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"Goodbye Old Friend"—A Mystery of the Sith


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Can anyone help me figure this out? I just came into possession of an unofficial copy of the "complete" Revenge of the Sith soundtrack, and one of the biggest selling points for me was the first minute or so of this Youtube video, apparently titled "Goodbye, Old Friend." It begins with some energetic, jumpy strings, followed by some Episode I-ish Romanesque brass and a nifty suggestion of "Across the Stars" in the horns, and segues into some truly righteous Force theme statements—some of the best in the prequels, as far as I'm concerned. Here's the clip, apparently assembled from video game audio tracks. I'm referring to the first 1:10 or so:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIHI5aouffE

Sounds great, no? Imagine my surprise, then, when my MP3 titled "Goodbye, Old Friend" (which is, paradoxically, exactly 1:10 in length) sounds like this instead:

There seems to be some similarity in the nervous opening strings, but my limited powers of musical perception can't divine whether it's identical. Either way, neither the love theme nor the Roman fanfare ever shows up, and the Force theme does reach the fist-pumpingly awesome climax, but it seems to get there by another route. Are these alternate takes of the same scene?

In case the NSA, or the RCA (Victor), are listening, THIS IS WHY WE NEED OFFICIAL COMPLETE PREQUEL RELEASES!!

Any thoughts? (To top it off, by the way, the running times of the "Goodbye, Old Friend" and "Landing on Utapau" MP3s don't add up to the running time of the video, which supposedly combines the two.)

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The second clip presents the music as edited in the film, tracking in music from other scenes before the Force Theme statement ( I am sure our resident experts could name the cues from which it is taken) . So it is just heavily edited version of the same music, leaving out considerable amount of the original intended music.

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Incanus is right, as per usual. :) The first video presents the beginning of the cue as it was written and recorded for use in the film. The second video presents the film version, which was edited so that it starts instead with material tracked from the later cue "Dialogue With Mace."

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The Dialogue with Mace cue sounds a lot like Williams' underscore for WAR OF THE WORLDS to me. As do some other cues, for example the second part of Duel with Dooku. Perhaps because of the similar orchestration.

As a side note, I don't like people including tracked music instead of the original in their edits. Why would you do that? If so, it wouldn't be a 'complete' score as well.

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As a side note, I don't like people including tracked music instead of the original in their edits. Why would you do that? If so, it wouldn't be a 'complete' score as well.

Because they're stupid? I too don't like it, I mean I use to ALONG time ago but these days no. It's very difficult to make smooth transitions.

Parts of me have thought about revisiting the tracked music for Battle Of Geonosis now that we have all the pieces for it and that I've gotten better at making reverbed endings. However, it would still be a difficult task to try and make the loops smooth as possible...

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Thanks for the explanation! What a strange business this tracking stuff is. I can't hear anything in the edited version that I would define as superior to the original. I guess I'd need to see them both tracked to the picture, but as music, the original is much better.

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I think the tracked music settles a very different mood - the opening of the original cue is very upbeat, whereas the tracked music is rather melancholic, and may be a warning (so to say) of Anakin's 'betrayal' later in the story.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I absolutely love the "roman-esque" brass. Does Williams have any other songs (not necessarily from Star wars, but that's fine) that have those cool, fanfaric, introductory passages? List would be helpful!

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I absolutely love the "roman-esque" brass. Does Williams have any other cues that have those cool, fanfaric, introductory passages? List would be helpful!

#1 fixed

#2 Arrival at Coruscant, from Episode I, The Quidditch Match/Game/whatever the cue is called.

The film version reminds me of Jurassic Park.

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Can anyone help me figure this out? I just came into possession of an unofficial copy of the "complete" Revenge of the Sith soundtrack, and one of the biggest selling points for me was the first minute or so of this Youtube video, apparently titled "Goodbye, Old Friend." It begins with some energetic, jumpy strings, followed by some Episode I-ish Romanesque brass and a nifty suggestion of "Across the Stars" in the horns, and segues into some truly righteous Force theme statements—some of the best in the prequels, as far as I'm concerned. Here's the clip, apparently assembled from video game audio tracks. I'm referring to the first 1:10 or so:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIHI5aouffE

Sounds great, no? Imagine my surprise, then, when my MP3 titled "Goodbye, Old Friend" (which is, paradoxically, exactly 1:10 in length) sounds like this instead:

There seems to be some similarity in the nervous opening strings, but my limited powers of musical perception can't divine whether it's identical. Either way, neither the love theme nor the Roman fanfare ever shows up, and the Force theme does reach the fist-pumpingly awesome climax, but it seems to get there by another route. Are these alternate takes of the same scene?

In case the NSA, or the RCA (Victor), are listening, THIS IS WHY WE NEED OFFICIAL COMPLETE PREQUEL RELEASES!!

Any thoughts? (To top it off, by the way, the running times of the "Goodbye, Old Friend" and "Landing on Utapau" MP3s don't add up to the running time of the video, which supposedly combines the two.)

Yes I have thoughts. First, thanks for posting that first video. Musically that was one of the best parts of Episode III. JW really nailed it. The music told the audience this:

"Buckle your seatbelts. You've been waiting nearly 30 years for this. Shit is about to get crazy." And then there is that short fade to black. JW really did a great job. All hell breaks loose shortly after this. Love it.

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