Okay, slight progress update. Sorry to be bouncing in an out sporadically, but the delays in production are for the greater good (I hope).
While I had every intention of posting the screener for you guys (I know, I know), I had a pretty profound bit of inspiration that I decided to incorporate into my edit, which in turn, postponed the screener and gave me a fair bit of work to complete.
As those of you following this thread will know, I’ve been replacing certain music cues throughout the film. Well, truth be told, I was unhappy with a few of the pieces I had chosen. Something was just…missing, tonally, from the film. I love Williams’ score, but I wanted to try and recapture the lightning of the OT. And intertwining Williams’ work with that of other non-Williams Star Wars composers just didn’t work as organically as I had hoped. Even sprinkling in pieces of music from the OT seemed to leave a weird taste in my mouth, at times. I wasn’t sure if it was just “editor’s fatigue” of working with the same scenes over and over again and getting tired of the sounds, or if I was realizing that my initial plan was failing, creatively.
I’ve been discussing this with another editor (who we will call “Joe” for conversation’s sake), and he was able to articulate to me what the void was that I couldn’t quite explain. 70’s John Williams is a different composer than 90’s John Williams. And by that I mean, sprinkling bits of 70’s JW Star Wars into 90’s JW Star Wars was jarringly noticeable. It wasn’t necessarily a deal-breaker, but I felt I could do better. After all, I want this to be as definitive of an edit (at least, according to my own taste) as possible, so I decided to explore other musical options. I wanted to recreate the Star Wars feeling, without delivering a carbon-copy of A New Hope’s soundtrack, but with bits of TPM sprinkled in (which is what it was turning into).
So Joe recommended I listen to a few soundtracks composed by 60s-70s era John Williams, from some of his lesser-known films. The idea was that around the time of A New Hope, John Williams had composed pieces of music that very much had that retro Star Wars feel, but they hadn’t gotten the exposure of his more popular films. Well, I followed Joe’s advice and stumbled across some great gems of music that I have since decided to use in my cut of Episode I. And I’ll say, I’m pretty happy with what I’ve found. I’m hoping that the older music, coupled with the new color grading and film grade, will help give Episode I the tone I want. I’ll post a clip soon (I really will, I promise) to show you what I mean.
Also, I tend to think ahead quite a bit, and I think for my Episode II, I’ll be using bits of Williams’ Dracula score for the Dooku scenes. I’m sure someone has had the idea before, but I think it would be really cool. I may try to hint at the Dracula score in the Dooku scene I’ve added in Episode I, but I haven’t decided yet.
Anyway, the edit is still coming together. Piece by piece.