What would you put on a SW Saga compilation disc?

[JediTricks]

So, in the Target compilation CD thread, we were talking about what we did and didn't think was a good choice for the CD, this is supposed to be music spanning the entire saga after all. Here's the Target CD's track breakdown:
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1. Star Wars Main Title And The Arrival At Naboo (2:55)
2. The Flag Parade (2:11)
3. Qui-Gon's Noble End (3:47)
4. Jango's Escape (3:47)
5. Yoda and the Younglings (3:56)
6. General Grievous (4:07)
7. Anakin's Dark Deeds (4:04)
8. Imperial Attack (6:44)
9. Ben Kenobi's Death/Tie Fighter Attack (3:53)
10. Yoda and the Force (4:05)
11. The Clash of Lightsabers (4:19)
12. Sail Barge Assault (5:04)
13. End Title (From Star Wars Episode VI) (6:05)

[/FONT]Ok, that's alright I suppose. But let's say that track listing doesn't suit your tastes, perfectly reasonable, what tracks SHOULD be on there? Keep in mind, we're only limited to around 70 minutes total for 1 compilation CD. So what tracks would be on your SW Saga compilation disc?

[Rocketboy]

Even without having the cds right in front of me, I know it would be really tough, and I know I'd try to make one for each trilogy.
But I'm not sure what one would be harder: finding enough great songs to fill a PT disc or deciding what to cut out on a OT disc.

My biggest complaint with the PT is the music. It's still good, but it wasn't as powerful as the OT music, IMO.

[El Chuxter]

Just throwing in a few from each film, not looking at the times at the moment. And I don't have the discs in front of me, so the titles may be off.

TPM:
The Droid Battle and the Appearance of Darth Maul
He Is the Chosen One
The High Council Meeting and Qui-Gon's Funeral
Duel of the Fates
Desert Winds
The Arrival at Tatooine and the Flag Parade

AOTC:
Jango's Escape
Yoda and the Younglings
Across the Stars
Confrontation with Count Dooku and Finale

ROTS:
Anakin's Dark Deeds
Battle of the Heroes
General Grievous Speaks to Lord Sidious
The Immolation Scene

ANH:
Main Title
Throne Room/End Credits
Landspeeder Search/Attack of the Sand People
Jawa Sandcrawler/The Droid Auction
Tales of a Jedi Knight/Learn About the Force
Cantina Band ("Mad About Me")

ESB:
Imperial Probe Droid/Aboard the Executor
The Imperial March
Yoda's Theme
Han Solo and the Princess
The Asteroid Field
Lando's Palace
The Fleet Goes into Hyperspace/City in the Clouds
The Battle of Hoth
A Clash of Lightsabers

ROTJ:
The Forest Battle (Concert Suite)
Leia's News/Light of the Force
Into the Trap
Sail Barge Assault
Parade of the Ewoks
The Emperor's Death
Jabba's Baroque Recital
Victory Celebration/End Credits

SOTE:
Night Skies

[decadentdave]

My biggest complaint with the PT is the music. It's still good, but it wasn't as powerful as the OT music, IMO.

Wow, I feel completely the opposite way... I think the music from the Prequels has been one of its few great strengths. In fact, I can't even listen to the OT music these days because it seems so Old School to me. Listening to my Correllian Edition compilation really made the tracks from ANH sound really primitive by comparison. I think tracks like Duel of the Fates, Anakin's Dark Deeds and Battle of the Heroes really took Star Wars music into new operatic territories that the OT had barely touched upon. Granted, ANH laid the foundation for all of the familiar signature Star Wars themes and will stand the test of time as perhaps the greatest film compositions of all time, so I do give it that, but I think the Prequel scores are very powerful and Williams is much more experienced than when he did ANH. You can tell he really improved upon his already brilliant God-given talents as a composer 30 years later. The Prequels always get a bad rap from fans for being clunky on story and dialogue but I have to say, the OT is looking pretty technically dated these days, especially after Revenge of the Sith. They both have their strengths and weaknesses but that is what brings balance to the Force and the Saga.

[JediTricks]

Geez Chux, you makin' a boxed set there? That's 38 tracks, probably 3 discs' worth. Are those your track orders? I notice they're not in chronological order within the films, is that intentional? I love how you have the ANH start and then immediately end, Star Wars in 30 minutes watch out! We've got Star Wars in 6 minutes. It's a very thorough list, "Jabba's Baroque Recital" is a pretty esoteric track, I think it's only found on the SE soundtrack.


I'm with Rocketboy on the Prequel scores, I don't think they're that good.

I think tracks like Duel of the Fates, Anakin's Dark Deeds and Battle of the Heroes really took Star Wars music into new operatic territories that the OT had barely touched upon.

Perhaps, but IMO they are out of place, they are large and a tad out of touch with the Star Wars feel to me, they seem overly opulent to me (which would make sense given how obscenely opulent the prequels themselves were).

[Mr. JabbaJohnL]

God, that Target CD sounds terrible! I'd pick more recognizable themes, even if most of them are the studio versions and not exactly how they appeared in the films. I actually downloaded many of these and made my own CD like this, albeit without the ROTS tracks, a few years ago before I got all the CDs (sans the TPM 2-disc set). Something similar, but not exact, to the Musical Journey DVD with the ROTS DVD would be nice.

1. Star Wars Main Theme and the Arrival at Naboo
2. Anakin's Theme
3. Duel of the Fates
4. Across the Stars (Love Theme from Attack of the Clones)
5. Jango's Escape
6. Anakin's Dark Deeds (Order 66 in the film)
7. Battle of the Heroes
8. Binary Sunset
9. Cantina Band
10. Princess Leia's Theme
11. Throne Room (end credits edited out)
12. Imperial March
13. Han Solo and the Princess
14. Yoda's Theme
15. Jedi Rocks (deal with it . . . also, non-movie stuff edited out)
16. Forest Battle (Concert Suite)
17. Victory Celebration and End Credits

[El Chuxter]

Actually, JT, I made (pre-ROTS) a six-disc set to keep in my car, and recently put together three discs of "Star Wars and Other Stuff" for a friend who would otherwise never have any John Williams music. (Course, with Hook, Harry Potter, Empire of the Sun, Nixon, etc, there wasn't room for all the SW tracks I listed above.)

I don't dislike the ANH score at all. However, in retrospect, it's not as rich as the others. You have the Luke theme. You have the Force theme. You have Leia's theme. And you have stand-alone pieces for the Jawas, Tuskens, and Cantina Band. And then there's about an hour or so of variations on the three main themes. It's very good, but in comparison to the others, it's the weakest.

My favorite as of the moment is the ROTS score. It's his most powerful yet, and I personally have no problem at all with the slight resemblance to the Harry Potter scores. I love Harry Potter.

[Devo]

Perhaps, but IMO they are out of place, they are large and a tad out of touch with the Star Wars feel to me, they seem overly opulent to me (which would make sense given how obscenely opulent the prequels themselves were).

I think they're certainly excellent tracks but they are too good for what we see on screen. The only part of the OT where the music skimmed this kind of grandness is the vocals in Return of the Jedi when Luke gives in to his anger temporarily and perhaps at the moment of Vader's redemption. Nevertheless I would still put the main prequel themes on a saga compilation disc even if they knock the balance somewhat - good music is good music.

Now that I think of it a good compilation would be the end title tracks to all the films. They'd be missing some good action music, mostly from Empire Strikes Back (my favourite score aswell as film) but most of the relevant stuff would be there.

[bobafrett]

I would just have an endless loop of the "Imperial March" done. That would be enough to turn even the die hard fans off!

[Mandalorian Candidat]

I love Harry Potter.

So why don't you marry him?


Good thread JT. I really like the SW soundtracks and listen to them more than regular Rock/pop music CDs. I still have the original SW 2 LP set my parents gave me for XMas when I was 7 or 8. My cousins and I used to blast the Cantina Band song on my parents hi-fi while jumping on their bed.

I've made a bunch of CDs for listening in the car and the one I currently have is:

Fox Fanfare
SW Main Theme w/intro from the EP1 2-disc set.
Darth Sidious and Darth Maul
Flag Parade
Duel of the Fates
Anakin's Theme
On the Conveyor Belt (the music that plays on during the EP2 TV commercials)
The Dune Sea of Tatooing/Jawa Sandcrawler
Cantina Band
Princess Leia's Theme
Yoda's Theme
Imperial March
Lando's Palace
Pit of Carkoon/Sail Barge Assault
Parade of the Ewoks
Luke and Leia
ESB End Titles

I haven't put together one with EP3 music, but I'd take out some OT tracks and throw in:

Greivous Speaks to Lord Sidious (contains GG's theme music)
Battle of the Heroes
Birth of the Twins/Padme's Destiny

My biggest beef with the PT music is that the tracks are jumbled. They aren't in chronological order with the movie and the opening music after the Main Theme is from a different part of the movie. In EP1 it's when the Queen's ship arrives at Coruscent, in EP2 it's when OB1 gets to Tipoca City, and in EP3 it's when the Clones invade Utapau. Many of the tracks have parts from different spots in the movie, like Droid Invasion/Appearance of Maul from the EP1 1 disc.

I really like the EP1 2 disc set. Many have complained about gaps between the tracks but I've never noticed this on my computer or in my CD player. The music for EP1 for me is right up there with the OT. Really good stuff, though I still think Duel of the Fates is very unSW but it's come to grow on me for what it is.

The music from EP2 is mainly garbage, IMO. I've always said that Across the Stars sounds like music from Hook, and I hated that movie and anything to do with it. AtS just makes me cringe. JW did a much better job with 'Han Solo and the Princess.' The other tracks aren't too great, either. The Coruscant Bounty Hunter Chance is too tribal (odd percussion in it) and the electric guitar is goofy. The mystery music at Kamino just doesn't fit in either with SW. What I do like is the part outside the homestead right before Ani takes off on the bike to find his mom. That was a nice touch. Also the light, staccato percussion music when he invades the Tusken Raider camp is very reminiscent of the ANH track when Luke's trying to find R2 in the Jundland Wastes. The Conveyor Belt track fits in well with the scene and I think is the best one on the disc, though it was only on discs at Target. However, the biggest downfall is that that last half of EP2 is pretty much lifted right out the EP1 soundtrack starting right when Ani and Padme come out of hyperspace at Geonosis. That's why Lucas/Sony Classical will never come out with a complete EP2 soundtrack.

EP3 is much better than EP2 but still not as good as the other movies. The only new theme we get is for Grievous which is pretty good, IMO. Battle of the Heroes is just OK and is an attempt to duplicate DotF. But other than that there are no new themes. Why not one for Mace or the Clones? I'd like to have more evil Emperor-themed music but I can see some people not liking that due to repitition but more would have been apropo. The immolation track fits well with the scene but to me it's not SW music as is the Opera House music (Tibetan chanting???) and the part where Padme and Ani are looking across the Coruscant cityscape toward each other (Padme's Ruminations???). I think the next-to-last track, Birth of the Twins/Padme's Destiny is really good because it adds in the Qui-Gon/Naboo funeral dirge and is a good juxtaposition between her death, Ani's transformation, and the Twins' birth. There is also more music recycling in the track where OB1 docks with the Tantive IV (from the EP1 track where they enter hyperspace returning to Naboo), and Yoda's duel with Palpatine (from Vader's duel with Luke on the lower level of Cloud City). The end titles is also garbage. We get nothing new outside of Battle of the Heroes. The first 5 movies had all new music after the Luke's theme and the Rebel fanfare, though EP2 just had AtS. EP3 had PL's theme and the Throne Room theme though it was cut out of the movie.

I think JW just kind of cruised after EP1. He's still one of the best contemporary H'wood composers (along with Danny Elfman, Howard Shore, Jerry Goldman--is that his name?) but I think he was too busy with other movies. He was working on the Harry Potter movies, The Terminal, War of the Worlds, Catch Me if You Can, Minority Report, AI and pretty much any other Spielberg movie from 2001-2005. After all those movies he probably just had writer's block and had a tough time coming up with something new. I'm glad GLu kept him for the prequels, but like GLu with the script, I wish Williams had help with the soundtracks.