Falstaft

One of the most inexplicably excised sections of a cue on a Williams OST. Up there with two other notorious cuts, from ROTS "Lament" and "It Can't Be." Can't think of any others quite as egregious.

We'd love to help @mxsch, but like @Jay says it's hard to know exactly what you're thinking of without more examples, or more specificity within the example you're citing. It could be a cadence, like @Jurassic Sharksays, but that's a pretty foundational aspect of musical organization. That said, if you're curious, you might get a kick out of this: https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.13.19.4/mto.13.19.4.lehman.html...

One of my favorites is General Grievous from the ROTS OST. It may be a bit crude, but the copy-paste of 1:15-2:20 to 3:35-end has always really worked for me, made for a well-rounded and satisfying track.

We have an extremely polarized electorate!

I have it on good authority (the Star Wars Disenchantment Thread) that he's busy at work finishing up the score to Star Wars Episode X.

Hrm, to each their own, I suppose. But it seems odd to me to deny yourself hearing one of the standout action tracks, not just of TROS, but Williams's post 2010 output as a whole. And it's just 2:23 minutes long! Spoil yourself a little, @mstrox!

I will make it legal. Here you go!

I couldn't agree more with your interpretation, @Ludwig. So much of the impact in that particular cue comes from the instrumentation -- fairly sure it's a solo English Horn, a rarely used but very affecting timbral color in these scores. It gives the theme a haunted, exposed quality I'm not sure we've ever heard before. I dare say there's more "emotional range" in these various treatments of Palpatine's Theme in Episode 9 than there were through the whole Prequel Trilogy. (In fact, "I Am The Senate" and "Anakin's Dark Deeds" hold the only iteration I can think of that's something other than the standard slow, lurking evil vibe.) I personally chose "Spy's Message" because I like how the theme really gets room to breathe. And the little upper-woodwind counterline at 2:34 of the video above is simply delicious to me for some reason. (There's also something about the pacing strings that recalls the Duel scene from Harry Potter 2 among other things.)

We get some really nifty statements of The Emperor's Theme in Episode 9. What's your favorite, and why? These are the instances I could discern, but may be missing one or two. It's not always clear to me what was intended where, and there are a few statements that are clearly tracked in multiple places. (And who knows what else lurks in the unheard pages of Williams's phantom TROS score). Notes on the poll: * - This is a very slightly rearranged, chorus-free restatement of the theme from ROTJ, R10P2 (The Emperor Confronts Luke) ** - This appears to be a tracked restatement of the beginning of ROTS 7m3 (Birth of the Twins) For reference, here's a compilation someone made

I'm not sure I'd call the tumultuous part "generic" but I strongly agree with you otherwise that it's much too heavy. Everything up to 1:12 is superb and atmospheric, and then all hell kind of breaks loose. One of quite a few spots in TLJ that I wish Williams had approached in a subtler way.

It's so interesting to revisit this thread, and to see folks' opinion on Attack of the Clones when it was still fresh. Have any of your opinions changed on 3M3 "The First Kiss"? @King Mark? For musical reference, the musical cue in question: (I know the thread is about scoring, not music on its own... but seriously, I don't want anyone to be subjected to the to the actual scene in question, which remains as cringe-worthy as it was in 2002...)

ANH is basically untouchable. Its biggest flaw is that, somehow, its successor ESB manages to be even better. TPM is brilliant, boundlessly energetic and inventive. If we were able to hear the real, originally intended score for the Battle of Naboo, I suspect it would be even more highly ranked. Its biggest flaw is that its Prequel Trilogy successors don't really follow through with what it sets up thematically (in particular Anakin's Theme & DoTF). TFA is a solid A score, but not transcendent in the same way ANH is, or extravagantly enjoyable like TPM. The dramatic underscore is generally good, but not great. It's biggest strength is its new themes, an absolute knockout finale, and the fact that the rest of the Sequel Trilogy does follow through with what it sets up. (Excepting the abandonment of the Finn/Pursuit motif.) So, musically speaking: the OT peaks in the middle with ESB, the PT at the beginning with TPM, and the ST at the end with TROS. This is all purely my opinion, of course!

There are plenty of cases of sound-alike cues whose similarities are overrated, but at least for the first 20 seconds, "The Face of Pan" & Agnes of God isn't one of them. I mean, the opening few measures of FoP are so clearly modeled on the Delerue -- right down to the voicing of chords -- that you could practically overlay them and it would still work. They're not carbon copies of course, but the churchy progression, upper-voice melody, orchestration, and texture is the same. The differences aren't enough to obscure the similarities, but they do exist: a slightly slower harmonic rhythm in Delerue; a more interesting harp part for Williams; a 2nd rather than 1st inversion EM chord in Williams; and the not-trivial fact that the phrase leads to C#m for JW vs. parallel minor of Em for Delerue. After that introductory musical paragraph, it's a more general orchestrational and affective similarity, like @Thor says, than a concrete melodic one. But, still, some pretty clear temp-trackitis throughout. I say this all while still holding "The Face of Pan" to be one of Williams's best lyrical set-pieces of his whole career. It's a masterpiece.The first concert arrangement, in particular, is practically perfect in my mind. This newer arrangement is an odd misfire to me. I don't like the sparser harp texture at 0:23, and think the new modulation at 1:49 is really ungainly. Worst, the sublime brass chorale from the original concert arr is inexplicably rewritten so as to lead less effectively to the resumption of the main theme at 2:25. In general, I think when Williams redoes a concert arrangement it's hit or miss; something like the new, positively transformative "Han Solo and the Princess" and "Across the Stars" is like rediscovering the theme anew, whereas the revised "Hymn to the Fallen" sounds almost like a violation of the original to me. All, of course, a matter of personal taste. (And overlearning the original too probably, I confess!)

In truth, this is probably my least favorite arrangement by Williams, though I'm glad others seem so fond of it. To me, it's little more than an awkward cut-and-paste job, with no actual arranging happening besides the choice of when to cut off one excerpt and begin the next. That said, I always get a chuckle out of the abrupt shift from Titanic to Psycho, which nicely punctures the romantic gooeyness of the former.

Fantastic as always, @Ludwig. Can't wait to follow this series of posts, and to come to an even appreciation of Morricone's artistry.

Hard not to choose the huge set-pieces, which, especially as presented on the Intrada album are simply phenomenal. The big three -- "The Intersection Scene," "Escape from the City," and "The Ferry Scene" -- are, in my mind, peerless depictions of musical panic and violence. But this expanded release is giving me appreciation of some of the less obvious, more atmospheric corners of the score. So here are three underdogs: "Surveying the Wreckage/Watch the Lightning" "Woods Walk" "Harlan Ogilvy"

This is really remarkable, @Ludwig, and strengthens my feeling that "Farewell" is one of the cues Williams pored the most effort and attention to. I'm also struck by how this semitonal figure is prefigured earlier in the score. I have to thank @BrotherSound for pointing out one particularly ingenious usage: as the counter-melody against Leia's theme during her elegy in "Healing Wounds" -- first following Kylo Ren's melodic contour, then inverting it, then combining both up and down forms at 2:10. Superb.

I think you're right about this, though it's a pretty subtle transformation. Cool! I myself can't help but hear the B-section of the Men of Yorktown march in that little snippet:

To me, one of The Rise of Skywalker's most endearing qualities is the number of short, transient melodies and motifs that are heard just once or twice. These tend to be unrelated to the series's main catalogue of leitmotifs, and they aren't really set-piece themes either since they don't draw attention to themselves like "The Asteroid Field" or "Flag Parade" do. Nevertheless, I find these little one-offs quite essential to the overall warm, humane tone of this score as a whole. Here's a sample of what I'm talking about: Leia Trains Rey. Two distinct statements, at 0:10:33 and 0:13:24, neither on OST. Luke Trains Leia. Two distinct statements, one on OST (Track 6, 1:28) but cut from film, one in film (1:33:18) but cut from OST. Children's School. One statement, at 0:22:56, not on OST. Zorii's Farewell. One statement, on OST (Track 8, 0:24) and in film at 0:55:01. What do you all think? What other short, non-leitmotivic moments from Episode 9 caught your attention?

Since that video, I did catch two subsequent, somewhat loose usages, one in The Post (listen especially at 3:16-3:19)... ...and one, quite loose, in The Rise of Skywalker.

Such an underratedly awesome track. Brutal.

I'm really curious about this too. Granted, there are plenty examples of sort of sawing string patterns in pre-TLW Williams, but nothing with quite with the specific Ludlow melodic profile. One of these days, someone'll have to pore over the string parts in action & tension cues in, say, JP1 or Empire of the Sun to see if there are any precedents...

Just received my copy. Really getting a kick out of The Entrance To Boston alternate. Anyone else notice a certain motif from another franchise being previewed at 1:56. In parallel fifths, from the sound of it!

Bravo!! Hope you find a good way to celebrate your well-deserved achievement!

If that's what you had in mind -- measures 1-6 of 2M1 -- then I hate to say it but you're misremembering. The theme never reaches that Kylo-esque phrase, but instead completes the Emperor theme's first 4-measures in Gm and then modulates for a 2 measure partial statement in Fm. And this kind of reworking of the leitmotif is characteristic.There is not one rendition of the Emperor's theme through the PT that has the relevant concluding phrase. Quite the contrary, we of all people, knowing full well the often ad-hoc nature of Williams's scoring style and the limits of his memory, should be more skeptical of these purported "deep" connections than the average listener. We all know the famous examples of, shall we say, thematic amnesia in his corpus. But I'll add that, when I asked him last summer how he keeps all his motifs straight across these 9 films, he said that he tries but doesn't always succeed. (He went on to give an amusing anecdote about mixing up a few of his character themes while scoring 1941 and, when he apologized to Spielberg, he laughed and said he didn't notice or care).