Star Wars: A New Score - Week 5

          This week I was on vacation at the beach, so I didn’t quite reach my hourly goal. I mainly focused on the cue “Burning Homestead,” in which Luke sees his house burned down. This cue took quite a bit of time because it has three very distinct parts

1. Luke and Ben looking at the destroyed Jawa sandcrawler (65 seconds)
   1. In this section, I tried to use a solemn arrangement of my “Jawa” theme, much slower and somewhat mournful. I felt that this arrangement was very effective, and I used it to segue into a subtle arrangement of the Imperial theme.
   2. As Luke flies off to return to his house, I hinted at my “death/sorrow” leitmotif. This is one of my best imitations of Wagner’s technique, because Wagner loved to write leitmotifs that represented emotions rather than characters.
2. Luke looking at his destroyed house (45 seconds)
   1. This is the first scene in which I fully use my “death/sorrow” leitmotif, after having already hinted at it (prepared it, as Wagner would call it), in previous scenes. I put the leitmotif in a solo piano, with low strings providing a very slight accompaniment.
   2. The timing of the scene worked out perfectly. I plan to definitely bring this leitmotif back for Alderaan’s destruction, as well as Ben’s death.
3. Darth Vader interrogating Leia on the Death Star (45 seconds)
   1. This scene is totally opposite from the previous two, but the transition is so quick that it would be hard to write it as a separate cue. I created an orchestral swell in the bar before the Death Star’s appearance, followed by a large rendition of the Imperial theme.
   2. This scene plays very well in alternating between Vader’s theme (both his rhythmic motive and his melodic motive) and Leia’s theme.
   3. I got a chance at the end of this scene to really showcase some atonal music. Atonality has worked very well in subtle scenes, where I let it play very lightlys, but when the interrogation droid begins to move towards Leia, I went all out with atonality, especially some crazy parts in the violins.

            I also took the chance this week to work on a new version of the opening crawl. This version heavily features my “space” theme and my “war” theme, and although I’m still not in love with it, I feel like I’m definitely moving in the right direction. Other scenes have been fairly simple for me to write, but this one needs to be perfect. This is the first music people will hear when they watch the movie, and to make matters worse, everyone will have Williams’s iconic opening music in their head. To try and overcome that barrier is close to impossible.

            I still haven’t decided just how close I want my opening to be to his. If I write something similar, it will certainly draw people in and make theme feel comfortable, but it won’t seem 100% unique. However, if I write my music in an entirely different fashion from his, then I feel like that will cause some people to dislike my music from the moment it begins. Once the movie itself is underway, I can take more chances, but the opening crawl (in my opinion) needs to be the perfect balance between my own writing and Williams’s legendary work.