Hello and welcome to this week's installment of Cue by Cue.
Today we're going to be listening to 8m3 Lando's Palace.
This cue is 75 bars long and was orchestrated by Al Woodbury.
Here's the tops of the sketch and orchestrated score:
Now let's listen to the cue together:
At 0:00 the cue begins with some woodwind trills before the Cloud City march starts at 0:06 with the wide shot.
Another Cloud City March statement at 0:19 for the switch indoors, which continues to develop as the heroes walk down the hall.
The march starts once more at 0:42, trailing off with some plucked strings at 0:50 as C-3PO sees another protocol droid and gets interested in the side room. Funnily enough the sketch labels this part with "Artoo" twice, it seems Williams must have accidentally confused the two droids.
A playful horn line starts at 0:54 as C-3PO wanders through the room, leading into some dark brass at 1:04 as he is blown up. This climaxes with the door slam at 1:13.
The scene wipes to Dagobah, and we get a statement of Luke's theme as he grabs something from the X-Wing cockpit.
Some dark strings after Yoda implores him not to go, and then a celesta mickey-mouses the appearance of Ben at 1:40.
Ben's appearance is immediately followed by a statement of the Force theme, which leads into a dark hint of the Imperial March for the mention of "the Dark Side" at 1:55.
A sad but beautiful horn solo underscores Luke's insistence on leaving at 2:03. This is followed by a rendition of Yoda's A theme at 2:25 for his speech about the importance of stopping Vader, and his prediction of Luke's failure.
Another solo of Luke's theme for his closeup at 3:00. One more statement of the Force theme for Ben's advice at 3:15, which continues as Yoda gives his advice, Luke promises to heed it and to return, and takes off. This trails off on melancholic strings as Ben and Yoda discuss whether he is their final hope. Thus, the cue ends...
No picture edits appear to have been made between scoring and recording, and no music edits were made either.
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 having the earliest take numbers in the sketch of any cue of which there are scans. Unfortunately, I'm unsure how many takes were recorded, but according to the sketch the performance edit uses takes 11 and 14.
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, 8m3 Lando's Palace can be heard:
From 0:00-end of track 16 "Lando's Palace" on the 1980/2018 albums
From 0:00-end of disc 2 track 16 "Lando's Palace" on the 1993 album
From 0:00-end of disc 2 track 6 "Lando's Palace" on the 1997 album.
All releases are complete and have the clean opening and the clean ending. Every release except for the 1993 is remixed.
Additionally, most 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 0.350 to match film
1993 set has to be slowed down by -0.440 to match film
1997 set is the correct speed
2018 set has to be slowed down by -0.350 to match film
For my edit above I used a speed corrected copy of the 1993 set.
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 9m1 Luke to the Rescue. See you then!
