Hello and welcome to this week's installment of Cue by Cue. Apologies for no post last week, I took a while to write this as I wanted to make sure it was comprehensive.
Today we're going to be listening to 12m2a End Titles.
This is an interesting case, as it's the first cue we've looked at in this series where it was known to be fully recorded, yet a large section of it has never been heard by the public.
As I mentioned in the previous post, this was originally written as one cue, covering the medal ceremony and the end credits sequence - however, it was broken up into two cues for recording, with the medal ceremony being recorded as the first half 12m2 End Titles, and the end credits sequence being recorded as 12m2a End Titles.
As recorded, this cue is 108 bars long, covering bars 52-159 of the cue as written. This cue was orchestrated by Herbert Spencer.
Since it starts in the middle of the cue, there is no title page for 12m2a End Titles, the title comes from the cue sheet - however I can show the top of the page where bar 52 starts - it's the last bar on page 13:
As you can see there's no obvious indication of the cue changing, it wasn't decided to record it separately until the sessions.
This is where we arrive at the interesting part: The opening of this cue, the start of the end credits sequence, was rejected and rewritten during the sessions. This resulted in a revised intro being recorded and written as an insert, 12m2x, which is used in the film and on every soundtrack album. The original intro of 12m2a End Titles went unused and has never been released.
Additionally, the sheet music for 12m2a End Titles has an optional alternate ending notated. It's unclear whether this was ever recorded, the recording log makes no mention of it and it has also never been heard. I would guess that at least one take of the alternate ending was recorded, but there's no conclusive evidence one way or the other.
As a result of the real recording being unavailable for the opening and alternate ending, the videos below use mockups created by JWFan user ThePenitentMan1 from the sheet music. Basically, these are fan made recreations of what the recordings might've sounded like using virtual instruments. I will note which parts use mockups in the releases section.
With all that out of the way, let's listen to the cue together:
At 0:00 the cue begins with some repeating notes leading into the "Rolling Thunder" last heard in 11m2R Approaching the Target at 0:04.
This builds into a statement of the Rebel fanfare at 0:10, just as we get the credits for the three main leads. Statements of the Rebel Fanfare continue with backing Rolling Thunder as the rest of the lead credits play.
Then at 0:31 we get some more Rolling Thunder, leading into Luke's theme at 0:38 as the scrolling credits start. The A portion climaxes at 0:52, just as John Williams' music credit is on screen, and leads immediately into the B portion at 0:54.
The Luke A theme returns again at 1:12 as the credits change style one last time into the less focused scrolling list covering everyone.
Then at 1:28, Luke's theme transitions into a long statement of Leia's theme, as the scrolling list continues. It's worth noting that at this point most of the credited music team members are on screen including music editor Ken Wannberg, recording engineer Eric Tomlinson and lead orchestrator Herbert Spencer.
The big Leia's theme statement climaxes at 2:14, leading right back into the Rolling Thunder. This is shortly followed by the return of Luke's A theme at 2:21.
One more B theme statement at 2:37, which transitions into the Rebel Fanfare at 2:52. This develops at 3:05 into some ascending brass.
Then at 3:13 we get an interesting slow strings development of the Rebel Fanfare, which transitions into one final brass line at 3:26, which is reminiscent of the ascending material from the opening of the medal ceremony. The cue ends with one last brass triplet at 3:39. Thus the cue, and the film, ends...
As I mentioned above, there was also an alternate ending written, which may have been recorded but went unused. The alternate ending sounded like this:
This version ends with the same medal ceremony-esque brass as the final version, however it leads into three brass triplets at the end rather than one.
I always thought it was interesting that this cue is designed as a theme suite of the most important themes in the film, yet it only really covers the A and B Luke themes, Leia's theme, and the Rebel Fanfare, along with the Rolling Thunder and a subtle nod to the medal ceremony. The suite completely skips over Ben's theme and the Imperial theme, even though they're two of the most important themes in the entire score!
This cue was recorded on March 12, 1977, the sixth day of the recording sessions. It was the second cue recorded that day, immediately following the first half for the medal ceremony. Ten takes were recorded, numbered 134-143. According to the 1997 take log, the performance edit used takes 136, 137, 142 and 143.
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, 12m2 End Titles can be heard:
From 2:06-end of track 1 "Main Title" on the 1977/2018 albums
From 2:24-end of track 16 "The Throne Room and End Title" on the 1977/2018 albums
From 2:06-end of track 1 "Main Title" on the 1993 album
From 2:24-end of disc 1 track 16 "The Throne Room/End Titles" on the 1993 album
From 2:24-end of disc 2 track 11 "The Throne Room/End Title" on the 1997 album.
The OST album made the strange decision of including this cue twice, both in its first and last track, almost like a suite to bookend the album. Despite this, the cue is still incomplete because the Main Title version cuts off the opening and the End Titles version uses the revised insert.
As mentioned above, the opening and alternate ending are both completely unavailable to the public, although the normal ending is available clean on every album and in the film. The 1977 album is remixed and should be avoided. The 1997 album is brickwalled, and the 1993 album has incorrect takes.
For my edit above:
0:00-0:17 = ThePenitentMan1's opening mockup
0:17-0:31 = 2018 track 16
0:31-0:41 = 2018 track 1
0:41-end = 2018 track 16
Technically I cheated a little bit with 0:17-0:31 - these seconds come from the 12m2X insert recording, however the bars are identical to the original so I decided to use them rather than the mockup.
For the alternate ending video:
0:00-0:10 = 2018 track 16
0:10-end = ThePenitentMan1's alt. ending mockup
The last thing to note about this cue is that it's one of those rare cues with official sheet music available, actually in two different suites!
The "Main Title" suite from bars 98-182 mostly matches bars 69-153 of this cue.
Additionally, the "Throne Room" suite from bars 116-192 mostly matches bars 61-153 of this cue.
There are a few alterations made in these suites, notably The Throne Room cuts out the first appearance of Luke's B theme, and both suites end with an actual statement of the medal ceremony theme rather than just a subtle nod to its opening brass fanfare.
Both of these suites are available from Hal Leonard as part of their Signature Edition line, and recordings can also be found on youtube. Here are the Throne Room and Main Title suites, the former conducted by Gustavo Dudamel and the latter by John Williams:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vG_zkLFkIs
The part relevant to this cue from this Throne Room suite recording is 4:49-end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54hoKbTWon4
The part relevant to this cue from this Main Title suite recording is 2:27-end.
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 12m2x, the opening insert used in the film. This will be the final score cue from the first film covered by this series, although I do plan to do a bonus post about the Princess Theme concert suite. See you then!