Music Album Review: 'Star Wars: A New Hope - Special Edition: Music Composed and Conducted by John Williams'
Pros: The music, particularly the sequencing and
newly released tracks; the liner notes.
Cons: The flimsy Slimline packaging.
OVERTURE
Many of us who go to movies, whether we consciously are aware of it or not, know that one of the key elements of a film's success is its musical score. While visuals -- whether it be the vast vistas of the West in a Clint Eastwood movie or the soft curves of a beautiful woman undressing for a love scene -- are what call attention to the audience's eyes, it's the soundtrack -- dialogue, sound effects, and the musical score -- that captures the mind and enhances the emotional impact of whatever it is we are watching. This is just as true in the early 21st Century as it was in the days of the silent movies 100 years ago, when Charlie Chaplin's comedic antics and Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.'s adventures were accompanied by live pianists at the ritzier movie palaces of the day.
Although there have been many acclaimed composers of film music (Erich Korngold, Max Steiner, Franz Waxman, Jerry Goldsmith, and James Horner, just to name a few), perhaps few others compare to John Williams, who has composed scores for some of the biggest blockbuster films of all time, including Jaws, the first two Jurassic Park movies, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Superman: The Movie, the Indiana Jones series, Saving Private Ryan, and most of the nine-episode Star Wars Skywalker saga.
Although Williams had been writing film scores and music for TV shows since the early 1960s, it was Steven Spielberg's adaptation of novelist Peter Benchley's Jaws that established the composer as a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood. And it was Spielberg who suggested to George Lucas that John Williams was perfectly suited for the task of composing the score for a new space-fantasy film called Star Wars.
THEMES AND VARIATIONS
Williams' approach to the Star Wars score was to write in a musical style that is diametrically opposite to the visuals on screen. Instead of going for electronic and futuristic music, the composer took his cue from George Lucas' tagline of "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." and opted to write the score in the style of the 19th Century Romantic era, using a technique borrowed from Richard Wagner's massive operas (Parsifal, The Ring Cycle) called "leitmotiv." This concept assigns certain musical themes or motifs to characters, places, even abstractions (in Star Wars, for instance, the mystical energy field known as "the Force" has its own motif; more on this later). Thus, Luke Skywalker has his "hero" theme (known to us simply either as the Star Wars theme or Luke's Theme), Princess Leia has her reflective, nostalgic, yet resilient theme, Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi has the "Force theme" with him, and the evil Darth Vader has a brooding and ominous motif known as the "Imperial Theme" that is nothing like the more familiar Imperial March Williams would later compose for Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. There are also themes for the jawas (the small hooded desert scavengers of Tatooine), the Death Star, and a stirring Rebel Fanfare.
Many of us who go to movies, whether we consciously are aware of it or not, know that one of the key elements of a film's success is its musical score. While visuals -- whether it be the vast vistas of the West in a Clint Eastwood movie or the soft curves of a beautiful woman undressing for a love scene -- are what call attention to the audience's eyes, it's the soundtrack -- dialogue, sound effects, and the musical score -- that captures the mind and enhances the emotional impact of whatever it is we are watching. This is just as true in the early 21st Century as it was in the days of the silent movies 100 years ago, when Charlie Chaplin's comedic antics and Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.'s adventures were accompanied by live pianists at the ritzier movie palaces of the day.
Although there have been many acclaimed composers of film music (Erich Korngold, Max Steiner, Franz Waxman, Jerry Goldsmith, and James Horner, just to name a few), perhaps few others compare to John Williams, who has composed scores for some of the biggest blockbuster films of all time, including Jaws, the first two Jurassic Park movies, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Superman: The Movie, the Indiana Jones series, Saving Private Ryan, and most of the nine-episode Star Wars Skywalker saga.
Although Williams had been writing film scores and music for TV shows since the early 1960s, it was Steven Spielberg's adaptation of novelist Peter Benchley's Jaws that established the composer as a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood. And it was Spielberg who suggested to George Lucas that John Williams was perfectly suited for the task of composing the score for a new space-fantasy film called Star Wars.
THEMES AND VARIATIONS
Williams' approach to the Star Wars score was to write in a musical style that is diametrically opposite to the visuals on screen. Instead of going for electronic and futuristic music, the composer took his cue from George Lucas' tagline of "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." and opted to write the score in the style of the 19th Century Romantic era, using a technique borrowed from Richard Wagner's massive operas (Parsifal, The Ring Cycle) called "leitmotiv." This concept assigns certain musical themes or motifs to characters, places, even abstractions (in Star Wars, for instance, the mystical energy field known as "the Force" has its own motif; more on this later). Thus, Luke Skywalker has his "hero" theme (known to us simply either as the Star Wars theme or Luke's Theme), Princess Leia has her reflective, nostalgic, yet resilient theme, Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi has the "Force theme" with him, and the evil Darth Vader has a brooding and ominous motif known as the "Imperial Theme" that is nothing like the more familiar Imperial March Williams would later compose for Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. There are also themes for the jawas (the small hooded desert scavengers of Tatooine), the Death Star, and a stirring Rebel Fanfare.
All of these motifs will recur throughout the film's score, becoming as integral to the story as the characters and situations themselves, so much so that a listener can just listen to the score and imagine the heroics of Luke, Leia, Han Solo, and Chewbacca, the villainy of Grand Moff Tarkin and Lord Vader, the comical-yet-heartwarming friendship between Artoo Detoo and See Threepio, and the last redeeming quest of a legendary Jedi Knight. Unlike many soundtracks that use 1967's The Graduate's "collection of pop songs" approach, the "musical leg" of the Star Wars movies stands alone, capable of conveying Lucas' timeless tale of the Galactic Civil War almost on its own.
THE ORCHESTRA: To perform the now-classic Star Wars score, Williams and Lucas (who was the producer of the album) chose the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO, one of the world's premier ensembles of musicians. The Williams/LSO combination proved to be perfect for Star Wars, and the composer/conductor would team up with this very powerful orchestra for several other film projects, including Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie (1978), Dracula (1979), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and the other five George Lucas Era chapters of the Star Wars saga.
THE SPECIAL EDITION: Released in early 1997, the Special Edition of Star Wars: A New Hope was not only a 20th Anniversary celebration of this landmark film, but also gave fans a still hotly debated "final version" of the "classic" Trilogy. Star Wars' creator, George Lucas, had never been satisfied with some of the shots in the original 1977 release, so as pre-production began on Star Wars Episode I, he used some of the new computer-generated imaging (CGI) technology to fix various flaws in each of the three existing films. For example, a deleted scene with Han Solo (Harrison Ford) meeting with Jabba the Hutt was restored with a CGI rendition of the vile gangster replacing the human actor in the frame (incidentally, the actor was going to be replaced by an animated Jabba, but in 1976 the technology was too primitive and way too expensive, so the scene was cut). A more controversial edit had the bounty hunter Greedo shooting at Han Solo first, before the Corellian smuggler shoots him from under the table. Other tweaks made some of the space battles a bit more dynamic by giving the X-Wings and TIE fighters more zip and zap for the buck, as it were.
There had been rumors that Williams had revamped the score, too; it was believed that the composer had scrapped the original "Imperial" theme and replaced it with the more familiar one from The Empire Strikes Back. In reality, the score for A New Hope is essentially the same as the 1977 version; the only revision (and not heard in this CD) is a retrograde inclusion of Jabba's theme from Return of the Jedi for the confrontation scene in Mos Eisley's Docking Bay 94.
What does set the Special Edition soundtrack from its two previous CD releases (the now out-of-print Polydor 2-CD reprise of the original 1977 LP album, and Disc 1 of the 4-disc 1993 Star Wars Trilogy Soundtrack Anthology) is that it contains every cue from the film's score, allowing listeners to hear previously unreleased material used in the movie but not released on vinyl, cassette, or compact disc.
Furthermore, the tracks are presented as they were heard in the film, in proper relation to the scenes they were composed for, starting with Williams leading the LSO in a new recording of Alfred Newman's 20th Century Fox fanfare. Consequently, while some familiar track titles (Main Title, Princess Leia's Theme, Throne Room/End Titles) remain, most have been changed to more accurately indicate the film's action and settings. Thus the 1977 album's mix-and-matching of cues (taking unrelated cues and splicing them together) in, say, The Last Battle are gone. In its place is the three-cue sequence The Battle of Yavin (Track 10, Disc 2). Not only is it more appealing for soundtrack purists who often are disappointed by albums -- the music somehow seems to be reduced in most commercially sold records -- but it is aesthetically pleasing as well.
PACKAGING, LINER NOTES & UNRELEASED MATERIAL:
RCA Victor/BMG Classics released two versions of this 2-CD set. The more expensive edition ($29.99) has the CDs stored in pockets in a booklet-style package, with a booklet of liner notes in the middle. The CDs themselves are silvery with a laser-etched Rebel X-Wing approaching the Death Star. The cheaper version ($23.99 in 2000) is a more traditional Slimline jewel box, with those detestable flip covers that wear out after a while. The "deluxe" cover features the Special Edition logo (gold for A New Hope) in the middle of a black background, with Star Wars: A New Hope below and the credit Music Composed and Conducted by John Williams along the bottom. The covers for Slimline editions vary. Some merely duplicate the artwork of the "deluxe" edition, while others feature the Drew Struzan poster art commissioned for the 20th Anniversary release in January of 1997.
Both versions have a set of very well written liner notes by Michael Matessino, a renowned freelance producer who specializes in film history and behind-the-scenes documentaries. These are very helpful to both old and new Star Wars music listeners, putting each cue into the film's context and commenting on the musical idioms, orchestrations, and textures Williams used in the score. He also reveals funny little factoids:
"The action for the second half of the film deals entirely with the infiltration of the ultimate weapon. It begins with The Death Star, which on Williams' score is humorously entitled 'Is It a Bird?' "
While much of the music has been heard in the album's predecessors, producer Nick Redman (who oversaw the 1993 4-disc set) and his restoration team incorporated music that had not been heard on vinyl, cassette, or compact disc. Some cues had been shortened for the original 1977 double LP album (Disc 1, Track 5, The Moisture Farm), while others had been omitted entirely (the second half of Track 7, Tales of a Jedi Knight/Learn About the Force on the same disc). Thus, many listeners who watched the film and heard, say, the solemn cello solos underscoring Luke's reluctance to go with Ben to Alderaan and wondered why they never heard that cue in their soundtracks will finally be rewarded with the complete original score.
THE BOTTOM LINE: IS THIS ALBUM WORTH GETTING?
The soundtrack to Star Wars: A New Hope is possibly one of the most popular -- and reissued -- film score albums ever released, and if you are even a casual soundtrack fan, chances are that you either own this CD (thus making this review redundant) or one of the earlier versions released between 1977 and 1993. Or maybe you are new to the Star Wars experience; not everyone reading this was around when the first film premiered in '77, and even the Special Edition is 21 years old as I write this. There are also a few one-disc "covers" of music from the Star Wars Trilogy that feature music from the first three films, and of course there are the three prequel soundtracks from Sony Classical, and two Sequel Trilogy albums released by Walt Disney Records So, is this worth getting?
Quite frankly, I believe it is. While the original versions are wonderful to listen to, to hear the entire score is to understand the power of Williams' contribution to the Star Wars saga. Concepts, situations, characters and settings that would otherwise be campy or even laughable attain a certain emotional depth and sense of reality that make the movies timeless classics. The flexibility of Williams' leitmotivs – played one way they express heroic triumphs, yet played another way they depict perils and pitfalls – is outstanding. Listen to the stately way that Ben's Theme is played in Binary Sunset (Disc 1, Track 6), and then pay attention as it morphs into the triumphal march in Throne Room/End Titles (Disc 2, Track 10). It's this kind of creative impulse and musical coherence that weaves the scores of eight (soon to be nine) Episodes into one, complete work.
CD 1
1. 20th Century Fox Fanfare (Alfred Newman, 1954) – 0:23
2. Main Title/Rebel Blockade Runner – 2:14
3. Imperial Attack – 6:43
4. The Dune Sea of Tatooine/Jawa Sandcrawler – 5:01
5. The Moisture Farm** – 2:25
6. The Hologram/Binary Sunset – 4:10
7. Landspeeder Search/Attack of the Sandpeople – 3:20
8. Tales of a Jedi Knight/Learn About the Force* – 4:29
9. Burning Homestead – 2:50
10. Mos Eisley Spaceport – 2:16
11. Cantina Band – 2:47
12. Cantina Band #2* – 3:56
13. Archival Bonus Track: Binary Sunset* (Alternate) – 2:19
contains the hidden track "Star Wars Main Title
(Complete recording session version)" 11:56
Total Time: 57:35
*previously unreleased
**contains previously unreleased material
Princess Leia's Theme – 4:27
1. The Millennium Falcon/Imperial Cruiser Pursuit – 3:51
2. Destruction of Alderaan* – 1:32
3. The Death Star/The Stormtroopers* – 3:35
4. Wookiee Prisoner/Detention Block Ambush – 4:01
5. Shootout in the Cell Bay/Dianoga – 3:48
6.The Trash Compactor – 3:07
7.The Tractor Beam/Chasm Crossfire – 5:18
8. Ben Kenobi's Death/Tie Fighter Attack – 3:51
9.The Battle of Yavin – 9:07
a. Launch from the Fourth Moon* – 1:12
b. X-Wings Draw Fire – 5:38
c. Use The Force – 2:17
10. The Throne Room/End Title – 5:38
Total Time: 48:16
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