Hello and welcome to this week's installment of Cue by Cue.
Today we're going to be listening to 7m2 Attack Position.
This cue is 92 bars long and was orchestrated by Angela Morley.
Here's the tops of the sketch and orchestrated score:
Note the slight discrepancy in title between the sketch and the orchestrated version - the orchestrated version adds an "s" to the end of "Position" to make it plural. Since the sketch is the one written directly by Williams, I'm treating that as the intended title, the orchestrated version was likely just a transcription error. This is corroborated by the fact that the singular version is the title on the cue sheet, and is also the title that more accurately reflects the dialogue in the scene.
With that out of the way, let's listen to the cue together:
At 0:00 the cue begins with the first appearance of Boba Fett's theme, which underscores Vader instructing the bounty hunters on their mission. It's a very low bassoon melody with some backing timpani. A side note: excuse the timestamps in the sketch notes for this cue, I can't really explain why they seem to start in the middle and then restart, I just transcribed them as written.
At 0:29 this segues into some swashbuckling action music as the Falcon desperately tries to outrun a Star Destroyer.
This dies down at 0:49 for the humorous moment where the Falcon Hyperdrive fails again. Some soft strings hold for a moment as Han is in denial, before the action music returns as the Falcon is fired upon at 0:59.
Most of this section continues building on the cue's main driving action melody, but a couple big fanfares play for the Falcon's dive at 1:08, the Falcon's turn at 1:26, and the Falcon flying off screen at 1:39.
This is followed by some quiet strings (joined by a keyboard ostinato) as the Imperial officers discuss the Falcon's disappearance, and some dark brass at 1:57 one of them promises to take accountability with Vader. This leads directly into the transition to Dagobah at 2:07, with a little bit of harp and some more keyboard.
A subtle hint of Yoda's theme at 2:13 is followed by some woodwinds at 2:23 for the rock being lifted. Some brass joins in once the ship starts to sink at 2:36, leading to Luke losing focus and falling.
Some low strings end the cue as Luke gets up and the ship continues to sink...
This cue appears to have been used exactly as intended in the final cut; no visual or music edits were made after scoring.
Since I don't have a recording log I'm unsure what day this cue was recorded, but based on the take numbers written in the sketch it was likely recorded in early January. I'm also unsure how many takes were recorded, but according to the sketch the performance edit uses takes 112 and 113.
Thanks to the "A Musical Journey" DVD feature included with the Revenge of the Sith OST I can show a recording sessions photo from this cue:
You can tell from the clothes everyone's wearing that it was at least recorded on a different day from 6m3 This Is Not A Cave. Perhaps it was recorded a day or two earlier given how close the take numbers are.
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, 7m2 Attack Position can be heard:
From 0:00-end of disc 4 track 8 "Attack Position" on the 1993 album
From 0:00-end of disc 2 track 3 "Attacking a Star Destroyer" on the 1997 album.
Both albums have the clean opening and ending, and neither album is remixed. That said, the 1997 album is substantially more brickwalled than the 1993 album.
The 1993 album also has a horrible sounding glitch around the 1:30 mark, the right channel has a really noticeable short spike in volume. This can be fixed in an audio editor if you split the channels, select the affected section in the right channel and reduce the volume by about 4 db. I have no idea how or why this happened:
Additionally, both releases of this cue play at the wrong pitch/speed, although this can easily be corrected in an audio editor:
1993: has to be sped up by 0.066 to match film
1997: has to be sped up by 0.066 to match film
For the video above I used a speed corrected version of the 1993 set with the volume spike fixed.
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 7m3 Yoda Raises the Ship. See you then!