Stars Wars Episode II: The Final Clone-Bag

Here are more reactions to Jon & Al Kaplan's recent article on the use of John Williams' music in Attack of the Clones. (Responses are from the Kaplans.
 

From: Gunnar Grah <gunnargrah@yahoo.de>

I just want to thank you all at FSM for the terrific work you are doing, both in your magazine and on your website. I've been reading your hardcopy magazine only since earlier this year, but I am so glad to have finally become a subscriber. Besides learning about things that I actually wanted to know, like CD reviews and composer interviews, the magazine offers insight into many more areas of film scoring which I normally wouldn't have thought about.

As for your website...I'm a regular since almost the beginning, and it's always been a pleasure to read the daily articles and get into touch with other film music lovers through the message board. It was a great idea to bring Scott in to write the Friday columns, and I really love is writing style -- he has something to say and makes it fun, too. So, why am I writing just now? Because today's article by the Kaplan brothers a) reminded me of their hilarious 2001 roundup in the magazine, which I wanted to thank them for, and b) was such a great read. I have the AOTC CD sitting on my shelf for weeks now, without listening to it before seeing the movie. Tonight, I'll go home, have some wine and listen to it though, as they informed me that musically, I don't really have to wait for the actual film. Thanks for that, too!

Finally, do you think there is a chance to get an interview from John Williams about scoring AOTC? After all, he's one of the very few collaborators of George Lucas who should be able to say what he thinks, being in the position that he is in. I would really like to learn how he actually feels about all of this.

So, again, thanks for everything, keep up the great work, and please forward my best wishes to everyone at FSM.
 

Thanks for all the kind words, Gunnar! We wish we could get to John Williams, but it seems nearly impossible. I don't think he hates FSM, but some of the people we have to get through to get to him might hate us...
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

From: "Abid Hussain" <abid_s_hussain@hotmail.com>

Having read your final insult segment, about the AOTC score, I have to say that I must agree with you. From the moment that I heard those final few seconds of the credits music (in the OST), I knew, that despite anything, that would be the most dramatic and chilling point of the movie, just like the breathing part was in Episode I. I am sure glad that I now know that it has been cut, otherwise I would leave the film, waiting, waiting, waiting, and bam -- nothing.

Abid Hussain

From: Jeff Goldader <jdgoldad@physics.upenn.edu>

Hello all you good folks there at FSM,

I was made quite upset by the Kaplans' review of the music in AOTC.

As a fan of John Williams' music since Star Wars, I have eagerly anticipated his score for AOTC. To read that it has been butchered, and apparently partially rejected, astonishes and saddens me.

As the Kaplans say, Lucas is certainly the master of Star Wars. But I wonder how much of the musical fiascoes of TPM and AOTC are due to (from the musical perspective) poor methodology in directing. The advent of digital effects and digital projection have made it possible to (literally, in the case of AOTC) edit and recut right up to the release date. While some directors might settle on a cut using animatics or other unfinished effects, apparently Lucas doesn't go beyond the rough cut stage until he sees the finished effects shots. Since Lucas knows he can edit until the end, it's simply impossible for the composer to have a nearly-final edit of the film from which to work.

A worrisome aspect of this style, if adopted by other directors, is that action movies will then become impossible to score in the traditional sense. The best one could hope for is what Jerry Goldsmith did with ST:TMP, creating cues that could be cut to various lengths or even spliced together. For ST:TMP, which was not so action-intensive, this could work.

For Star Wars, the inevitable result is a mish-mash of tracked bits here and there. It will be most interesting to see how Williams' music is used in Minority Report. Will Spielberg, who has in the past actually recut visuals to conform to Williams' score, break with that tradition? Some hope is found in that other directorial styles (e.g., Peter Jackson's style in Fellowship of the Ring) appear to allow for traditional scoring even in big action films.

You all at FSM are in a unique position to uncover and document what went on here, to "name names" and get insight on what the music editors and director were thinking. By publicizing what happened, enough people in the right places might be persuaded to save the score, by having the session recordings released. I hope you use your abilities to do so! As the Kaplans say, an "ultimate edition" with the film edit of the score will be more or less useless, and Sony should be (VERY NICELY) encouraged (okay, begged, whatever) to issue some sort of package containing Mr. Williams' original music as recorded.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

From: "Hatton, Paul" <paul.hatton@veco.com>

First let me say that I am an ardent JW fan and l like the new love theme. Second, as I have not seen the film yet I cannot comment on how it works in the movie. However, I disagree that this score is better than Phantom Menace. As we all agree the best of JW start wars entries is certainly the Empire strikes Back, with both Yoda's and Darth Vader's theme topping the list along with Han and Leia's theme, the haunting entry to cloud city, the fast asteroid field and the pleasant Lando's palace theme. In every other Star Wars film JW has consistently given us more than one main theme in the piece and sometimes several. Even in Phantom Menace he had the two major themes (Anakin's and Duel of the Fates) along with two other secondary themes.

As per the Clones soundtrack album, this movie has one theme: the new love theme. There is the essence of some others as in Yoda and the younglings and Padme and Anakin (also in Meadow Picnic), but these are very few in the 74 minutes on the disc. This is very disappointing.

I think JW is running out of room to design new themes or he has simply become bored with the subject matter. And we all know with the third movie coming there will be little room for new themes as Darth Vader's, the force theme and the Emperors theme will be most prevalent.

I do not yet know how the music works in the film, but as far as the soundtrack album goes, it is fifth on my list of Star Wars albums.

Oh and by the way the third track on the CD Zam's chase, is totally unlistenable! if it is toned down in the film then good, as it is just a jumble of sounds an certainly not up to JW standard.

Just recently I have begun to listen to all of the soundtracks, and every track on both the Jedi and Empire special addition CD's is enjoyable. This track I do not want to listen to again.
 

Well, we have to disagree on Williams' lack of inspiration here. While there obviously aren't as many new and blatant "big themes" as in Empire, Williams didn't have a lot to work with here. Clones is still rich with thematic material, but it's not like Williamsshould have written a giant march for the Cloning plant (what he did write is spliced in after the main title on the album), or a stirring Mace Windu theme, or even a pervasive Count Dooku theme. Williams instead treats these lesser characters and sets with more subdued material. And the villains of Clones are generally taken as a collective, dark undercurrent (Jango often gets the same theme -- a variation of the love theme -- as Dooku, unless this is due to retracking). The love theme and its B section are so extensive that they cover pretty much anything dealing with Anakin or Padme. And don't forget that we're not hearing a lot of what was written (on the album and in the film). Qui-Gon's theme, like it or hate it, wasn't even on the original TPM album! And if you don't like the Zam the Assassin chase cue, we can't help you there. Listen one or two more times just to make sure...
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

From: iBug <ibug@mac.com>

I've read your article about Attack Of The Clones and I wanted to say that having the music for a month and to be listened to it more than 50 times before the first premiere of the movie, I was really going mad at the premiere. Like you say, the mix was awful. I was paying attention to the speakers all around me to hear the percussion and the brass in the Zam chase but NOPE. I could just catch the Psycho-like strings in certain places but nothing more. I was really upset. Then, during the arena scene, I heard the podrace final lap action cue and droid battle cue from Phantom Menace (after the first five minutes of the arena had no music at all). And now I've read that Lucas even destroyed the end titles. I was also unhappy to hear Imperial March in so many places in the movie. It ruins the mystery of the Empire and every other old theme like Force theme, Yoda's theme and even Duel Of The Fates. Like when Anakin was on the speeder riding to Tusken camp -- what the hell was that? Duel Of The Fates was Darth Maul's villain theme, so why put it there? It doesn't make sense at all. And the USELESS MEANINGLESS POINTLESS factory scene had the worst Star Wars music ever, binding countless bits of cues together in a strange order, like trying to fill up a basket with every stone you find on the ground. I don't remember if I was ever pissed off in any movie before just because of the music. Btw, you wrote Williams wrote two hours of music for the movie and all I heard was about 60 minutes of new music in the movie, so it means that Lucas did throw away about an hour of material. I would really like to listen to this, but even if Sony releases a 2-CD set, I don't think it would contain that stuff, because none was used in the movie, right?

And btw, in the lake scene when Anakin kisses Padme the love theme rises and rises and then suddenly holds back as Padme says something like "we shouldn't do this." I felt like I was watching a comedy film when the music suddenly dropped back, because those kind of tricks are mostly used for joking about the romantic music element in that kind of scenes -- but it was Star Wars, not a comedy! Or maybe it was a comedy.
 

It may have been Williams intention to use Duel of the Fates for Anakin's ride on the speeder bike. If Duel of the Fates is indeed Darth Maul's "theme," isn't Anakin about to take Darth Maul's place by becoming the Emperor's new apprentice? We did, however, notice the near-cartoonish approach to the moment where Padme pulls away from Anakin's advances. That didn't sound like a music edit. It sounded like Williams actually wrote it that way (or rewrote it that way). Either way, it didn't quite work. But things like that don't compare to actual hacking-up of tracks.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

From: Receptionist <Reception@TMENT.com>

As a Star Wars/John Williams fan, I can sympathize with how the final score was treated in Attack of the Clones, and it was complete butchery during the "Arena" sequence, yet you may be overreacting on several issues. First off, I was surprised how good this entry was. Let's just say that AOTC is a great action film with a some flaws. I take issue with your opinion of the mix, though. I just saw a screening at the Ziegfeld Theatre in Manhattan, NY and found no obvious mistakes with the sound mix. May I say, that in the 25 years, that I've been conscious of the background score and soundtrack, and with rare exceptions, I've never heard a film score survive an action scene without being pummeled by the effects track. As for the sound level of AOTC's music track being unusually low on the current prints, at least when it comes to the Ziegfeld, the music was at the proper level and was balanced correctly for the film. I have no idea what went on in the theater you visited, but it probably has to do with the surround system not being adjusted properly. Of course, I was able to see AOTC digitally, which may have made the difference, sound wise. Who knows? Obviously, the overly butchered temp track for the "Arena" sequence is one of the worst massacres in film history, but the average moviegoer won't notice and won't care. If I had the ear of Mr. Williams though, I would tell him to either get a better contract or provide Lucas with general action tracks which can fit into any sequence. Herrmann and Goldsmith did it for CBS in the old days. Why not today? Believe me, no one is going to change Lucas' mind on this. If he won't listen to his fans, he's certainly not going to listen to his own employees. As long as he digitally edits his movies up to the last week, the scores on his movies, will always be in jeopardy. As an aspiring filmmaker, I would never want that close of a gap between final cut and answer print, especially with a film that runs 2 hours and 22 minutes. For the most part, I enjoyed hearing Williams unreleased music for the new film, at least for the first hour or so. Then I felt like crying when I heard every track under the sun, incorporated into the last battle scene. Let's hope Sony has more sense than to dump the existing music track onto an "Ultimate Edition" album.
 

We went back to seeAOTC in a different theater -- the Mann's Village in Westwood. As far as we're concerned, this is the best theater we've ever been to. It remains the only theater that has never had the volume too low. Well, as expected,AOTC was blasting at the Village. The music was much louder than during our first viewing -- then again, so was everything else. Either way, we'd have to say the mix sounded about 40% better this time around, especially in the last third of the movie. Based on this second viewing, we can say the following: the mix is not one of the worst ever. It's average. Some of it is great and some stinks. We can also say that there are infinitely more music edits and retracking than those instances we harped on earlier.

It's disgusting that this is even an issue. Theaters should not have so much control over sound mixes.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

From: SWIJBF@aol.com

I totally agree with you about the Star Wars music and am surprised nobody noticed it. Williams writes such a beautiful score and it's so sad to see it all hacked apart like that. It was just absolutely horrible. It ruined what was otherwise a perfect movie. It's hard to forgive George Lucas, who claims the music is what blends the scenes together well, for misusing it so grandly.
 
 

From: Jeffswim@aol.com

The Kaplans said a lot of what I was thinking as I was watching the big battle scene: How could John Williams let George Lucas get away with this? Was this an agreed-upon plan? Even if we go to the source, we may never get the full story.

But I have noticed this: If you watch the films in order of release (4-5-6-1-2), you'll notice the music edits getting progressively worse. And JW has had the same people involved with mixing and editing over 25 years, so it's a policy/creative change among the people. While the ending of Episode 2 has me looking forward to Episode 3, I have a huge fear about the music. Part of me wants to say what the Kaplans did: Williams should turn down the job and let Lucas track the whole film (after all, he has all the themes he needs now). Part of me wishes that Lucas and Williams can sit down within the next two years and voice their comments.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

From: "Philippe BARBEY-LALLIA" <philippebl@noos.fr>

I just wanted to say that I agree with you 100%, as a pianist, conductor, film music orchestra manager in France and John Williams' fan (also a Star Wars fan... well, used to be...). I hope we will have some feedback from Williams... or has he already signed a pact with George Lucas not to mention any of the edits that were made to his music ?
 

He probably never even saw the finished version with the hack-jobs at the end. Ken Wannberg probably just assured him that everything went smoothly. We may never know.
 
 
 
 
 
 

From: Christopher Yarborough <fsuchris@yahoo.com>

I agree with you (Kaplans) on the Episode II score. I loved the movie, but was so disappointed to hear those cues from The Phantom Menace. I was so looking forward to hearing the rest of the music not released on the official CD. And then to hear Yoda's theme when he wasn't on the conveyer belt only to hear it again at the appropriate moment saving Obi-Wan and Anakin was really a shame.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

From: "Adam Dawson" <rebel3000@ozemail.com.au>

I read your review of the Attack of the Clones soundtrack the day before I packed my gear and went to the cinema to camp out over night. I know it's sad, but it's healthier than sitting here on the internet all day. I was probably the only one to notice in The Phantom Menace the awful music edits in the cinema the night I saw it, but for Attack of the Clones, you could hear voices everywhere groaning and complaining at how the score was butchered this time around. And the fact that most of the edits were bits taken directly from The Phantom Menace's soundtrack nearly made me scream. I was already expecting the worst, because of what I read in your review... I thought it would be bad, but it was worse than I could have imagined. All that beautiful music on the CD is torn apart, and only half of it used. Apparently John Williams hadn't actually seen the final edit of the film, so he might not have known about the bad editing. I wouldn't like JW to turn down the next SW film...but rather compose the score AFTER the movie is finished being edited. George really screwed up this time.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

From: Robert Delaney yvain@ix.netcom.com

John Williams delivers a music score that is much too good for this movie. Literally. And that's its one flaw. He's gotten so used to scoring prestige films like Schindler's List that he's forgotten how to score a bad film. Good films carry their share of the dramatic weight with the support of the music; bad films need to be carried by the music. Over the past decades, Williams' music has grown progressively more subtle and sophisticated, but the Star Wars films have grown progressively less subtle and sophisticated. Attack of the Clones needs a music score that is much more bombastic and obvious than Williams is willing/able to supply. His technical virtuosity in the action scenes is stunning to listen to on the soundtrack album, but the movie might have been better served by a lesser composer. I'll stick with listening to the album and imagining the movie that might have been.
 

Amen.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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