Hello and welcome to this week's installment of Cue by Cue.
Today we're going to be listening to 4m2 Obi-Wan Kenobi. This is the first cue we've looked at in a while that has no revisions or anything.
This cue is 32 bars long, and was orchestrated by Arthur Morton. I believe this also makes it the first cue we've looked at that was not orchestrated by Herbert Spencer.
Here's what the top of the conductor's score looks like:
Let's listen to the cue together:
At 0:00 the cue begins with some flute material as Ben recognizes the name "Obi-Wan".
This leads into a statement of Ben's theme at 0:09 as he talks about not having heard the name in a long time. The statement continues through him revealing that he used to go by Obi-Wan, and changed his name to Ben before Luke was born.
At 0:34 the theme climaxes into some ascending material for "I don't seem to remember ever owning a droid", before giving way for the return of that Tusken Raider melody from the previous cue at 0:45, right as Ben senses that they're on their way back.
Then at 1:00, the music switches again, repeating the melody from the unused 3m2R Lost R2, when Luke and 3PO run outside to look for the missing R2. It's unclear to me if this was meant to be a full theme, or just a quick callback.
I also think it's interesting that the string ostinato that immediately follows is sort of a reverse dies irae, ascending instead of descending, the exact opposite of when R2 was missing.
This builds up into the final transitionary material at 1:18. This covers Luke and Ben talking 3PO out of giving up, and lifting him before jump cutting to Ben's hut at 1:30, for one final string fadeout. Thus the cue ends...
This cue was recorded on March 11, 1977, the fifth day of the recording sessions. It was the ninth cue recorded that day. Six takes were recorded, numbered 117-122. According to the 1997 take log, the performance edit used just take 122.
Thanks to the JW Rinzler making of book, here's a photo from the recording sessions, seconds after one of the takes of this cue was finished:
You'll notice that the screen is in black and white, all of the conducting prints used for the OT films were black and white. These special prints also had various symbols (usually moving lines and flashing circles) in order to indicate sync points.
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, 4m2 Obi-Wan Kenobi can be heard:
From 1:34-3:09 of track 8 "Inner City" on the 1977/2018 albums
From 1:35-3:10 of disc 1 track 9 "Inner City" on the 1993 album
From 0:00-1:39 of disc 1 track 8 "Tales of a Jedi Knight/Learn About the Force" on the 1997 album.
The 1977 release is a remix and should be avoided. The only release with either a clean opening or ending is the 1997, which has both. Every other release crossfades other cues at the beginning and end. All three releases with the film mix appear to have the same take, and the 1997 has no brickwalling this time around. For this reason I would recommend just listening to the 1997 set for this cue. The above video uses just the 1997.
That's all I have for today, thanks for reading! Feel free to leave any comments or questions.
Next week we'll be discussing 4m2A The Force. See you then!