deleted account

You know why nobody seems to mind, George? Because every damn cut is available to the fans! Dumbshit. Well, all of the cuts of the Star Wars movies are available to fans, from a certain point of view. We just need to hang onto laserdiscs or VCRs to watch them. For GL to release the first theatrical versions on BluRay would be the ultimate concession to fan greed, from George's perspective, since he will have to pay people to clean up the footage for BR release. And George's pride is all he has left. He's not letting that go without a fight. This is his fight. George Lucas' final stand. Anybody who goes to see Star Wars in 3D or Red Tails or any indie film the man makes is proving him right: that he can hang onto his silly pride argument and still make a buck in Hollywood. I honestly think George is just not happy with the original versions and as along as he has the technology and time to tinker with his movies he's going to - these films aren't sacred cows to him, they're personal creative works that he keeps trying to get "more right", closer to what he has in his head. There's always a gap between what a creator has in his head and what he can achieve in the real world. He just refuses to accept that the theatrical release date is a cut-off point for working on a film. A lot of the Lucas-tinkering bashers have made me think: is the real problem just that it's different? Is he making these films any better by tinkering with them? I dunno - it's hard to be objective because the originals are so close to my heart. They ARE different - but is that difference worse? If ROTJ had come out in 1983 with Vader yelling "Noooooooo" as he picked up the Emperor and threw him down the shaft, would it have seemed out of place? If GL then took it out for the blu-ray, would I feel differently than him adding it in? Honestly, when I watched the 6 films on bluray last fall, none of the changes really diminished my enjoyment. I noticed the changes, but I'd be hard pressed to say they ruined my feelings about the films. Blinking Ewoks? Fine. Vader saying "noooo" at the end of Jedi? I'm ok with it since it bookends nicely with his "noooo" from SITH. Ghost Hayden? I know it doesn't necessarily make logical sense but emotionally, it IS more satisfying to me to see HC at the end of the 6 film cycle than Shaw. I'd even be ok with HC either dubbing Shaw's voice or somehow being cg'd into the vader suit for the helmet-less scene on the Death Star. Am I crazy? Probably, but so what. I like having a copy of the original version of the Emperor in ESB, but I PREFER seeing Ian McDiarmid in the scene as it is on the bluray. Blasphemy? Probably. So what. The Beach Boys Pet Sounds was released in stereo for the first time ten or so years ago - until then it had only ever been available in mono. A landmark record. You know what? Since the stereo came out, I've never listened to the mono. I HAVE the mono, but I prefer the stereo. Even though there are differences that couldn't be avoided (missing master tapes, tracks that were wiped after the mono mix, etc) and the mono is the one Brian Wilson sweated over 44+ years ago, I'd rather hear it in stereo. Same thing with Sgt Pepper - in fact, every album the Beatles made except Abbey Road (and Yellow Sub and Let it Be too, although they don't really count) was mixed in mono first under the supervision of the band. Then the producers went back days later and cranked out the stereo mixes on their own without the group there. So the mono versions are really the "definitive" versions of the albums - but the stereo version of Pepper is actually a better mix in my opinion than the mono one. There are people who prefer the version of Blade Runner with the narration, even though by all accounts it was imposed on Harrison Ford by nervous producers and a director willing to do what he could to make the producers happy. So yeah, there are different versions of a lot of things, and sometimes those newer versions have phased out older versions. Just because they're different doesn't mean they're worse. That's all I'm saying... Here endeth the rant. Does anybody even care? PS - For that matter, does anyone listen to the album versions of JW scores once they cut their own edits? I can't remember the last time I listened to his albums of the Star Wars or Indiana Jones scores, for example...In fact, none of the prequels scores or the Indiana Jones movies have gotten any kind of really definitive release. But everyone seems to blame Sony for that. No one seems to hate JW for fiddling with his music the way they hate George for fiddling with his movies...

I'm not sure why this is news suddenly - Lucas said the same thing in 1996 when the SE's were being prepped (there's a cd-rom called Making Magic where he explains that he finally gets to clear up that Greedo is meant to shoot first). Yes, he may be a revisionist, but his revisionism started at least 15 years ago, not this week...

I'm pretty good at mockups. Does anyone have the sheet music/sketch/score for AOTC 2m2 "Palpatine's Plotting"? It's one of the biggest gaps in the score now that TOR has filled in so many holes and I'd love to take a stab at mocking it up. PM me - I have some stuff I can trade...

Hey Mark, yep it's still me, I check in from time to time, but after ROTS came out, I kind of quieted down. Then some personal upheavals shook things up, but now I'm so interested in the newly available Star Wars music that I've been trolling the site a lot more lately.

It IS a little confusing with the different filenames - for example, my Force Unleashed files have totally different file names than the ones in Trent's excellent editing guides, I"m not sure why... Also, I'm not sure I ever got the Henry Buck files...

Wow, so you guys are just plonking through each track figuring out if it's from one of the film scores or written specifically for the game? Impressive... EDIT: I just found this page, which seems to have what I was asking about... http://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=19075&st=240&p=775489entry775489

Is there some sort of guide to the files in TOR? Like a table of contents or something? I don't mean an editing guide - Trent's doing those and they are awesome. I mean like an index. Thanks

Good to know - but at least there isn't any evidence of major musical set-pieces that are still "in the vault", so to speak. Meaning all of our various constructions of TPM are probably more or less complete...

Rewatching AOTC on blu-ray last week, it occurred to me that I didn't hear any music in the tracked sections of the Geonosis battles that isn't available in some form in one of the video games or on TPM UE, which leads to me think there probably isn't much from the Battle of Naboo that remains completely unreleased....any thoughts?

Any info where this comes from? Did someone get a hold of AOTC sketches or something? In lieu of some evidence, I say this is a fake, imagined by someone who considers himself to be a Williams fan and composer extrapolating a cue out of the elements that made it into the finished cue and the Across The Stars music video - even taking into account the synth-mockup of it, it just doesn't seem to flow in any logical, musical John Williams-y way to my ear. Of course, I could be wrong, and apologies if I am, but that's my two cents. And JW doesn't do synth mockups himself - the live recording session is the first time the director hears the music in it's orchestrated form. Fake or not, it IS an interesting piece, tho

Tom Voegli did have access to some format of expanded or complete Empire cues, because the radio show used a lot of music not heard in either the vinyl double-LP or the film itself and remained unreleased in any other way until the RCA/Victor cd in '97. And the Finale from Empire that was referred to earlier in the thread is just The Rebel Fleet cue with a clean ending (much like the end of AOTC that closes the Across The Stars music video). It's not technically an alternate cue. By the way, someone made a dvd preservation of their 16mm print of Ep IV (or simply Star Wars as it's called then:) ) which used the mono mix of the film, and I never noticed before but in the mono mix they prelapped the cantina music over the exterior shot of Ben Luke and the robots going in, so when they cut inside instead of starting cold, the music is continuing. Interesting.

You can see for yourself the temp music for the ending of ROTJ Special Edition on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqRmWI6VAtc The music is from the documentary "500 Nations" and it's by Peter Buffet. You can get it on itunes if you want.

Another thing to consider is that the temp music for the "Victory Celebration" sequence is in Gm. It may be possible that Lucasfilm simply sent JW a sequence with the new ending to Jedi and the temp music but no end titles at the end of the scene. Perhaps instructed to stick to the temp as closely as possible (which he did), did JW notice it would result in a clash if he ended on beat 1 with a Bb when the end titles start in Eb? Maybe he planned on leaving the beat of silence so the ear could adjust to the new key coming in? I seem to recall Mattesino saying that the RCA/Victor cd presented the segue the way JW intended it, and that it was edited/shortened in the movie. I suspect GL didn't care about the clash in tonality as much as getting rid of the silent beat, and made the cut for that reason.

I always assumed JW cut the Darth Sidious material out of the finale cd track from AOTC to "preserve" the "reveal" that he is in league with Dooku, that is, to minimize spoilers.

I made my own edits and playlists from the material in the Concord set, using other sources (Raiders DCC, Lego Indy, DVD rips) as minimally and selectively as possible. TOD is just such a great listen now, I put it on in the car on my ipod all the time now.

I don't think we'll see comprehensive releases of the SW prequel scores for quite some time. Lucasfilm tends to stage releases around holidays and right now, they've got tons of new material to release with THE CLONE WARS tv show. I don't think they'll go the well of SW music until it's all they have left to make money off of. And I don't mean that as a dig either.

Plans for the Twins is available clean, as I understand it, from the German DVD, and Padme's Funeral can be made clean by combining said DVD rip with TFU material. Padme's Funeral is almost clean, but not entirely - you can hear the sounds of footsteps, clothing, and atmosphere, as well as some gentle murmuring, in the mix with the music. It is, however, entirely listenable, imho.

As I'm sure you know Henry, all the changes heard in the UE are the result of alterations made in the music to fit changes in the visuals in the time between the spotting of the music and the final mix. With all the "tricks" available to a music editor now (speed alterations, looping, adding reverb, etc), there's nothing holding anyone back from making changes in the film up to the very last possible moment. Sometimes in the film itself, with all the dia and sound fx, the alterations to the music are not offensive, but when heard out of context on a cd a la the UE, they are just so messy, as you say. I would say that 90% of the changes made to the score of TPM for the final theatrical mix were done to accommodate picture, not for artistic purposes in the score itself. (For example, I believe the music for the sith probe before the flag parade, and for the last lap of the Pod Race are two changes they DID make for artistic, musical reasons and not to accomodate changes in the picture. However, the looping of the DOTF phrase for the moment when Padme pulls the secret gun out of the hiding place on her throne in Reel 6 is made because they added a shot or something to the picture.)

Williams himself cited Prokofiev's "Love of Three Oranges" as inspiration for the Jawa theme, even though it wasn't actually temp'd into the film

Yeah, life-long Who fan. Definitely don't get what they're thinking yet with this new guy, but like we've all, said seems to know what he's doing so... What I liked about the possibility of Chiwetel especially was that he was so different from Tenant. Smith seems sort of like a younger version of Tenant to me, what with the skinny and the big hair, etc...

I am pretty open-minded about things (I keep watching Torchwood, for example, and I even like the SW prequels) but I just get a real knee-jerk negative reaction whenever I look at Matt Smith. And the interviews clips I saw of him didn't ease my mind at all. BUT, hopefully, by the time he starts shooting, they will have worked out a new look for him (i.e. toned down the hair, crafted a less-Tenant-y vibe). The youthful-ness throws me off too, but perhaps they will be making something of that in the show (everyone doubts him cos he looks like a kid, etc). I do trust Moffat, but seeing this guy, my first thought was that maybe Russell Davies shouldn't be leaving after all... ps - i thought Sylvester McCoy's best performance was in the Paul McGann movie

One moment that comes to mind is in Ep 1 when Anakin walks away from his mother, JW goes to the Flat-II chord instead of the IV. Off the top of my head I can't think of any in the OT, but that certainly doesn't mean there aren't any....

In the first paragraph, he says a lot of great musicians can't read music...etc. Then, to illustrate his point he cites John Tesh, seemingly as a great musician, who he also claims wrote a truly great sports theme. Ergo my original post. I just thought it was funny on a JW board for someone to name John Tesh of all people as a great musician who wrote a great theme. I really wasn't trying to bash on Wojo or anyone else's tastest. Happy Thanksgiving!

Wait wait wait did one of you say that John Tesh is a great composer?!

I voted no with the caveat that it IS a bother when trying to edit tracks together to create some semblance of the film version of the end of TOD (the edit from the Return to the Village to the End Credits).