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Favorite short musical moments in Williams scores?


Balahkay

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One from recent memory: Star Ship Escapes (1:34 - 2:16) from Superman. Love that little bit

and another

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-ekfJbWrnGM"frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

2:07 - end

For some reason, it's really a warm, fuzzy ending in the film as the scene of Grant and the kids are sleeping in the tree changes to Ellie watching Hammond.

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There are way too many little moments in Williams' scores that give me goosebumps, but the one part of Superman I ALWAYS become emotional to is the gorgeous melody for when Jor-El and Lara are saying goodbye to Kal-El, putting him in the crystal ship and the planet is moments away from destruction.

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I don't know why but I absolutely love this part of the Battle of Hoth in Empire, such a great climatic moment (4:01-4:23). I have not watched Empire in quite some time but I do believe this part is not in the actual movie itself, but I could be wrong.

Correct, that bit was dialed out of the final film. Always loved that part!

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Yeah that middle one you posted is badass.

Fortunately, we have a clean version of that piece. I remember listening to a DVD rip of that small segment for years.

That spiders bit from CoS has been stuck in my head all day! :)

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Mandatory clip in a thread like this:

01:00 - 01:22

One of John Williams' best ever tracks if you ask me.

And a good companion piece:

01:33 - 01:58

I agree with both of these! When I was listening to Bloodboal's clip I immediately thought of those few seconds in the Battle Over Coruscant, which is such a great opening piece.

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This is an excellent thread topic because I always appreciate these little moments but I don't think it has ever been brought up other than here or there so it is nice to have an entire thread dedicated to it. I do find it very interesting that a lot of the ones everyone is mentioning are from the Star Wars scores.

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Mandatory clip in a thread like this:

What Williams does with The Force Theme in the prequels is just awesome

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I'm terrible at remembering and/or obsessing over micro details like this unless I'm doing actual academic analysis. For me, the whole 'journey' is the thing, at least on a 'track level', at a bare minimum. That's not to say there aren't invidivual, small moments with great beauty that I treasure, but they tend to be part of a whole.

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I've always liked the part of Imperial Attack where the droids escape in the pod (4:20-4:55).

A personal favorite since day one. I think most of my choices last more than 15 seconds, but I'll keep thinking.

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Few excerpts from Temple of Doom:

2:02 - 2:20

I've noticed that whenever Williams goes aleatoric like this, with the strings going crazy, he decorates around it by adding short phrases and 'snippets' to make the music more interesting. For example here, on top of the strings you hear the bassoon, then clarinet, then horns...all of which give entirely different sounds, and keep the listener engaged.

0:30 - 0:37

This is like some sort of tribal dance on acid...(and I should also give special mention to those orchestral slides down, which are also great snippets!)

And a couple more from the Harry Potter series:

1:39 - 1:45

If there's one snippet of music in Harry Potter that sounds definitely 'wizardly', it's this! (this also appears in "Cornish Pixies" in CoS)

2:09 - 2:15

I like the counterpoint in this one!

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Great examples from Indy 2!

Also yes, pretty cool how he has those different other instruments do stuff behind the aleotoric strings

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That brief action cue from the Battle of Endor. I don't know the exact track and time, but the cue right before The Final Duel. That music was always memorable from watching the movie and I remember hoping it would be on the 1993 Anthology Box Set.

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How about that glorious fanfare that opens "Swordfight" on LLL's Hook CD?

The one at 12:11 in this video

The B section of Luke's theme in Main Title / Ice Planet Hoth (4:25-4:43)

That little run-through is so unlike the way Luke's theme is ever handled anywhere else......

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