Hello and welcome to this week's installment of Cue by Cue.
Today we're going to be listening to 7m3 Yoda Raises The Ship.
This cue is 167 bars long and was orchestrated by Herbert Spencer.
Here's the tops of the sketch and orchestrated score:
A note before listening: This is another of those cues from this score for which there exist synth elements that were written and recorded with the cue, but which ended up mixed out in some releases. Due to some remnants of the synth even in the no-synth versions, I believe that it was recorded with the orchestra, but on a separate mic; and it was likely kept as a separate stem from the LCR mix so that it could be dialed out without requiring a ground-up remix.
For this cue, the film doesn't use the intended synth, however I've opted to include two versions of the video, one with the synth as intended and one without the synth as in the final film.
With that out of the way, let's listen to the cue together:
Synth (intended) version:
No Synth (film) version:
At 0:00 the cue begins with some curious celeste, followed by an ascending string line as Luke tries and fails to raise the ship. In the synth version this is accompanied by an ear piercing synth screech at 0:12, which is so loud that it appears to have bled through to the other mics and is even sort of audible in the no-synth version. I can definitely see why they dialed this out in the film.
Some descending woodwinds at 0:16 as the ship begins to sink again, followed by sad brass for Yoda's disappointment at 0:20.
A sad rendition of Luke's theme at 0:30 accompanies him walking over and sitting next to Yoda. A brief ascending woodwind line at 0:43 is followed by a couple seconds of silence.
Yoda's theme starts at 0:59 as he begins his most impactful speech yet about his power of allying with the Force. From here the music takes a sad turn at 1:40 as Luke tells Yoda that he asks the impossible and walks off in frustration.
Another pause as Yoda sighs and bows his head. Another curious celeste at 2:07, followed by some ascending woodwinds reminiscent of the cue's opening, but backed with hints of Yoda's theme.
The woodwinds take over Yoda's theme at 2:24, building into the entire orchestra as we see the X-Wing rising at 2:33. This continues as it flies over the swamp, climaxing as he sets it down on the ground near Luke.
More Yoda theme at 3:10 as Luke walks all around the ship and Yoda bows his head. One last statement of Yoda's theme as he chastises Luke for not believing the feat. This builds into a sudden ascending statement of the Imperial March for the transition to the Imperial fleet, ending on a dark brass line for the officer choking to death. Thus, the cue ends...
The film appears to have undergone a couple very minor visual changes after the scene was scored, leading to a minor music edit in the film. I'm not 100% certain as to what the first visual edit was, but it seems that one second of footage was snipped between the time Yoda lifted up the ship and placed it on the ground. My assumption is that this was live action footage and not visual effects footage, because all of the visual effects shots in this scene match the frame counts on the storyboards. For the edit above I placed this missing shot at 2:56 but I could've been off by a few seconds. Perhaps it was an extra closeup before Luke sees the X-Wing get placed down.
The other visual edit was the apparent extension of the Imperial Fleet establishing shot by one second. The shot length in the final cut matches that in the storyboards, however the sync note in the sketch for the cut indoors to the choking officer occurs 1 second before the shot ends. In my edit above I trimmed this shot to line up with the music as intended.
Just like with 6m5-7m1 The Magic Tree there was an additional music change made because the filmmakers didn't like part of the cue. More specifically, the transition to the Imperial fleet in the final cut was completely replaced with some tracked material from the concert suite. Once again, I have genuinely no idea why this edit was made, I think it sounds infinitely worse than the original cue.
In the final theatrical cut:
0:00-3:03 = 7m3 Yoda Raises the Ship 0:00-3:03
3:03-3:40 = 7m3 Yoda Raises the Ship 3:04-3:41
3:40-3:45 = Darth Vader's Theme 0:40-0:45
3:45-end = 2m4 The Probe Scanner 2:57-end
Once again, the edits to the Imperial Fleet transition were thankfully undone in the Special Edition:
0:00-3:03 = 7m3 Yoda Raises the Ship 0:00-3:03
3:03-end = 7m3 Yoda Raises the Ship 3:04-end
Despite not having a recording log, we know that this cue was recorded on the first day of the recording sessions, December 28, 1979, thanks to the note on the orchestrated sheet. It doesn't explicitly say the date, however it does say "Thurs.", and thanks to the mentioned cue numbers we know this must be the same Thursday as other cues like 6m4 Training a Jedi which was explicitly recorded on Thursday, 12/28. Unfortunately, I'm unsure how many takes were recorded, but according to the sketch the performance edit uses takes 24, 25 and 26; additionally the sketch has a number 27 written on it in the top left corner of page 1 - it doesn't appear to have been used because it wasn't circled, but this may have been a recorded take as well.
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, 7m3 Yoda Raises The Ship can be heard:
From 0:00-end of track 13 "Yoda and the Force" on the 1980/2018 albums
From 0:00-end of disc 2 track 14 "Yoda and the Force" on the 1993 album
From 0:00-end of disc 2 track 4 "Yoda and the Force" on the 1997 album.
All releases are complete and have the clean opening and ending. Every release is remixed except for the 1993 set. All releases have the intended synth except for the 2018 set and the 2023 ATMOS release.
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 0.320 to match film
1993 set has to be sped up by 0.150 to match film
1997 set has to be slowed down by -0.070 to match film
2018 set has to be slowed down by -0.440 to match film
For the videos above I used a speed corrected copy of the 1993 set for the synth version, and a combined edit of a film rip with the 1993 set for the non-synth version. I used a film rip over the 2018/2023 sets because that way it wasn't remixed and it was easier to splice. Only the opening few seconds without the synth came from the film, the rest is all the 1993 album.
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 7m4-8m1 Vader's Command. See you then!