STAR WARS Symphonic Forces: Volume X Completed "Wampa Ice Layer" through to "Snowspeeders Take Flight"
Perhaps one of the most edit written of the three original trilogy films, Empire Strikes Back has never ceased to amaze me with what it does and doesn't use and how it uses these moments.
One aspect of film I haven't really spoken to much to is the idea of "tracked" music.
Perhaps one of the strangest and most widely used edit in the Prequel Trilogy is that of "tracked music." Williams was aware of this when he composed the music for Episode I and is perhaps in no small reason why his score for Episode I is as brilliant as it is: he knew that it would be used in the other films.
Episode II, as we all know, uses massive amounts of tracked music. Tracked music however wasn't always as widespread as it was in Episode II.
Sometimes, when a composer felt differently about a scene than a director, he/she would create an alternate. If even that alternate didn't suffice, the director might pull from other material.
Examples of this are present in many of the films of Spielberg. One particular scene that comes to mind is when ET is first taken out of his closet and Elliot explains many concepts to him from toys, fish, to eating. The original scoring of this scene is much more delicate using the friendship theme with light strings and harp.
In the end, however, Spielberg decided to cull from another cue called "Loosing ET," when ET lies, dead, in the freezer and Elliot speaks to him, saying goodbye. Both use this friendship theme and are good alternates for each-other and fit each scene almost identically so one could almost argue in the geniuess that went into this decision. Even little nuances such as ET eating the car and ET coming back to life line up perfectly with the same moment in the cue, a hopeful moment shining above the rest.
That is a good example of well done tracked music.
Empire Strikes Back is 129 minutes long. John Williams wrote 123 minutes of score.
Almost the entire film had music written for it which is a MASSIVE amount of music. The entire opening sequence from Main Title through to the end of "Snowspeeders Take Flight" was covered entirely in music. In the film, however, most of it lay unused. Then there is one scene without music (luke recouperating), then we're back on with wall to wall music.
This video presents a lot of what was left out. The end of "Wampa Ice Lair" which leads into the juxtaposition of Luke's wanderings across Hoth and Han searching for him, with this almost whimsical yet loud search motif full of many strange sounds building the tension between the scenes. This has one scene interjected of 3PO trying to Get R2 to come in from the cold. This shot makes use of the droid motif and works rather well in this shot, building the tension back up until Luke (and the music) fall with a boom of the timpani.
When we return to Echo Base, we move onto the beginning of the next cue, "Visions of Obi-Wan." This highlights the tension Leia is going through having lost both of her friends out in the ice and having to finally decide to close the door to the hangar of the base, to protect the inhabitants. As the door closes, a barely audible tense string portion plays outlining the tension.
After the doors close, Chewiee puts his head down in defeat and this is where the film tracks back in the cue. This plays through to the pull out from Han setting up the shelter. In the film, since they removed "Snowspeeders Take Flight," they omit the end of this cue which is a horn introduction using the two-note tension motif (very similar to the Jaws Theme).
Then the next cue would begin almost exactly where that l"Visions of Obi-Wan" leaves off, taking use of that two note tension motif. "Snowspeeders Take Flight," remarkably, is very similar to Jaws theme in orchestrations underlying the melody, using the same dun-dun, dun-dun, even with the triplet wind/horn parts from Jaws but goes off in a completely different direction that really is quite interesting. The usage of the tracked cue "Hyperspace" in the film is anyones guess as to why. Perhaps because they didn't want to use all that much music and rather open with a bit of simple SFX rather than straight into music (which the omission of music does help in giving the audience a reprieve subconsciously and can give the film a heightened sense of realism while also making it feel like more time has passed. The usage of music, especially John Williams cues, is used to tie scenes together. Omitting music tends to allow the scenes to stand on their own and can trick the audience into feeling more time has passed. The film does return to the cue once Luke and Han are found.
The end of the cue, however, is not used in the film because of unused material from the film itself (an omitted scene), so I simply use it for the end credits.
Anyways, you can view the video here.