Hello again and welcome to this week's installment of Cue by Cue!
Today we're going to be listening to 1m4-2m1 The Escape Hatch. This cue is 100 bars long and was orchestrated by Herbert Spencer. Here's a pic of the top of page 1 of the conductor score:
Interestingly, this cue was actually renumbered (usually referred to as "rebalancing"), you can see at the top that it was originally numbered 2M1 (which is crossed out), before being renumbered to 1M4-2M1. Rebalancing like this actually happened quite a bit with this score, we'll be looking at several more cues in future posts like this. Usually this happens due to cues being written out of order, so changes made before or after a particular cue can affect its numbering.
Now, let's listen to the cue together:
At 0:00 the cue begins with some hesitant strings for the stormtroopers searching around the ship. At 0:05 we see Princess Leia again, and finally we hear a full statement of her theme.
At 0:15 we get some quick strings for the short action of Leia shooting a stormtrooper and running, but the music swells to a stop right as she hits the ground after being stunned. 0:19 has some more hesitant strings for the Stormtroopers talking about bringing her to Vader, which lead directly into some playful music for R2 waddling toward the escape hatch door.
At 0:28 is some interesting thematic use, we get some Imperial motif for R2 and 3PO's argument. While I don't know the exact reason why it was used here, my best guess is that perhaps it was meant to underscore the danger of being caught, e.g. "Get out of there before somebody sees you". This would make sense, given that the argument is immediately followed by an explosion, one last reminder of the threat of the stormtroopers.
At 0:42 the music changes, right as the explosion goes off and 3PO decides to join R2 in the escape pod. The strings swell and build up as the door closes to a climax at 0:51, right as the escape pod leaves the ship.
This leads into a string melody progression that plays from 0:51 all the way to1 1:10, covering the escape pod falling, the officers discussing it, and R2 and 3PO talking about the damage. At 1:10 some brass gets added for a climax as we see it falling toward Tatooine.
This falls away to some Imperial motif at 1:16 as the stormtroopers march Leia to Vader for interrogation. The motif gets less intense during the dialogue, but builds back up again as Leia is taken away at 1:54, continuing as Vader talks with the officer until 2:14, when the motif stops, and we just get some low strings and woodwinds for the additional discussions with the officers about the escape pod being jettisoned and the missing plans.
Notably, this section (around 2:21), had 4 seconds trimmed in the final cut, due to a picture edit where Vader's conversation with the officers was cut short. In the script he had a longer line of dialogue before the scene ended. This line probably wasn't cut until during or after when James Earl Jones did his dubbing, which was around the same time as the score's recording sessions. The exact footage that this part played under hasn't been released to the public, so I added a couple reused shots of Vader and the officer in order to match the music, instead of just leaving it as a black screen.
Around 2:35 the music starts to build back up, right as Vader talks about sending a detachment down to find the plans. This builds into a quasi-statement of the Death Star theme as we see the Star Destroyer. Just like Vader's entrance last week, this is reminiscent of the Death Star theme - but isn't quite it. Perhaps it's meant to be some foreshadowing since the next time we see Vader and the princess will be on the Death Star.
After that last statement trails off, we get some mysterious harp as 3PO and R2 walk away from their crashed escape pod...
This cue is used almost exactly as intended in the final cut, except for that minor 4 second trim I mentioned earlier during the scene where Vader talks to the commander.
The cue was recorded on March 12, 1977, the sixth day of the recording sessions. It was the sixth cue recorded that day. Five takes were recorded, numbered 163-167.
Of these five takes, parts of 165 and 167 were used for the performance edit.
This cue has been officially released on four different albums:
1) In 1977 on 20th Century Records' OST album
2) In 1993 on Arista Records' 4-CD Anthology box set
3) In 1997 on RCA Victor's 2-CD Special Edition set
4) In 2018 on Walt Disney Records' Remastered album (remastered OST rebuilt from scratch from the session masters)
More specifically, 1m4-2m1 The Escape Hatch can be heard:
From 3:14-end of track 2 "Imperial Attack" on the 1977/2018 albums
From 3:37-end of disc 1 track 3 "Imperial Attack" on the 1993 album
From 3:37-end of disc 1 track 2 "Imperial Attack" on the 1997 album.
This cue is complete on all releases, although it doesn't have a clean opening on any release. You can hear a clean opening on the 1981 Radio Drama, but it's buried under sfx and dialogue. Because of this, the video above had to fake a clean opening by using a fade-in. The remnants of the percussion that you can hear when the strings start at 0:00 are actually remnants of the previous cue that couldn't be completely separated out
The 1977 release is once again a remix, but the 1993 actually appears to use the correct takes for this cue. The 2018 release has some weird reverb applied to the ending Imperial motif statement.
For these reasons, I would recommend listening to this cue either with the 1993 or 1997 release. The video above uses the 1997 release.
That's all I have for today. Thank you for reading! Feel free to leave any questions or comments!
Next week we'll be analyzing 2m2 Desert Song.
