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What is the very best unused JW cue?


Quintus

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The Hunt? Aboard the Executor? The Ballroom Scene from Witches of Eastwick? Something else?

Which is the finest and most substantial unutilised or criminally wasted cue from John Williams' large filmic repertoire?

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The Hunt? Aboard the Executor? The Ballroom Scene from Witches of Eastwick? Something else?

Which is the finest and most substantial unutilised or criminally wasted cue from John Williams' large filmic repertoire?

You mean unused in the film, but appearing on a soundtrack album? Do alternates count?

I'm not sure myself, as I would need a list of such cues, but I'm sure there are some.

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The Hunt? Aboard the Executor? The Ballroom Scene from Witches of Eastwick? Something else?

Which is the finest and most substantial unutilised or criminally wasted cue from John Williams' large filmic repertoire?

For many it would be the alternate Binary Sunset. It is true that part of the Ballroom Scene from Witches was not used. That would definitely be my vote.

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The Hunt? Aboard the Executor? The Ballroom Scene from Witches of Eastwick? Something else?

Which is the finest and most substantial unutilised or criminally wasted cue from John Williams' large filmic repertoire?

You mean unused in the film, but appearing on a soundtrack album? Do alternates count?

Alternates can count. By unused I mean a cue which only ever turned up on some OST or album release after being completely circumvented by its movie.

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Ive never heard anyone claim that the alternate Binary Sunset is a better, or more fitting piece then the film version though.

Me neither, but it's frequently praised as one of Williams' best unused cues.

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There's a droid/Threepio motif in the alternate Binary Sunset that is heard later on in Tales of a Jedi Knight and there's possibly some kind of play on it at the start of The Return Home. Or maybe I'm the only one who hears that.

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"Sirius Black's Escape" from POA. Really wish that was included on the soundtrack album.

I'm sorry I misread "unused" as "unreleased". I always liked "The Hunt" from TLW.

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Aboard The Executor

The Hunt

The original opening of Ice Planet Hoth replaced by a rescore

Luke's Rescue

Training of a Jedi Knight

That awesome loud opening of Mynock Cave

All the Luke/Vader duel music

Opening of High Wire Stunts

Hungry Raptor

The Arena

Three Note Loop

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STAR WARS, SCHMAR WARS....

I would probably pick a cue from some of his 60s efforts. For example, there are some smokin' tracks on the CHECKMATE album that never appeared in the series proper.

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Okay these are good suggestions for someone like me who is looking, and so possible links would be a great resource.

Also, why do we think Spielberg rejected The Hunt? Or was it executive pressure which dictated that the music there should be lighter and more adventurous? The original cue is really rather dark and visceral, so maybe it brought a sort of mature tone that some felt wrong for a JP sequel?

On 8/2/2015 at 9:15 AM, Thor said:

STAR WARS, SCHMAR WARS....

I would probably pick a cue from some of his 60s efforts. For example, there are some smokin' tracks on the CHECKMATE album that never appeared in the series proper.

Any links? These sound interesting.

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Most of the music on the Checkmate LP actually never appears in the TV show, as Williams wrote it specifically for the album.

My vote goes definitely to the Balloon Sequence from Witches of Eastwick. It's still hard to understand why filmmakers would think it wouldn't work in the film. Oh well, at least JW gave it a new life in concert hall.

Same goes for The Hunt from The Lost World and The Arena from Episode II--you don't write such climactic, complex, exciting pieces of music knowing that someone maybe would scrap them off of the movie.

I love lots of the unused pieces in Superman, like the second half of Destruction of Krypton.

Most of the Star Wars OT unused music (esp. TESB) is absolutely great, but I believe the film works better without it in almost all cases.

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Most of the music on the Checkmate LP actually never appears in the TV show, as Williams wrote it specifically for the album.

Yup. Some of the tracks/themes obviously appear in the series (in a slightly different form, as the album was a rerecording), but a lot of them don't. I'd have to consult the liner notes to see which do and which don't. To me, they all come together as a perfect concept album.

In fact, Williams frequently did this during the 60s. Albums like NOT WITH MY WIFE YOU DON'T, PENELOPE etc. have some GREAT tracks that never appeared in the film, but that seemed specifically composed for the album (or not used in the film). Like the awesome "Hungarian Jungle Music", which never appeared in NWMWYD, but which is still on the album (couldn't find it on Youtube, unfortunately).

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Very probably Aboard the Executor, which is probably the best rendition of the theme.

The alternate Funeral Pyre for a Jedi. The grand final bombastic rendition of Ben's Theme, not the quiet reflective and wholly appropriate version that was used.

That's a good one, too. I love the sparkly orchestration.

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Very probably Aboard the Executor, which is probably the best rendition of the theme.

The alternate Funeral Pyre for a Jedi. The grand final bombastic rendition of Ben's Theme, not the quiet reflective and wholly appropriate version that was used.

That's a good one, too. I love the sparkly orchestration.

I think the alternate Funeral Pyre from ROTJ is actually an arrangement done for the OST album.

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I think the alternate Funeral Pyre from ROTJ is actually an arrangement done for the OST album.

We're talking about the one with the fiery accompaniment at the beginning? Not the one that's more or less from the regular concert version?

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Its not possible it was an original version replaced by a rescore?

It's possible, sure. There's no sheet music to confirm. To me it always sounded as a very formal and stately Wagner-esque rendition of the Force theme--it just doesn't play right with the melancholic tone of the scene. But this is pure speculation on my behalf :)

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Ballroom Scene from Witches of Eastwick is the first that is coming to my head.

A superb effort of John Williams to be an alternative to Nessun Dorma (from Puccini's Turandot).

Unfortunately George Miller wanted the original in his movie. John Williams never worked with him again. :D

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I wonder how many great cues are still out there unheard. I'll bet there's a treasure-trove of good stuff collecting dust on a reel in some studio warehouse... the original finale to AOTC comes to mind.

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That "The Ballroom Scene" was not used in full, is one of the very greatest crimes against film music! At least JW's most beautiful piece of music ever, is on the OST.

Other than that, I enjoy "Binary Sunset" - alternate, but I can see why GL wanted it changed.

Actually, "Binary Sunset" - alternate, is not actually an alternate. Since it was composed first, then changed, the film version is the proper alternate. Phew! Glad we've cleared that up!

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Fifty Miles of Desert from The Eiger Sanction.

Yes! It appears in the trailer (sort of) but that doesn't really count. This and the aforementioned The Hunt would be my top two picks.

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Found a link for "Hungarian Jungle Music" from NOT WITH MY WIFE YOU DON'T for those interested and who don't already own it. Now if this isn't a great unused JW track, I don't know what is:

https://www.song365.co/track/john-williams-hungarian-jungle-music-1336833.html

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I'd love to be creative and totally original with this, but I can't think of a better example than "The Ballroom Scene." When you have a gift like that in your hands and you fail to use it, you're guilty of criminal incompetence.

Which is one of the reasons the answers to this question are bound to be limited. Most directors would kill to have JW scoring their film, so he has very few rejected scores and pieces making it a very small pool to draw from. There'd be a lot more to choose from if you were asking the same about Goldsmith, Horner, or most other composers.

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The unused alternate titles for Tintin are pretty interesting. Or so I'd imagine.

"Diagon Alley" also comes to mind. The unused version written for the film, I mean.

It's easy to forget that the OST track "The Raptor Attack" is actually the mostly-unused cue "Into the Kitchen", too.

Sent from my XT1094 using Tapatalk

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It would be good to hear the full version of "Miles On Wheels", especially the "trio" middle section.

"The Helicopter Explosion" should have had a full airing.

There are tons of source stuff that is not presented fully in JW's films, but that is not their intention.

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Chamber Of Secrets. I'm not sure if it wasn't used at all in the film. But the scope and breadth of it on the album is nowhere to be found in the actual movie.

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  • 4 years later...

I don't know if that qualifies, because it wasn't entirely unused, although still hacked to pieces and crappily combined with parts from the Zam chase scene, but I really like On the Conveyor Belt:

 

 

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On 8/3/2015 at 10:10 AM, Boom Tss said:

Fifty Miles of Desert from The Eiger Sanction.

 

I was so disappointed watching that weird-ass movie, waiting for that badass cue to come in and wake me up.

 

 

5 hours ago, Romão said:

All great choices. I would also add the alternate Sail Barge Assault from ROTJ

 

Absolutely! Definitely one of the more drastic tonal changes from one version to another in his career.

 

I'd say boring choices like The Arena--number one for me--, The Hunt, and all the weird music from Hoth, which is my favorite part of the score. The alternate version of Return to the City from Empire of the Sun is pretty cool too.

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