Hello and welcome to this week's installment of Cue by Cue.
Today we're going to be listening to 3m3 Rev. The Sand Speeder. This cue is a longer revision of an earlier cue, 3m3 The Sand Speeder, which went unrecorded.
Both versions were orchestrated by Herbert Spencer, the earlier version being 38 bars long, and the revision being 49 bars.
Here are the tops of the conductor's scores for both versions:
The only difference between the two is the insertion of 11 new bars between bars 24 and 25, presumably because of new footage being added.
This leads into an important point before we get into listening - this cue is the first we've looked at where the footage scored was substantially different to that which made it into the final cut. Over half of this cue was edited out of the film due to footage being cut, and the version of the scene that Williams scored has never been made available.
I have, to the best of my ability, attempted to reconstruct how I believe the scene was meant to play out based on the script, the sync points in the music, and the available footage (sourced primarily from the Blu-ray deleted scenes, the enhanced edition of the Making of Star Wars ebook).
That being said, I can't guarantee that this is completely accurate to what John Williams actually wrote and recorded against, there was a lot of guess work involved in the timings and even the exact footage used for the later half of the cue. Hopefully one day we'll get to see the rough cut version of this scene officially released...
With that disclaimer out of the way, let's get to listening:
At 0:00 the cue begins with some "bouncing" staccato horns and strings, not quite a melody, but a texture that Williams uses for the landspeeder. This texture will reappear multiple times throughout this cue and future cues.
At 0:10 we get a statement of Luke's theme as he and C-3PO ride through the desert. This fades away around 0:22 and we get more bouncing landspeeder textures. These build up to a climax at 0:33.
Then the cue switches gears with some loud brass as we switch to a wide shot with some Tusken Raiders, before the cue switches gears completely at 0:38, becoming much more percussion focused.
From 0:38 to 1:01 we get a lot of exotic and scary percussion and brass as the Tusken Raiders mount their Banthas and head off. The section from 0:38-0:50 in particular is the section added by the revision, the original 3m3 didn't have it.
Eventually the brass/percussion end abruptly, and there is one last string statement at 1:01 to end the cue, that trails off as Luke and 3PO find R2. Thus the cue ends...
Before moving on, I'll just list a few notes here about video editing, and why I made certain choices that I did in my reconstruction. The footage I used is as follows:
0:00-0:08 (final cut)
0:08-0:28 (Blu-ray deleted scene)
0:28-0:32 (still of unused landspeeder scanner graphic)
0:32-0:46 (final cut)
0:46-0:56 (Making of Star Wars ebook)
0:56-end (final cut)
I chose to open with the establishing shot from the final cut because it seemed obvious that that's what it was filmed for. It also has the added benefit that it makes it so that we hear Luke's theme under the first shot he's on screen.
I trimmed the opening of the Blu-ray deleted scene (Luke and C-3PO going "How's that?" "Yes, yes, that's much better!"), because it was completely unrelated to the scene and didn't fit timing-wise into the cue. I'm pretty confident that that segment was trimmed from the cut that Williams scored.
The Blu-ray deleted scene unfortunately ends early, but the final film uses the dialogue that would've played over 0:28-0:32 (inserted over the establishing shot), specifically Luke talking about a blip on the scanner that might be R2. To my knowledge, no footage has ever been released of this segment, but I was able to find a printed copy of the unused scanner graphic made by the same person who made the targeting computer graphics.
Next up, the sync from 0:32-0:40 seemed correct in the final film, so I maintained it. From 0:40-1:01 is the part I'm least confident is accurate, both due to the limited footage I had and the difficulties of the timing. The best I could come up with is that the rapid repeated drums from 0:45-0:49 were Mickey Mousing the one Raider running down the hill (a shot which unfortunately is cut short in the ebook, so I can't be 100% confident of the length), this had the added benefit of making the rumbling noise at 0:49 line up with the Bantha beginning to move, which made sense to me. Then I put the final cut shot of the Bantha turning around right after words to sync with the other rumbling noise at 0:56. This just left the rest of the final cut footage, which I placed at the start, making it so the closeup of the hill run led into the wide shot.
I'm not terribly confident that the Bantha climb/turnaround shots were separate in the cut Williams scored, but since they are in the final cut, and I had no other footage, I just left it that way.
Now that the video notes are wrapped up, I also want to mention the music edits made in the final cut. After most of the landspeeder footage was cut due to poor vfx, and it was also decided to trim some of the Tusken Raider footage, about half of the cue was cut out of the final film. Specifically:
The part intended for 0:00-0:04 in the original cut is used from 0:00-0:04 in the final.
The part intended for 0:26-0:30 is used from 0:04-0:08.
The part intended for 0:31-0:43 is used from 0:08-0:20.
The part intended for 0:51-0:59 is used from 0:20-0:29.
The part intended for 1:01-1:09 is used from 0:29-0:37.
Every other part I didn't mention was exised entirely.
This cue was recorded on March 11, 1977, the fifth day of the recording sessions. It was the second cue recorded that day. Six takes were recorded, numbered 87-92. According to the 1997 take log documentation, only take 92 was 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, 3m3 Rev. The Sand Speeder can be heard:
From 0:00-1:01 of track 10 "The Land of the Sand People" on the 1977/2018 albums
From 0:00-1:01 of disc 1 track 7 "The Land of the Sand People" on the 1993 album
From 0:00-1:09 of disc 1 track 7 "Landspeeder Search/Attack of the Sand People" on the 1997 album.
I didn't notice any incorrect takes when comparing releases for this cue. As usual, the 1977 set is a remix and should be avoided. All releases have clean openings, but only the 1997 has a clean ending. That said, even the 1997 seems to fade a little early, so for the video above, I extended the ending using the film audio. I also used the 1993 set for the bulk of the cue, in order to undo some of the brickwalling on the 1997 set.
If you want to listen to this cue I'd recommend making a hybrid edit of the 1993 and 1997 sets to get the clean ending without the brickwalling.
That's all I've got for today, thanks for reading! Feel free to leave any comments or questions.
Tune in next week where I'll be discussing 3m4-4m1 Rev. The Sandman Attacks.