Hello and welcome to this week's installment of Cue by Cue.
Today we're going to be listening to 11m1 Stand By, the first of the Battle of Yavin cues.
This cue is 52 bars long and was orchestrated by Herbert Spencer.
Here's what the top of the conductor's score looks like:
As you can see, this cue got rebalanced from 10m3-11m1 to just 11m1, I'm not really sure why - perhaps some of the shuffling earlier in the score resulted in it no longer being partially in the tenth reel.
One other interesting note regarding the cue's title: You may be wondering why it was originally "Stand By" instead of "Standing By", even though all the characters say the latter in the film. Initially I assumed this might have been a Williams mistake, but interestingly in the shooting script the original dialogue for this scene has Red Leader telling all the fighters to stand by before putting the S-Foils in attack position, that's why everyone replies "standing by". The "All wings report in" dialogue was from several scenes later in the script, after Gold Leader dies, Red Leader would've asked all remaining wings to report in.
I don't believe that Williams scored this initial version, because the Battle of Yavin scenes were largely completed by Marcia Lucas relatively early in editing, and obviously the cue wouldn't sync at all with the scripted version of the scene. However, the scene did still undergo smaller changes (as we'll see later), and it may be possible that the original "Stand by" line was still in the scene during the spotting session and that's how the cue ended up being named that.
With that out of the way, let's listen to the cue together:
At 0:00 the cue begins with sweeping strings as the Rebel scout looks on at the X-Wings taking off in the far distance.
Then at 0:05 we get some militaristic-sounding rhythmic staccato strings for Leia entering the war room. At 0:10 an oboe joins in, followed shortly after by a bassoon.
This transitions into the harsh staccato brass at 0:18, as we finally see the rebel fighters on their approach to the Death Star.
This mellows out a bit for the shot change at 0:25, and continues as the fighters report in one by one. We still get aggressive sounding drums, but the accompanying woodwinds are relatively calm.
At 0:39 the rhythm changes, getting a little faster, and then at 0:44 we get some woodwinds for the S-Foils opening.
At 0:47 we get some sudden low strings for Porkins' cockpit shaking - I always loved this part, it's a perfect musical representation of "we're passing through the magnetic field!"
Then some ascending build-up starts at 0:51 as the fighters turn their deflectors on, before we get a Death Star theme appearance at 0:54, immediately followed by some shrieking strings. "Look at the size of that thing!"
Then Red Leader tells him to quiet down and get ready for the attack, as the music refocuses into one final rhythmic drive on the strings starting at 0:59. At 1:07, a held note, which leads into a swell and then a crash at 1:12 for the dive. This is intended to segue directly into the next cue...
In the final film this cue is mostly used as intended, however there is a 3 second loop at 1:06. I'm not 100% certain what shots this loop was added for, but for the video above I deleted the shots of Gold Leader telling Red Leader that they're starting for the target shaft, both because it seemed to be the least important for the continuity of the sequence, as well as that it was the exact length of the loop and that the conversation was obviously created editorially (particularly Red Leader's reply which was taken from a completely different part of the script - it's heard as a voiceover in Luke's cockpit and the dialogue cuts off mid-sentence "I copy Gold Leader-"). Additionally, whatever the last minute addition was it had to be between the obvious sync marks at 0:54 and 1:08, and this was the best candidate.
This cue was recorded on March 12, 1977, the sixth day of the recording sessions. It was the fifth cue recorded that day. Eight takes were recorded, numbered 155-162. According to the 1997 take log, the performance edit used just take 162.
This cue has been officially released on two different albums:
2) In 1993 on Arista Records' 4-CD Anthology box set
3) In 1997 on RCA Victor's 2-CD Special Edition set
More specifically, 10m1 Ben's Death can be heard:
From 0:00-end of disc 4 track 15 "Standing By" on the 1993 album
From 0:00-1:11 of disc 2 track 10 "The Battle of Yavin (Launch From The Fourth Moon/X-Wings Draw Fire/Use The Force)" on the 1997 album.
Both sets have a clean opening, but only the 1993 set has the clean ending. The 1997 set is brickwalled. Unfortunately, both sets use the exact same wrong takes. The majority of the cue uses completely different takes in the film.
For the video above, I used the film audio with the unreleased correct takes from 0:00-1:02, but 1:02-end is from the 1993 set with the clean ending. This section of the 1993 set uses the same takes as the film.
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 11m2 Rev. Approaching the Target. See you then!