Hello and welcome to this week's installment of Cue by Cue.
Today we're going to be listening to 6m3 Rev. The Inner City. This is a revision of an earlier cue, 5m6 The Inner City.
Clearly the cue got rebalanced from 5m6 to 6m3 at some point which is interesting for a couple of reasons; firstly, it would seem that the original cue number didn't account for the second cantina source that we looked at last week, unless that was also rebalanced, which there is no evidence of. Secondly, the rebalanced cue number skips over 6m2 completely.
It is a complete mystery as to why this is the case; my only guess is that maybe they left space for the "set your course for Alderaan" scene to be scored? But the scene is only a few seconds long, and it was moved here in editing pretty late during the scoring process.
Whatever the case may be, the original cue is 46 bars long, and the revision is 36 bars long. Both versions were orchestrated by Herbert Spencer.
Here's what the tops of the original and revision look like:
Interestingly, you'll notice I don't actually have scans of the final version of the revision; notice there is no large number in black marker like we've seen with previous cues, and there's no indication that the cue was rebalanced. However, on the final cue sheet this is listed as 6m3, so it was definitely rebalanced before recording.
The only difference between the original and the revision is the deletion of 10 bars from 25-35 of the original. These bars would have originally scored the deleted scene where Vader talks to the commander while walking down the hallway. A mockup of this short section was made a couple years ago by BrotherSound over on the JWFan forums (https://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/25291-restored-isolated-score-star-wars-saga-unused-music-restored-to-picture/&do=findComment&comment=1724315)
These deleted bars aren't terribly interesting, mostly just some percussion not too dissimilar from what we'll hear in 7m2 The Mouse Robot in a few weeks. However, the existence of these bars is interesting because they sort of give a timeline for the deletion of certain scenes.
In the original script the scenes progressed like this:
Scene C50 = 3PO and R2 hide from stormtroopers searching an alleyway
Scene 53 = Ben and Luke discuss selling the landspeeder and walk down alley while being followed
Scene AA53 = Han/Jabba scene
Scene BA53 = Vader/commander hallway scene
Scene 56 = Ben and Luke walk towards Chewbacca, continue being followed
Scene 58 = Falcon reveal
The original version of 6m3 The Inner City scores scenes C50, 53, BA53, 56 and 58, but not scene AA53. This indicates that by the time the score was being written the Jabba scene was already cut. However, the Vader hallway scene (BA53) was not cut until during scoring, but it was still cut early enough that John Williams was able to alter his music before recording instead of it needing to be edited later. Therefore, the Vader hallway scene was likely cut sometime during February 1977, whereas the Jabba scene was likely cut before January 1977.
Okay, now that we have all of that out of the way, we can finally listen to the revised cue together.
At 0:00 we get some ascending woodwinds as the droids hide from the stormtroopers. Then, at 0:06 there's some more ominous woodwinds for the stormtroopers knocking on the door, before the ascending woodwinds return at 0:13 as the droids re-open the door.
More ominous music for their discussion, and then at 0:32 the music transitions into Luke's theme as Luke and Ben walk down the alley. 0:44 gives us a short ominous motif for Garindan, and then at 0:53 the music ascends, getting ready for a transition. At 0:59 the music changes to Luke's theme again, as they continue to walk down the alley. In the original cue, 0:59 is the point where the Vader hallway scene would've occurred instead.
Luke's theme continues until 1:10, when we see Garindan again, and hear more of his motif. This then builds into a crescendo at 1:18 for the reveal of the Falcon. Thus, the cue fades out....
In the final theatrical cut, this cue is used exactly as intended. However, in the Special Edition releases, a new version of the cut Jabba scene with a CGI Jabba is inserted at 0:59, leading to some music edits.
In the Special Edition cuts:
0:00-0:58 is 0:00-0:58 of 6m3R The Inner City
0:58-1:20 is 0:30-0:52 of 4m3 The Sarlacc Pit from Return of the Jedi
1:20-1:37 is 0:21-0:38 of 2m5 Jabba's Prisoners from Return of the Jedi
1:37-2:30 is 1:00-1:52 of 2m5 Jabba's Prisoners from Return of the Jedi
2:30-end is 0:58-end of 6m3R The Inner City
This reuse of Return of the Jedi music in the special edition cuts is, in my opinion, extremely jarring as it doesn't really fit with the rest of the score. It doesn't help that the jump cuts in the music are extremely obvious and bad sounding. That said, it is interesting that, as I talked about earlier, the unrevised 6m3 The Inner City was originally intended to be split up like this, just with the Vader hallway scene in between instead.
This cue was recorded on March 12, 1977, the sixth day of the recording sessions. It was the eighth and final cue recorded that day.
Three takes were recorded, numbered 173-175. According to the 1997 take log, the performance edit used take 175.
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, 6m3R The Inner City can be heard:
From 3:07-end of track 8 "Inner City" on the 1977/2018 albums
From 3:09-end of disc 1 track 9 "Inner City" on the 1993 album
From 0:00-1:34 of disc 2 track 2 "The Millennium Falcon/Imperial Cruiser Pursuit" on the 1997 album.
All sets have clean endings, although only the 1997 set has a clean opening. The 1977 set is as usual a remix and should be avoided. All of the albums appear to have the same take
That said, the 1977 and 2018 albums are missing a large chunk of the cue, they edit out 0:48-1:17:
For these reasons I can only recommend the 1997 set for this cue, which is what I used for the video above.
That's all I have for today, thanks for reading! Feel free to leave any comments or questions.
Next week we'll be discussing 6m4 Blasting Away. See you then!