Hello and welcome to this week's installment of Cue by Cue.
Today we're going to be listening to 8m4 Rev. The Water Snake, the only entirely unused cue in the entire score.
This cue was rebalanced from 8m3 to 8m4, although the scans I have aren't final and only show 8m3. The cue list I have shows 8m4 however.
This cue, both original and revised, is 29 bars long and was orchestrated by Herbert Spencer.
Here's the tops of the first page of the conductor's scores of both:
Only one change was made in the revision, which was some extra percussion added to bar 11, not all of which seems to have been used. I'm going to guess that this was further altered on the podium during recording.
Technically there is no official confirmation as to the intended sync of this cue (due to it going unused), however I'm basically 100% certain that my placement is correct due to multiple sync marks lining up perfectly
With all that out of the way, let's listen to the revised cue together:
At 0:00 the cue kicks in with some ominous low woodwinds, just as the heroes hear the dianoga for the first time.
Another shrill at 0:09 as Luke feels something by his leg, and then at 0:14 the cue starts building tension with some ascending figures.
These peak and restart at 0:26, followed quickly by some percussion for the appearance of the eye at 0:30. This is the one change notated by the revision. The original cue has just piano and celeste here, where the revised cue adds a triangle, xylophone and tamtam. I believe this percussion was later altered at the podium during the sessions because some of these instruments (especially the tamtam) cannot be heard at all in the final recording.
At 0:36 the music slows down as the dianoga grabs Luke's leg and pulls him under. We get panicked woodwinds for Han and Leia desperately searching for Luke, until the ascending figures return at 0:45.
Shortly thereafter Luke reappears at 0:48, but nothing much changes in the music - the ascending figures continue as they desperately try to get the dianoga off his neck.
The music slows down again at 1:06 as Luke disappears under the water again. This time it's some more peaceful sounding woodwinds with some quiet backing timpani. Is this the end? Has Luke been eaten?
The cue ends with a bang at 1:31 when Luke splashes back to the surface.
As I wrote earlier, this cue is not used in the final film at all. Evidently the filmmakers felt that the dianoga scene worked better without music. Most Star Wars fans have probably not heard this cue in its proper context before. You likely have heard the music itself though - as I mentioned way back in my post about 5m2 Rev. A Hive of Villainy, much of that cue was replaced in the Special Edition by this cue, which was reused to score the expanded intro to Mos Eisley.
Personally I was not a fan of that Special Edition change since I felt the original music felt a lot better there. As for this scene, I can see why the filmmakers dropped it, there are definitely parts of the scene that I think work better without the music. I also think this cue probably takes away from the next cue, since in the final cut the lack of music before the walls start moving helps to build the tension when it does return.
I'd be curious to hear everyone's thoughts about whether the filmmakers were right to cut this music in the comments.
This cue was recorded on March 11, 1977, the fifth day of the recording sessions. It was the seventh cue recorded that day. Two takes were recorded, numbered 115-116. According to the 1997 take log, the performance edit used just take 116.
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, 8m4 Rev. The Water Snake can be heard:
From 2:58-end of track 13 "The Walls Converge" on the 1977/2018 albums
From 2:58-end of disc 1 track 12 "The Walls Converge" on the 1993 album
From 2:12-end of disc 2 track 6 "Shootout in the Cell Bay/Dianoga" on the 1997 album.
All sets have the clean ending, however only the 1997 set has a clean opening. The 1977 set is of course a remix and should be avoided. As far as I can tell all sets use the same takes. The 1997 set is brickwalled. For the video above I used the 2018 set for everything except for the opening, which came from the 1997 set.
That's all I have for today, thanks for reading! Feel free to leave any comments or questions.
Next week we'll be listening to 9m1 The Walls Converge. See you then!