Hello and welcome to this week's installment of Cue by Cue.
Today we're going to be looking at what's possibly the most famous cue from all of Star Wars, outside of perhaps the main title. 3m2 New Lost R2 is the replacement cue John Williams wrote after his original attempt at the scene was rejected by George Lucas (see last week's post).
The short version is that after hearing the original, George Lucas asked him to rewrite it from scratch using Ben's theme as a base, since it seemed to fit the emotions of the scene better.
Unfortunately, I don't have scans of the handwritten conductor's score for this cue, so I have no idea who orchestrated it. I can at least tell you that it is 37 bars long, thanks to a typeset copy that I have.
Don't get confused by the lower number of bars, this cue is meant to be a drop in replacement for 3m2 Rev. Lost R2, it's only 5 bars shorter because it is meant to be played slower.
Without further ado, let's listen to the cue:
At 0:00 we get that 3-note sting again that was first used in the original version of the cue. It only appears once, almost immediately segueing into Luke's theme at 0:03 as he storms off. The soft woodwinds continue playing Luke's theme as Owen and Beru discuss his father.
Then at 0:22 we get a lead-in to Ben's theme on the bassoon, bouncing between two of the starting notes, before Ben's theme starts for real as an English Horn solo at 0:28.
This continues as Luke stares at the sunset, building into a climax with the rest of the orchestra at 0:44. Ben's theme then fades away as Luke walks inside.
Then at 0:59 we get some hints of the Rebel fanfare on the flute, followed by a sting for 3PO's reappearance at 1:08.
Then at 1:11 we get a string lead-in to more Luke theme as he seeks R2, which begins at 1:20 on the clarinet. This leads directly to another Ben's theme statement from the horns at 1:34 which continues through Luke and 3PO's discussion, all the way until 2:02 when we get a final string note for Owen's appearance, similar to in the original. Thus the cue ends...
There's a few interesting things of note with this cue from a large meta perspective. For one thing, most people today think of "Ben's theme" as "The Force Theme", even though Williams originally intended it as the former. Even Williams himself begins to treat it as the latter in his future scores. I think that this replacement cue was a huge contributing factor to this change in meaning, since at this point in the film Luke hasn't even met Ben yet.
I think that when this piece was written, Williams probably saw it as foreshadowing, similar to how he also includes the Rebel fanfare in it even though Luke hasn't joined the Rebellion yet either. But on reflection, it seems to evoke feelings of destiny and of the Force, moreso than foreshadowing the appearance of Ben. If there was one catalyst for Ben's theme becoming the Force theme, it was probably this replacement cue.
The other interesting thing to me is that this cue is one of the most popular and famous from this entire score. It made the scene hugely memorable, and likely had a large impact on the success of the movie. It really makes me wonder, if George Lucas had not rejected the original piece, would the film have been as successful as it was? I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts on this in the comments.
This cue was recorded on March 15, 1977, the seventh day of recording sessions, a full week after the cue it replaced. This means it's likely that this cue was written between March 8 and March 15, making it the last cue written for the film.
Five takes were recorded, 198-202. The 1997 take documentation says that the final performance edit used take 202 in its entirety. I think this is probably accurate since I found no take differences between any of the releases.
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, 3m1 Rev The Princess Appears can be heard:
From 1:51-end of track 14 "The Princess Appears" on the 1977/2018 albums
From 1:51-end of disc 1 track 6 "The Princess Appears" on the 1993 album
From 1:53-end of disc 1 track 6 "The Hologram/Binary Sunset" on the 1997 album.
All releases have clean endings, but only the 1997 release has a clean opening. The 1977 release is of course a remix.
As I said above, all releases seem to present the same take, although the 1997 release is a little brickwalled. For this reason the video above is primarily the 1993 set, although it uses the 1997 for the clean opening.
Note: for anyone who doesn't know, brickwalling means the album mastering engineer amplified the music too much and cut off the peaks, limiting the dynamic range. This can introduce distortion. The 1997 set has a lot of this overamplification, so I try to use the other sets to replace it when I can.
That's all I've got for today, thanks for reading! Feel free to leave any comments or questions.
Next week we'll be listening to 3m3 Rev The Sand Speeder. See you then!