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ROTS meets Harry Potter


stuttersteps

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Not sure if this subject has been broached already, but I haven't come across it here so thought I'd bring it up.

Read this interesting bit of info in the Trivia section for Revenge of the Sith on IMDB:

The final scene on Tatooine, where Obi-Wan Kenobi delivers the infant Luke to his aunt and uncle, is often referred to as the "Harry Potter scene". Composer John Williams included a small 11-tone musical cue in the scene reminiscent of his score for _Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone (2001)_ . It can be heard when Obi-Wan arrives at Owen and Beru's house.

I never noticed it myself. Going back for a listen, it still wasn't readily apparent to me.

Can anyone chime in?

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I don't hear it either. I even went back and listened to "The Arrival of Baby Harry," and the only similarity I hear is the use of celeste in octaves.

The celeste in ROTS seems to be filling a couple bars in the right key and mood before the Force theme horn solo comes in - it doesn't contain any major thematic material, but is just a nice little arpeggiated thing on a celeste.

The celeste in "Arrival" begins the track with the melody, also in octaves, but that goes on to be the "theme" for that track. So, I add my vote that this is not a nod to HPSS.

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The only thing I hear that's close to HP is the little bit used for the buzz driods in the Battle of Corscant, kind of similar to the Golden Snitch music in The Quidditch Match.

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One of the similarities i have found between ROTS and Harry Potter is half way through Genreal Grevious, when the music gets louder and Williams adds in the tamberine is similar to a section in The Spiders track from Chamber of Secrets.

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More IMDB rubbish. Like this in the Jurassic Park section:

At the very end of the film when it says A Steven Spielberg Film you hear the five notes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) slightly modified.

:roll:

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I hate not being able to provide more examples right now, but as a regular user of the IMDB trivia section, they seem to have a certain obsession with John Williams quoting other films' themes just for the similarity between the scenes. I think they say that in Catch Me If You Can, he quotes Silvestri's Forrest Gump. You know, Tom Hanks staring at the flying bill.

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In ROTS, the only parallel to Harry Potter can be found in Anakin Vs Obi- Wan, when the strings play that waltz- like melody.

What about the theme that plays for General Greivous?

Neil

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Somewhere during The Mission (Amazing Stories) you can hear the blueprint of Hook (Prologue fanfare). Good luck with finding it.

----------------

Alex Cremers

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It's not Harry Potter quoted in RotS, of course. It's just one of Williams' universal leitmotifs: A twinkling celesta theme for a baby scene, just like the his patriottic horn solos for heroic scenes e.g. in Patriot, Lost World (when rescued by the enemy), HP:SS (Ron's speech), Amistad, American Journey, and just like his use of rattles and busy (pizzicato) strings for insect and weed scenes (all three Indy movies, The Devil's Snare, On the Coveyor Belt), just to name some.

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  • 3 months later...

Ok, people, after listening accurately to track 14 (I believe it is this track on the album) of RotS, there is indeed the exact Harry Potter theme, at 0:51. It goes like:

Bm - down to F - down to D - down to A - up to F - down to D.

It's also on celesta, and in the same rhythm (6/8).

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I either spent WAY to much time listening to ROTS or I'm losing it, but anyway I noticed some similarites btw. that and the new HP soundtrack. Is Doyle trying to keep the John Williams sound.

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...

Harry Potter is a John Williams sound. So to make a score for it... I would hope he would... unless he were crazy lol (jk) or better than John Williams and thought he could make a completely unique score --but I don't think the movie called for that--

and the HP score for the new movie is more along the lines of John Williams in the late 80's early 90's... his sound is completely different now (imo)

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It's an exact six or seven notes of the theme. :roll:  

~Sturgis

Did you check actually? Six or seven notes can be a whole theme indeed, and surely the essence of it. Read my similar sceptical remark earlier in this thread. I just admit that I was wrong.

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While we're on the subject, in the track "Grievous Speaks to Lord Sidious" at 1:58, John Williams actually quotes Double Trouble. I thought that was very . . . well, spooky, which fits because Grievous is sort of a spooky guy.

:sigh:

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I bet Williams would laugh his arse off if he could read this thread.

Anyway, last night I was watching ROTS with my headphones on, and I've noticed how often these dull and powerless Bass Drum strokes (someone already compained about those) appeared throughout the score, and sometimes not even in syn with the original music! In Anakin vs Obi- Wan for instance, when Yoda and Palpatine ascend into the senate, and we hear this waltz- like part of Battle Of The Heroes, those stupid editores just layered the Bass Drum on top of the cue without syncing it to the score.

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I would have to agree. I haven't a clue how you hear the Potter theme there, or any theme for that matter.

It's not the entire theme, but the essence, the second period of Harry's Theme.

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