.

Lucas liked Wagner at that point--and Holst, obviously--but set it up as an "opera," so Williams wrote it that way. I think after the first movie Lucas was far more wiling to just say, "Hey John, write some music, okay?" and leave him to it, and in the years since Williams has moved away from that Wagnerian leitmotif style.

Even in the OT you can hear the shift away from it, which is why I argue that ANH is the best of the scores to listen to musically. The least amount of just "incidental" music, whereas Jedi's score is made largely up of blaring nosies or eerie strings, etc. Which is why the Jedi Soundtrack tends to blow monkey chunks.

So my thought is really that Williams and Lucas are doing their own things now, with little discussion about the scores themselves outside of a few vague directions ("make this love theme sad," etc.). Which would explain why George chopped the hell out of Johnny's score on this one, because he heard it after the fact and didn't like it.

Ims

 

"Which is why the Jedi Soundtrack tends to blow monkey chunks."

Well that?s a little harsh, the sail barge has some great stuff in it, although with the Ewok battle ? but yeah I agree with that.


I forgave Menace for having little in it because as I understood at the time the prequel scores would age into leitmotif. I was looking forward to hear Anakin?s theme evolve into Vader?s theme, like we begin to hear at the end of Ani's the cue.

Haha- but in Episode II we hear Ani?s theme twice, once being a tracked on cue from Episode I.

It?s not like it would?ve been hard to do! F-ing Lucas.

 

what do you have against the jedi soundtrack? i thought it was pretty good, but not as good as empire strikes back...

 

Well, I guess I just think that Jedi's soundtrack has a few good bits, but most of it is redone. The "Sail Barge" stuff, for example, is just a rehash of themes from Star Wars (the Rebel Spaceship fanfare, etc). Same with the music for the end battle, which is in large part just "the Last Battle" from Star Wars.

The original pieces on Jedi consist really of Luke & Leia, which to me is the worst of the love themes, and the Ewok March and assorted Forest Battle suites, and a few minutes of the Emperor's theme, etc.

Perhaps my major problem is that -so much- of the music is just incidental; low humming strings to create tension, or mood, or whatever. See: almost all of jabba's palace, much of the Death Star stuff, etc.

So this is why I think it's the worst soundtrack. At least Star Wars in its quiet moments used really interesting instrumentation (tympani and piano on the Death Star) and such that gave it a -feel-. This was just plain old strings.

Ims

 

Well even though Jedi doesn?t have near as much leitmotif as Empire, it?s still abundantly more than Menace. Moreover, Luke and Leia?s theme as well the Ewok?s theme works like flippin? gangbusters for me, so I'd definitely have to agree to disagree.

And remember some of Jedi?s action cues might be a slight re-hash of A New Hope, but it least it?s newly orchestrated.

 

Admittedly, it's still a good soundtrack. I'm just saying that in relative terms, I find Phantom better.

And yeah, I'd agree with you that there's still more leitmotif in Jedi, but it's still getting threadbare even by then. So my thought is simply that Williams may not like to work with -so many- themes, but he doesn't mind holding on to one or two for each score (DOTF for TPM, ATS for AotC).

One interesting note is that I tend to really enjoy the "arrangements" of the Jedi score that are concert suites by Gerhardt, or just pieces that feel more complete than the actual film music; cf. the Emperor's Arrival, with the really cool trumpet fanfare version of Vader's theme before it segues into the Emperor's. That's very cool.

And admittedly, some of the Fleet music is good (there's a fanfare, an 11-note motif that's repeated twice just before the Rebel Briefing that's very cool and I wish had been used more).

But Luke and Leia...just as a "love theme" probably doesn't work for me because of a) incestuous connotations and b) the fact that it's just sickly sweet. Leia's theme from ANH is still my favorite of the "love themes". And the "primitve" feel of much of the Ewok themes tends to throw me off.

Ims

 

I thought JW would develop the TPM themes more in AOTC. I was kind of expecting Anakin's theme to be more prominant with JW using different arrangements.
Instead, he (or rather Lucas) just lifted the themes straight off the TPM soundtrack.
DOTF is the 'signature' theme for TPM (for me anyway) so I don't think we needed it in AOTC. And if GL did want it, a different arrangement would have been nice.

As to Luke & Leia's theme...I think it works great in ROTJ. It has a maturity and sadness to it that fits the two characters perfectly.
Besides it not a 'love theme' in the same way as 'Han & Leia's' in ESB - if I remember from the film, it's first played when Luke tells Leia that they're siblings.

 

Using Leitmotifs is a thing that not many composers can pull off. John Williams does it just fine...actually, better than fine. It's just that John Williams probably didn't intend on using them so extensively, and when he got the job of creating the score for TPM, he was left with so many themes, melodies, motifs, etc. that he could NOT make a cohesive and organized score along the same style. Leitmotifs are useful, but when you make more than one film.

Just as an example, imagine creating 5 very good "The Lion King" movies. The original has it's themes and songs. In the second one you build on the themes and introduce new material. The third movie, you carry everything from the first 2 and introduce a couple new themes. Already you're layering a lot of motifs on top of each other. Now, create 2 more movies with even more content, still pay homage to the original, and try to make it all work together. That's insane! EEK! I do NOT envy John Williams when it comes time to score Episode 3.

 

This is a good point...however, he's also making more work for himself than he needs to by constantly re-inventing the wheel. When he's got a theme established for someone in one movie, generally he's abandoned it and just created a new one ex nihilo in the next.

I mean, I concur that new things need to happen, but there should be an evolution, not simply Theme 1. Now a new theme for him, not growing out of the old one (Theme 2). See Vader's Theme for an example of this, actually.

For AotC, he could have shifted the TF march to be more of the Clone-troopers signature tune and then played with variations on that; he didn't. There's little leitmotif at all for them, save the last minutes of the film. Does Dooku get his own theme? Does Obi-Wan really have oen? Does the Jedi Temple? Naboo? Etc.

I don't know if there's as much as you think.

Ims

 

Well there is...


Love theme
Trade federation theme (though only used once)
Bounty hunter/assassin theme

Force motif
Yoda motif (not used often enough to be a recurring theme)
Star Wars motif (only use in the opening crawl and credits, as well tracked on from the Menace score)
Duel of the fates (used once)
There?s a bit of a 3PO motif

Compared to Empire:

Han and Leia theme
Yoda theme
Luke?s theme
Vader?s theme
R2 and 3PO?s theme
Lando?s theme
Force theme

Bounty hunter motif


That?s about right...

 

This might be a bit off the line of conversation, but I'm waiting for "Here They Come!" to appear. I LOVE that theme. It has been called the rebellion motif, tie fighter attack, etc. but I still love it. It probably won't pop up in episode 3, but I can hope.

 

Lietmotif is GLARINGLY absent from the PT. I am appalled at the mediocre and meandering music which is in TPM and AOTC. I can listen to any of the OT sountracks on thier own and hear a story, yet i have not been able to identify any character with any theme consitantly in the TPM or AOTC soundtracks.

I would like to hear more exposition on Yoda's/the Force theme and the march of the Jedi Knights/Ben's theme.

To my taste the Imperial march was introduced far too soon in AOTC.

 

I wish the main SW theme was used more, both in AOTC and TPM. I know it's more Luke's theme, but it's really notable by it's absence (especially when it does appear in the end credits).

I suppose the elements that make up the SW saga are different for everyone - whether it's the story, the design, the characters or the effects. For me, the music is just as important as the story, especially as the music in the OT really helped to convey the emotion in a scene. You can't picture the 'Hear they come' scene in ANH without the music, and vice versa. They work together to make the scene great.

Unfortunately the music in PT is so subdued, and acts so much as 'filler' music that you don't connect half as well with a scene as you could. Lack of leitmotifs (or JW not deciding to develop the ones he made in TPM) makes it worse.