** ½ out of ***** - (2 ½ out of 5)
And so it concludes. On May 3, Sony Classical will release the score to the final Star Wars film, Revenge of the Sith. This single disc affair marks John Williams’ swan song for George Lucas’ sci-fi epic, spanning 28 years and six films. The question on everyone’s mind is “is it any good”?
First, let me clarify. I am NOT reviewing the score as heard or used in the film. I have not seen the film and most likely will not until it opens on May 19. I AM, however, reviewing the score as it appears on CD.
Episode 3, when it reaches theaters, will likely be a bit over two hours long. On the score CD we are given roughly 72 minutes worth of music. Star Wars films are scored “wall-to-wall” for the most part, meaning that they have music throughout almost the entire film. Given this information, we can guess that there’s probably at least 45-50 more minutes of music composed that isn’t present on this CD. Woe that it is not…
A perusal of John Williams fan Web sites will reveal several articles written by people who were present for much of the recording sessions of this score, and those articles reveal cues being recorded that are thematically rich. These cues reportedly treat us, the listener, to variations and restatements of many of the most beloved themes from the Star Wars saga. So why aren’t they on the soundtrack?
The biggest complaint about this CD? It’s boring. The CD often feels choppy and edited together. Many of the cues have rough or odd transitions from one section to another, seemingly indicating that most of the music is in fact from different parts of the film, but here combined for the sake of “longer tracks”. And because of this we hear very little thematic development, either within tracks or through the track to track progression of the album. Most of the tracks are very textural in nature, and many feel like they are underscore for dialogue scenes. Most interesting is that for a film reportedly high on action, we get precious little action music.
Article comments
1 - Mark Sahm
Thanks for the review. I was pondering buying the Ep. III soundtrack, after being disappointed with much of the music from I and II. I heard the 30 seconds of the 'single' on iTunes, and was not impressed.
The other thing with these newer discs of SW music is that we are inevitably forced to compare them to his timeless work from the Original Trilogy, which is unfair but so it goes--- it's the plight of the artist. Nevertheless, I'll still pick up the good tracks after weeding through the MP3 previews.
2 - Michael Schuermann
Well, if you didn't like the scores for Episodes I or II, I can safely say that you won't enjoy this score CD. If you're going the iTunes route anyways, find out which tracks you like and go with those.
3 - Dan
I have to say, that as a composer, I am more impressed with the quality of the newer scores (and I don't mean sound quality). While the Original Trilogy scores are classic, there are many things that one could critic. However, that being said, I think that the older scores do have a few things up on the new ones. There is, to be sure, more thematic material in the originals, but the newer scores boast more lavish underscoring. In terms of musical quality, they are better put together. If there are any complaints at all, they should be directed at the editor of the tracks, because that is the biggest flaw I could find.
I realize that for the average Star Wars fanatic that these scores may lack something, however, for a musician, they are well worth the money.
4 - ChrisChrusherComix
Opinion. This CD is brilliant according to mine, and shows a depth that has never been heard in a Star Wars score to date. However I do agree... let's see the whole thing in the movie and the additional hour or so of unreleased music too.
5 - F
I quite agree with this review. I am as Williams fan as next, but this CD is BORING.
I dont care if it's Lucas, editor or Williams fault, or if in the movie we'll hear another +70 min of GREAT music unreleased (film is about 150 min long!). I rate this CD, and this CD is least interesting than EP I & II (I dont compare new trilogy with the old one). With quite highlights, but with too much boring incidental and with no direction music. Sorry, Williams. More luck in WAR OF WORLDS, for sure.
6 - Heh
Asinine. Relentlessly derogatory to anyone with good taste or affection for good music. Abrassively low-intelligent hack writing for the ADD crowd.
For those of you looking for the ADD answer, this is one underwhelming and poorly written review.
I enjoy the fact that everyone decries the track listing and expecting that some nebulous power has removed all the best tracks. Thats absolutely idiotic in the most extreme sense - why would a composer give you "filler" if he's trying to sell the album?
That isn't to say this is Williams' best thematic work for the prequels (Episode II wins for best theme with Across The Stars) and not to say that this is equal to the original trilogy either - but it's easily the strongest thematicly and dramaticly of the three newest movies. I'm not entirely sure why someone would catagorize anything with this much thunder and bravado as 'boring'. Parts of this may just wake the dead!
7 - Michael Schuermann
Dan:
I've also been trained in music, and I understand where you're coming from. In fact, I would agree that in terms of orchestrational creativity, Williams' prequel scores ARE superior to the original trilogy.
I would argue, though, that what's lacking on this CD is any sort of thematic development. There just isn't any, outside of a couple instances of the force theme being used in "new ways", and the new theme for "Battle of the Heroes". But even that's never developed outside of the concert track it's presented in. In the track "Anakin vs. Obi-Wan" we hear what's basically in the concert version, just chopped up and interspersed with some other stuff...
8 - Michael Schuermann
Heh:
I respectfully disagree with you statement that this score is "easily the strongest thematically...of the three newest movies". I would have to point out that the score for Episode 1 actually gave us many new themes, and saw Williams really developing them throughout the score and using them alongside existing themes creatively.
However, in Episode 2, and now here, Williams on CD has given us much more "underscore" music that just doesn't go anywhere. Underneath dialogue this works well, and as mentioned in my previous comment is interesting in terms of orchestration. But ultimately it's unsatisfying because there's just not much meat to the music. It's like eating Cotton Candy. Seems good and sweet at first, but later on there's not much satisfaction for your hunger.
The only difference between this and Episode 2 is the fact that the Episode 2 CD gave us cues that, end-to-end, were meant to be continuous and thus we heard Williams developing the cue over the course of a scene or sequence. Here, we hear what seem to be disparate elements of music edited together by the CD's music editor, and so there seems to be little logic to the whole exercise.
9 - Yoda
Guys, give me the preview CD and I'll tell you if it's worth the name Star Wars or not!!! :)
10 - visualsimplicity
You don't sound like the real Yoda. I think Yoda would have really phrased that statement as, "the preview CD, give me, and tell you if it's worth the name Star Wars or not, I will."
11 - Brandon
"Most interesting is that for a film reportedly high on action, we get precious little action music."
You're kidding me right? The whole opening track is one 8 minute action blowout. A great album. I'm eagerly awaiting to hear how this wonderful album is chopped up in the film by the evil Darth Lucas.
12 - R.J.Robinson
You all do know that the music is just for the film like always in film music and if the music is audible and enjoyful for the listeners of the soundtrack then it is just a great bonus. To me, Williams does great all the time so maybe you need a better understanding of the score, filmtracks.com seem to understand scores far better.
13 - David
I would have to agree with a lot of what the reviewer says. I think as a Star Wars fan, you will like it. As a John Williams fan, you will probably like it. But as a huge fan of both Star Wars AND John Williams, I really wanted more out of this score. I wanted this score to literally explode. But it doesn't. A lot of it is fun action music, but where's the new themes?
Don't get me wrong, ROTS cd sounds great and I'm sure it will work just fine in the film. But if you take a step back and look at this cd as a whole, what you have is John Williams ripping off John Williams. "Battle of the Heroes" is the only real NEW material heard in this score (and the fanfare when Grievous talks to Sidious). Everything else is borrowed from previous scores. Of course it's hard to judge when a good hour of music is unavailable to us.
Remember the Original Trilogy and how everytime you heard Vader's theme it was scored a different way? THAT was great. In the score for Ep3, you get those SAME cues of vader's theme cut and pasted into Revenge of the Sith. Sure there's a tiny bit of alterations but it's essentially the same stuff. And that to me is VERY disappointing.
Out of the prequels, I think episode 1 gave us the most bang for its buck. We got Duel of the Fates, Anakin's Theme, Jar Jar's Theme, The podrace fanfare, the Trade Federation march, etc etc. The score for ep2 may sound more rich but a lot of it was essentially rehashed Episode 1 music but with the addition of "Across the Stars", and french horns of Kamino. Episode 3 is just rehashed prequel and original trilogy music wrapped into one burrito of a score.
And what about the end credits giving us essentially the ending music of "A New Hope"? That is absolutely baffling to me. Ok, I understand what he's trying to do, but come on. Imagine if you saw Empire Strikes Back and the end credits came alive with "Yub Nub!". It would make little to no sense at all.
In the end, as much as I criticize this score, it will still be a cd I will have in heavy rotation. Even John Williams' worst is better than the best from an average composer. And ep3 score is far from being Williams' worst.
14 - Michael Schuermann
After some conversations with various commenters here and at my blog, and with my wife, I've revisited the score and written a followup. You can read that here
15 - Marc
Well this CD is great.Everytime I hear a song I think about the parts in the movie.
16 - jason
whats the name of the song when anakin is killing the separatists and sidious is speaking to the republic