Hi!
I was curious if anyone knew more exact details about what was in the March 1977 rough cut of Star Wars that John Williams scored. I’ve been working on making a detailed analysis of the score and I’d like to see the accompanying footage if possible.
I’ve already come up with theories for what some of the footage was but since it’s mostly just my own speculation I’m curious if anyone else has further substantiating evidence.
First, a quick rundown of facts:
The following cues have music edits in the film specifically to accommodate picture edits:
1M3 The War
1M4-2M1 The Escape Hatch
2M3 New The Little People
3M3 Rev. The Sand Speeder
7M1 New Is It A Bird?
10M3-11M1 Stand By
The two cantina cues are also edited quite extensively, though these may not have been written to picture in the first place.
now for a more detailed description of each, and what I think the cut footage might have been:
1M3 The War:
There’s about 2 seconds of music trimmed during Vader’s entrance to the Tantive IV. After careful analysis I believe that this shot itself was not altered, but there was 1 second trimmed before his entrance (if you add 1 second of black screen and play the music uncut, the 3 drum hits sync with his 3 head turns perfectly). I’m not certain what this 1 second was. I believe based on the script that it’s possible the C-3PO “I think I’m melting! This is all your fault!” shot might have still been here during scoring, but the shot from later in the final movie is too long for the gap. I did also consider that possibly the rebel troopers firing shot immediately before Vader’s entrance was added after the C-3PO shot was cut, but if you remove it then the 3PO shot is 1 second too short. I did also find a Topps trading card showing a frame of the C-3PO shot that isn’t in the finished movie, so maybe the shot was also trimmed when it was moved, and that explains the gap?
1M4-2M1 The Escape Hatch:
This one I’m pretty confident on what the cut footage is, but I don’t have any visual evidence of its existence other than the script - there’s 3 seconds of music cut during the scene where Vader talks to the Imperial officer about the escape pod being jettisoned. In the script there’s a lot of Vader dialogue here that was cut. I think it’s highly likely that David Prowse filmed this with the script dialogue and then in editing they trimmed it down, but I’m not sure if James Earl Jones ever recorded the full lines or the cutdown version. In fact I’m not even sure if James Earl Jones had done the dialogue dubbing yet by the time Williams started recording, I know they were both in early March though.
2M3 New The Little People:
This one I actually don’t personally believe scored any deleted footage, the full uncut cue is the exact length of the scene in question, although there has been some speculation online that there may have been some Jawa footage cut. Even Mike Matessino speculated as much in his January 1997 Film Score Monthly article on the 1997 albums. Is there any other supporting evidence of cut Jawa footage during R2’s capture?
3M3 Rev. The Sand Speeder:
This one is a really interesting one because half of the cue scored cut footage, not all of which we have.
The first major edit is the removal of 23 seconds (technically 2 back to back edits, one 22s snip and one 1s snip) when Luke and 3PO are in the landspeeder. Some of this deleted footage was released on the blu-ray, but getting it to sync with the footage in the final film and with the script is a bit difficult. I’ve also heard that there was a landspeeder navigator graphic made, that you can see in a visual dictionary? That’s not on the blu-ray scene, but was that ever finished enough to be put into the cut Williams scored?
The second half of this cue is the more baffling one, there is 10 seconds of music cut when we first see the Tusken Raiders (again, technically this is two back to back snips, one 8s and one 2s). I’m not aware of any source documenting cut footage from this scene. From close analysis it seems that some of the shots might have been swapped around, notably the two shots focused on the Bantha seem to be split in half by the shot of the Raiders running down the hill, which I think was originally meant to precede this shot just because it makes more sense that way. But still, even accounting for a generous 3-5s of trimmed footage of the Tusken climbing the Bantha, there’s still 5-7 seconds remaining unaccounted for. The only other idea I had, unless there really is a substantial amount of undocumented cut Tusken Raider footage, is that the sync of the cue in the final film is wrong, and that bit that plays when the Tuskens look over the cliff was actually meant for seeing R2 on the navigator, and the Tusken cliff scene was meant to start with the drums. This has the added bonus of giving the first half of this cue more space, which it desperately needs due to the volume of cut footage that we have. Again though, I have no real evidence of any of these placements.
7M1 New Is It A Bird?:
This one doesn’t score any cut footage, but there is a 4 second loop at the end of it in the film, I believe some of the footage of the stormtroopers running through the halls was added after scoring and the music was looped to accommodate it. Exactly what footage was inserted I don’t have hard evidence for though, although I’m inclined to believe it might be the footage of the commander and stormtroopers in the random hallway where you don’t see the Falcon, perhaps taken from snipped footage from later in the film.
10M3-11M1 Stand By:
Again, this one doesn’t score any cut footage but it does have a 4 second loop during the approach to the Death Star, right around the time Gold Leader reports in. For this one I really have no idea what the added footage was. The sync before and after the loop seems fine, my only guess is that Gold Leader wasn’t originally in this scene? I really don’t know.
If anyone has any additional information about what this earlier cut looked like I’d really appreciate it. Thanks!
