Hello and welcome to this week's installment of Cue by Cue. Apologies for not posting last weekend, I was very busy.
Today we're going to be listening to 4m2 The Rebels Escape Again.
This cue is 124 bars long and was orchestrated by Herbert Spencer.
Unfortunately, this is one of two cues from this score for which I do not have a scan of the sketch, so I can only show you what the orchestrated score looks like:
As a result, there won't be any sync marks written in the video when we listen to the cue.
Unfortunately this cue doesn't match the picture in the final film - I've attempted to reconstruct the scored cut of the film based on my guesses for the sync marks as well as the frame counts for the ILM shots in the storyboards, and what's written in the script, however I can't guarantee that my guesses were 100% correct.
Without further ado, let's listen to the cue together:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG44O7fO9ZQ
At 0:00 the cue begins with some energetic strings, as the heroes try to navigate the collapsing hallways.
A quick woodwinds statement of Leia's theme at 0:17, and then the strings get faster at 0:23 as Han and Leia quickly reverse directions to head toward the Falcon (and C-3PO struggles to keep up).
The strings continue as we cut to snow snowtroopers entering the base, which builds into an Imperial March statement at 0:34 as Vader emerges.
More strings at 0:45 with brass accompaniment as the heroes reach the room with the Falcon.
Another Imperial March statement at 1:07 for Vader getting closer, followed by a quick sweeping strings transition for the establishing shot of the Falcon.
More energetic strings at 1:16 for Han rushing to get the ship ready. This is joined by a quick statement of the love theme at 1:30.
More Imperial March at 1:37 as the Snowtroopers approach the Falcon. Ascending brass for the Falcon's gun at 1:42, and then we return to the energetic strings in the Falcon cockpit at 1:45.
More Love theme at 1:49, covering the Falcon shooting the snowtroopers (some brass stings accompany the explosions) and blasting off. The statement climaxes around 2:20 as Luke watches the Falcon fly away.
Some final energetic strings at 2:20, accompanied by more of the Love theme as Luke gets into his X-Wing and takes off. This is an interesting scoring choice, as the scene has nothing to do with Leia or Han - but musically it does fit as the culmination of the cue and as a celebration of the heroes' collective escape.
The love theme climaxes at 2:42, trailing off into some descending string ostinato as Luke flies away. Thus, the cue ends...
Just like the last few weeks, this cue had some picture changes in the film. As I said earlier I'm not completely certain what they were, however I had to make the following changes to get the sync marks to fit the music:
Trimmed the Chewbacca shot at 1:24. This shot isn't necessary for the continuity of the scene, and it's the exact length that the music goes out of sync by before the next Imperial March statement (which seems to be intended for the return to the snowtroopers)
Added 2 seconds of black at 2:00 (and a couple frames of black for the jump cut at the explosions slightly before that). My guess based on the music is that this was intended for more shots of snowtrooper explosions - there's no additional cockpit dialogue for this part in the script, and all of the VFX shots for the Falcon flying off are the exact frame count described in the storyboards. Additionally, the brass that occurs during the explosions we have footage of continues during the 2 second gap, and then goes away once we cut back to the Falcon cockpit, giving way to an ascending figure that seems intended for the cockpit shot of the Falcon speeding up.
These edits led to the following music changes in the final cut:
0:00-2:06 = 4m2 The Rebels Escape Again 0:00-2:06
2:06-end = 4m2 The Rebels Escape Again 2:09-end
You'll notice that no music edit was made for that Chewbacca shot I mentioned, which means that the music from 1:24-2:06 plays out of sync in the final cut, including the Imperial March statement that seems to have been intended for the snowtroopers approaching the Falcon (which actually begins while Han and Leia are still talking).
Despite not having a recording log, we know that this cue was recorded on the first day of the recording sessions, December 27, 1979, thanks to the note on the orchestrated sheet. Unfortunately, due to not having the sketch I have no definitive confirmation what the take numbers of this cue are - however the largest gap between the take numbers I do have for 12/27 are between 0 and 11, which implies that this might have been in that range, potentially making it the first cue recorded for the score.
This cue has been officially released on four different albums:
1) In 1980 on RSO 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 The Rebels Escape Again can be heard:
From 2:47-end of track 4 "The Heroics of Luke and Han" on the 1980/2018 albums
From 0:00-end of disc 2 track 8 "The Rebels Escape Again" on the 1993 album
From 11:42-end of disc 1 track 5 "The Battle of Hoth (The Ion Cannon/Imperial Walkers/Beneath the AT-AT/Escape in the Millennium Falcon)" on the 1997 album.
The clean opening (and ending) is available thanks to the 1993 set. Every other set has the clean ending only. The 1980, 1997 and 2018 releases are all remixed, but thankfully the 1993 set has the film mix.
Curiously enough, the 1980/2018 sets are not microedited, but the 1993 set is. The 1993 set is missing the same 3 seconds that are missing in the film, which would almost imply that the 1993 set used the film stem as a source for this cue. That is strange though, because the 1993 set also premieres the clean opening, and the film does not have a clean opening for this cue. My best guess is that the tapes they had for this cue in 1993 were damaged and they needed to repair the damaged sections with the film stem, which unfortunately seems to have included the part missing in the film.
Fortunately, despite the 1997 set being a remix - the part for those 3 seconds in particular sounds almost identical to the film mix, so I was able to cleanly splice it into the 1993 set, and it's barely audible. I also tried splicing in the 1980/2018 sets, but those sounded too different and the edit was obvious.
Additionally, all releases of this cue play at the wrong pitch/speed, although this can easily be corrected in an audio editor:
1980 set has to be sped up by 0.425 to match film
1993 set has to be slowed down by -0.500 to match film
1997 set has to be sped up by 0.105 to match film
2018 set has to be slowed down by -0.230 to match film
One last note to mention with the album releases:
It seems that this cue was included on the OST as a last minute change. Originally as planned, the OST would've included 6m3 This is Not A Cave as the end of "The Heroics of Luke and Han" instead (which in turn means it would not have been included at the end of "Star Wars (Main Theme)", allowing more of 1m2 The Imperial Probe to fit on the album). As a result, this cue would not have been on the OST at all. We know this was the early plan because the vinyl liner notes include descriptions of the music in all the tracks, and the descriptions weren't updated when the OST lineup was changed:
Why was this change made? I'm not really sure. I'd love to know the answer though.
That's all I have for today, thanks for reading! Feel free to leave any comments or questions.
Next week we'll finally be moving on from Hoth, with 4m3 The Asteroid Field. See you then!