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GoodMusician

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23-Feb-2007
Last activity
6-Aug-2024
Posts
620

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Post
#297872
Topic
"Lucas can't find home for Star Wars spin-off"
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/297872/action/topic#297872
Time
I wonder if its money related...

You'd think that any network would kill to have this... it's probably one of the most anticipated shows

But I do wonder if the asking price is too high...

Channels that could distribute it aren't sure they want to pay the asking price because they aren't sure if the show will even fit their audience...

And Cartoon Network would show it. I mean they have DEATHCLOCK! lol... So why woudln't Cartoon Network show this?

I think it's money... he's probably asking far too much for it.
Post
#297474
Topic
Star Wars Prequels/Original Trilogy: The Complete Scores (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/297474/action/topic#297474
Time
hehe...

I'm going back and redoing Jedi again becuase I've learned a bit more about cleaning the music since then so if you downloaded the complete Jedi, it'll be replaced soon.

As will Episode I... I've upgraded my technology since I did that a few years back and I'd like to correct it. There are a few small problems with it but I can make it sound even better so I'm going to.

Glad you like my edits.
Post
#297133
Topic
Potter eclipses Star Wars and Bond
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/297133/action/topic#297133
Time
lol... wow... we know who's opinionated lol...

Sorry... I always saw Casino Royal as a separate take on Bond... I didn't see it as bad, but I've never read the book and knowing that it was written years ago... there is no way that movie was even loosely based on it...

tracking people via cell phones? lol
Although I did love Pierce lol... but I grew up with him in the Bond movis so lol... Goldeneye is still my favourite...

As far as Lord of the Rings... I've always heard how well adapted it was by fans...

And I do have to say this as I am the Co-Admin of the largest Jurassic Park resource on the web and we have to deal with people who do this all the time:

Never.... Ever.... Compare Novel to Film.


They are two separate media. To say one is better or worse then the other is simply not possible.

It's like saying you like The Great Gate of Kiev painting more than the Modest Mussorgsky suite. To say one has more detail or less is simply not possible and blind.

Why do I say this? Because you can't compare art like that.

Look at the films... you may not like them, but they have an amazing wealth of information, artwork (because they are mostly CG) and craftsman ship from countless people... not to mention symbolism of their own and a story of their own to weave. Limited by the artform, you can only do so much and only say so much.


The Great Gate of Kiev is a rather wonderful arch. The composition, however, does not say explicitly "It's a grand, rounded arch with a great spire from the top" in any lyrics BUT musically it goes Do--- Re---- Me, Do, Me, Re, sol which is like an arch... going up and back down again... but not ever stating "It has a spire" or "it is an arch with a tower" and to cite it as being flawed or mal-formed or BAD because it doesn't is simply not taking in what it does have to offer of its own.

Tolkein's novel is a great wealth of information of another kind. The symbolism you say is lost is replaced with another... similar to what I was saying with the music not explicitly stating something but showing it another way.



Personally, I've never read the novels, but the whole 'christian undertone' argument is kind of moot.

I saw "Narnia" and it is like the exact opposite. The whole time, I was stuck comparing it to the Bible. The whole story is like if you told the new testament but changed the nouns from 'Jesus' to 'Aslan' or from the two Mary's to the two girls.

I was stuck comparing it to the Bible and I couldn't see past that and see the film for what it is. For that, I think it greatly suffered if my eyes.

It may have been a good story and a moral one and what have you, but I personally could not see past the christian underpinnings and for me, that hindered the experience. It didn't go its own way or illustrate anything so dramatically different than the Bible. It didn't stand out as being as unique as the Bible; just a knock off copy.

I saw it once and never again. I have it on DVD but I didn't bother getting the expanded one...

So to update or to modify allusions and symbolism is just the thing an 'adaptation' needs to do... To make it's own mark in a certain art-scape.


So to go its own way I feel is a good thing....
Post
#297110
Topic
Star Wars Prequels/Original Trilogy: The Complete Scores (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/297110/action/topic#297110
Time
Oh its down right now...

Its hard to say when it'll be back up. It was up almost all summer, and then it was down for like 2 days... then it was up for a month and now it's down again...

Give it a few days and it should be back up.

As for the new scores, I'm going to start working on them right now and hopefully by the time the site is up, I can upload them and they'll be ready...

I'm going to work on Jedi right now--fixing a few errors and replacing that whole set.

Then onto Episode II.

This isn't star wars Related, but I just finished a Home Alone complete score edit which will be up on there so I have some free time now to work on the other edits.

I'd also like to redo Episode I but that will take a lot of time. It'll mean going over EVERYTHING and remixing and editined everything...so that'll take some time.

As far as the ewok scores, I have a really low quality rip. If anyone has a nice high quality even MP3 320 rip of that score, could you let me know. I'd like to place that up on the site as well but at the moment, I only have a low quality rip of about half that bit rate.


Estimate time:

Jedi can be completed by this weekend.

Episode II in a week.

I'd like to explore Episode IV and possibly just give an expansion CD. That can be done by next saturday.

I don't like the idea of putting deadlines on these but I will do my best to get them done by these dates... but if need be I will push dates forward.

I'll also let you know when the site is back up.

Post
#297011
Topic
Recycled Prequel Music!?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/297011/action/topic#297011
Time
The problem was that Williams I think gave up on Star Wars after Episode I.

After spending years perfecting a score, in a matter of weeks, the score was torn apart and rebuilt from the ground up by Lucas and company for the battle for Naboo.

What once was a magnificent battle sequence, perhaps THE best battle sequence score he's composed, became nothing more than a hodge podge of snippets.

Why? Because he composed the music for the scene, then they edited it. He went back and rescored it. They re-edited it... he finally was unable to contribue any further, and they edited it however the frak they wanted, and simply pillaged his score.

Williams is said to have felt betrayed and artistically ignored by this.

Then you get Episode II. From composing Nearly 4 CD's worth of music for Episode I, he composed about one CD worth of music.

There was so much not finished with the film when he saw it that he and Lucas actually decided against scoring anymore, and he simply let them take from Episode I what they wanted and put it in the film.

After this, Williams seemingly had a talk with Lucas and said "Look, if you want me to score the films, we have to make a change here."

So, for episode III, they did things a lot different.

Williams composed nearly 3 cd's worth of music (as normal) and the music tracked into Episode III for the most part was pre-decided upon.

Everything except for a couple scenes like "Prophesy Misread" and "Plot to Destroy the Jedi" had pre-planned tracked music.

The rest were just small edits to the score.
Post
#296922
Topic
Star Wars Prequels/Original Trilogy: The Complete Scores (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/296922/action/topic#296922
Time
More then welcome hehe...

glad you enjoy them heh

As for a book, I have decided to start compiling my information on a website... I don't have much experience building websites so it's a simple geocities site... but I'm only working on the outline at the moment. Unfortunately/fortunately, there is so much information that even having separate pages for the individual films isn't enough. There will probably be 3-5 pages for each film score lol....

If you're interested, here's a very very rough idea of it: Star Wars Music
EDIT: Normally there would me a music track playing but with my upload place down, you won't hear it.
Post
#296897
Topic
Star Wars Prequels/Original Trilogy: The Complete Scores (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/296897/action/topic#296897
Time
Hey... great questions all and yes... currently my index and the site hosting it is having some hickups... I'll let you all know when it's back up...

1) For the first question, yes: those masters are lost.

Let me clarify the master's situation:

Film Score Masters: These masters were recorded in Abby Road Studio (excepting one track "Superstructure Chase" which was recorded in another venue because of time constraints). These masters contain all the film score material. These masters are then copied, edited and so fourth to make the final film mix. Those are then what are usually used to make the soundtrack releases.

Album Recording Session Masters: It use to be that film scores never got the releases we see today. No one really cared. But, ironically, the very thing that caused 'classical film scores' to loose out in the main media was the very thing that created the first soundtrack/score releases.

Many films had popular music play in them. Think of the old surfer movies with people dancing on the beach or even up until the 80's with "The Breakfast Club." These films had many popular songs play in them. But back in the 50-60's, composers usually would compose a main title that was lyrical.

Williams did many of these old films in this style. One such is "Penelope." The main title has people actually singing in it... or "John Goldfarb, Please come home!" These scores, because of the popularity of their almost strictly "pop" music scores began to cause interest in musical releases.

So, many scores would be recorded for the film, then latter, the composer would come back, arrange the score into several tracks that are shorter and highlight the main points of the score, and release a sort of "Concert Suite" album.

With the advent of much better editing practices and such, as technology developed, Williams slowly stopped doing this, and simply would take the Film score masters, and have those edited to create the album release. Notice certain scores like "Checkmate" have never been released in their complete fashion, but rather, the album re-recording has been remastered and re-released because it's all that's survived.

But, sometimes Williams will go back to this practice and make Concert Suites for the films. Star Wars you'll notice only had one: Princess Leia's Theme. There was also the edit of "Main Title" that then transitioned into "End Titles" but that wasn't recorded that way.

Jedi, however, had a separate session about a week latter if I remember right where the LSO and Williams reconvened and recorded the concert suites.

"Jabba the Hutt's Suite"
"The Forest Battle Concert Suite"
"Parade of the Ewoks"
"Luke and Leia"

and lastly, because they re-edited "Sail Barge Assault," Williams was asked to rescore that sequence. The rescore was recorded during the album recording session as well. However, the editing of the sequence continued on for many more weeks, and by the time the sequence was perfected to how we see it theatrically, Williams was no longer able to compose for the scene so they simply used the material he composed and edited it like they had the scene to match the new edit.

This may also be where he recorded the "Ewok Forest Battle Insert" as well... which may be why that is not on the set.


The Source Cues Masters: Frankly, I don't know too much about these. From my knowledge they were lost, but strangely, there are source cues on the set lol. These were recorded in a different studio by completely different people.

From my understanding the Max Rebo Band music ( #1, #2, an unused source cue and Lapti nek) were composed in a collaboration between Joseph and John Williams. I'm not sure to what extent. I've heard the Joseph composed the music for the source cues and that his dad supervised. I've also heard that Joseph did the lyrics which were then translated into Huttesse by Ben Burtt and some other person.

The source cues include:

Jabb the Hutt's Baroque Recital
Lapti Nek (Film) / Film Instrumental / Album / Extended Album/ Album Instrumental / English
Max Rebo Band Song #1
Max Rebo Band Song #2
Part of the Tribe
Unknown Source Cue

and possibly the three Ewok Yub Nub/Choir/Film versions were recorded here

(and then of course "Jedi Rocks" many years latter).

----

These are the THREE sets of masters. When the first album was released, they had access to all of these. When Ford Thaxton set up the 4 disc anthology, they had access to all of these.

When they went to do the SE, everything had disappeared. All that was available were the copies of the film score masters and presumably only a couple of the source cue master reels.

Because of this, the quality of all the cues is severely diminished (as whenever you copy something you loose quality).

The SE, however, does contain the concert suites, but notice not all of them.

Interesting to note is that on the Anthology, the Return of the Jedi track "Han Solo Returns" has the ending to the album recording session of "Jabba the Hutt's Concert Suite" incorrectly placed at the end. On the SE, they correct this and use the originally composed version (although still not what's heard in the film as that's simply tracked music).

The reason the SE does have any of the concert suites is when an album is produced, a master copy of the entire album is created and the ones produced on CD are copied from this master copy. The master copy has very good quality and is almost comparable to the original masters (but still is slightly less).

When the SE was produced, the Anthology master was available and it is from THAT which the concert suites are taken (which also includes the Film "Sail Barge Assault").


Because of this, the sound quality is arguably "clearer," but technically only slightly so due to the limitations. In essence, the only difference is that the SE version has been digitally mastered which added arguably some clarity, but did add a bit of tape noise to it.

----

After the SE was produced, however, the Original Score Masters were discovered. It is THESE that should have been used but could not be because they were missing.

Now that they have been found, the complete score as recorded for the film (not the source cues and not the album cues) can be presented cleanly and clearly.. and should, in theory, be as great sounding as a modern film score do to the advances already in place at that time.

It should also include about 90 seconds of missing score that the SE doesn't have.

Unfortunately, I have not heard if the other masters have been found. The Album and the Source cue masters are seemingly lost forever, which is Lucasfilms official stance.



---------

2) I'm not too sure about this...

When a score is prepped for film, they music is edited to fit the film. The source cues, however, I think may be mixed in with the SFX mix and are mixed separately from the score itself.

If you go on starwars.com, you can do video mashups. These prove that the SFX alone film does exist. The music alone film, however, I do believe exists but I do not think they had access to. That, again, would be unnecessary really because they had other masters from which to work. They actually had very little help from Lucasfilm when producing the Special Editions. When they discovered the best quality original masters for Star Wars, Lucasfilm was thrilled! You'd think they'd already have them but no, they'd been sitting in a closet in a recording studio all these years.

That's the score. The source cues like the Max Rebo and such I do not believe are mixed the same way. Because they change depending on the environment. MY GUESS is that they are mixed in with the SFX layer... but you do raise an interesting question... even though they would change in how they sound because of the environment changing and the barge flying by and such... it may be possible for they to find that music and at least isolate it.


3) Joseph Williams is actually a very accomplished composer. For the Prequels, he wrote all the source cues... composed and everything.

He's a composer. He does more pop style music, however. He also is a singer. He did the singing voice of the adult version of Simba in The Lion King (why it wasn't Mathew Broddrick who can sing and sings on Broadway, I don't know lol... I guess they wanted a more masculine voice oh well)...

But yes, he is a composer and an arranger and a lyracist. He writs "pop" style songs. They aren't ... brilliant... but they're ok. As far as the OT goes, those source cues he did write the lyrics to... and as far as I know he at least arranged the music if not performed the electronic/synth portions.

Post
#296622
Topic
Star Wars Prequels/Original Trilogy: The Complete Scores (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/296622/action/topic#296622
Time
Well, in all honesty... I'm planning on redoing Episode I and IV again... I've listened to them and I've been able to make some nice changes...

As for Episode II... I may make an expanded release... but it will by no means be a complete release. There just isn't enough material, which is why I don't want to do an expanded release... because it even then, wouldn't be much... but I'll keep it in mind.

Post
#296618
Topic
2007 DVD repackage
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/296618/action/topic#296618
Time
I was going to mention, it says 4 Discs....

for those of you who bought the set when it first came out, that 4th disc really wasn't much and what it was, was really a vehicle to show off a bit of some of the Episode III, Haydn in Vader suit features... plus the Episode III games...

Although it may simply be the same set again...
Post
#296560
Topic
George Lucas jealous of Irvin Kershner's Star Wars?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/296560/action/topic#296560
Time
well, I do have to say this:

The films were made for kids... they were made with them in mind... purposefully...

We just happen to see in the films what we wish to see in the films...

If I may be so bold, to look at the films through the lens of "Empire" is... well... nearsighted...

I can understand loving Empire... I can even understanding wanting to up the others to its level... but by looking at the other films through that sort of stigma, you will loose a great deal of wealth and depth available within the films.

I didn't present the falcon here as a possible argument. As I clearly stated, there are ways of going about showing or explaining the falcons problems. Neither of which were done very effectively.

We aren't explained why the Falcon is in such disrepair. I mean, if they had enough time to build up the echo base in ice, they had enough time to fix the falcon.

Maybe they just came back from a great battle? Don't know... doesn't say in the opening scroll or something...

Maybe they just haven't had time because they've been running... That is alluded to, but the state of disrepair the falcon is in in Empire, I doubt they would have escaped many battles.

We go from seeing how great the falcon is in A New Hope, to seeing it not working at all in Empire, to saving it saving the day in Jedi... it's a strange arc...

But as I stated, there are ways to show it not working without "mocking" it ... which they do, perhaps with subtley.

Han solo is this strong Rebellious character in ANH, but in Empire, he's gone soft... seems unintelligent and unsure how to deal with his own ship... which is strange seeing how in ANH he makes it seem like he knows the ship in and our... like the back of his hand...

That's my point.
Post
#296537
Topic
George Lucas jealous of Irvin Kershner's Star Wars?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/296537/action/topic#296537
Time
From what I have understood, Lucas never intended to "hand over" the entire project and after flops like 'The Holiday Special,' you can't entirely blame him.

Lucas has a vision, and his purpose in making the films was to put that vision on film. Empire, although the original story is written by him, I have heard is not his favourite.

My impression is that he is not jealous, but rather, he simply doesn't like the film because it doesn't come close enough to his vision.

I recently watched all 6 films in order (1-6, not 4-6, 1-3) and I found that there was a definite sound... a definite look/feel/tone to his films.

Empire, however, stuck out from the rest.

For one, the characters established in ANH are expanded upon, but it is done so in such a way that it almost mocks the characters.

Han and Chewie's relationship and the Falcon never working the entire film. Yes it's called a bucket of bolts in ANH, but it works. It's been taken care of. In Empire, it seems like they've let it go and it's almost a lost cause.

Irvin Kershner has said before that he wanted to do a film that had humor in it. Look at all the other star wars, and humor is appropriate.... but that George said he couldn't really have any slap stick humor, which isn't appropriate.

So instead, we get situational comedy and inter-personal comedy... neither of which were really appropriate to the extent we see them....

Most of 3P0's lines were adlibbed and yes, almost all of them were perfect for the film and did show his character, but I think that they took a bit too much creativity in it and I think that's what George didn't like.

Also, to exemplify the amount that the writers didn't quite get the characters, one need but look at one of the most famous lines in the film.

Leia: "I love you."

Han: "I know."

In the original script, he says "I love You," but as Harrison Ford so keenly points out, Han would NEVER say that...

And if someone who scripted/wrote the film is neive enough to think that Han would say that, then they truly don't understand the character...


Then listen to the score. To many fans, Empire is their favourite star wars score and I have to say, it is a GREAT score... But it feels entirely different. The fact that almost the entire film is scored, and the music that is unused, if you put it back in the film and compare it, you can see how Williams really felt about the film and where his mind was and it's not very "star wars"-ey.

Great score, but in a lot of cases, it is a different feel than a normal star wars film.


I mean, the falcon was written in the original story to not work. But when something doesn't work, there is more than one way to do it.


Han: Ok, chewie hit it!

The hyperdrive whirls up then powers down::

Chewie: Roar!

Han: Quick Chewie, check the (insert techno-babble here). Princess, keep an eye on this guage.

Leia: What? I don't know anything about--

Han: Well, your highness, want to be captured by the Empire? You forgot how fun it was last time. ... Watch the gauge.

Instead we get:


Han: Ok, Chewie hit it.

::engine whirls up and powers down::

::Leia looks at Chewie, then they booth look at Han::


They do the same thing, but one is more strict and tense, while the other is comical and to an extent, inappropriate. They are being chased by Imperial Star Cruisers after all.

These are just my opinion. When I watched all the films, it stuck out the most in my mind as being the most different of all the films. It is a lot of people's favorites and I can see why. It does a lot and has a great story to tell... but I personally think that's why George was displeased with it.