INTRODUCTION

THE MUSIC FROM THE OUTSET

When The Phantom Menace came out in 1999, Williams was counsciously trying to continue this approach by developing existing themes as well as creating new ones for new characters and situations. And, despite some obvious flaws as well as the horrendous editing done in the film, the composer was trying very hard to remain faithful to his original approach while trying to conform with Lucas' ever heightening pace of action and jumps of scenery. With Attack of the Clones Williams took a turn away from this approach. Instead of several big themes, he composed one major theme ("Across the Stars") that encompassed the entire character of the film of doomed love and it appeared in quite a few cues along the way. And even though Attack of the Clones was not entirely free of other themes or motifs, they never came as near to the kind of diverseness that we had become accustomed to in Star Wars. For Revenge of the Sith, Williams has taken a completely different direction with the emphasis on scene-specific underscore rather than relying on a strong thematic base. The score contains one big new theme, "Battle of the Heroes," that receives a concert arrangement in the third track, a "fun" rhythmic theme for General Grievous, two lamentations, and a number of little sub-themes that sound promising for elaboration but eventually lead nowhere. For the more thematically strong material Williams relies on his older themes above all, specifically the Imperial March and the Force theme.

The usage of older themes is much more extensive here than in the previous films, although listening to the album this may not strike you immediately. This all comes down to Williams' attempt to tie down the transition of Episode III to the following Episode IV that in fact was the first of the bunch to be made. As many of the actual themes, apart from the main title theme, the Force theme and Princess Leia's theme, don't actually appear in A New Hope, the composer systematically plays a downhand on the prequel trilogy's themes. On album Anakin's theme doesn't appear once, neither does "Duel of the Fates"; the love theme "Across the Stars" appears only as a reference a couple of times, most notably in "Anakin's Dream," before being deconstructed to die out in a whimper in "Grievous Speaks to Lord Sidious"; and even appropriate themes for the Emperor, Luke and Leia, the Death Star, and Yoda are unusually underplayed or are missing entirely.

The music for General Grievous, the so-called "fun" music (Williams' own description), is very percussive and fast with rapid brass blasts, cymbal crashes and fluttering woodwinds gracing the music all the way through. It is extremely complex music but, apart from the inventive percussion base, the lack of a distinctive theme makes it very hard to remember and it doesn't offer enough individuality to stand out from Williams' usual action music. The other action music found in cues "The Revenge of the Sith," "Grievous and the Droids," and "Grievous Speaks to Lord Sidious" follow Williams' usual choppy action writing with virtuostic brass and heavy percussion that by today is starting to sound a little too standardized to really make much of an impact. The opening "Star Wars and The Revenge of the Sith" is a perfect representation of this. After the opening Star Wars fanfare (somewhat curiously taken from The Phantom Menace recording), the opening cue begins straight out without the customary twinkling stars crawl with a large scale action piece that is very typical of Williams. Despite much volume and pounding around the cue just paddles around without really going anywhere and existing without trying to achieve any definite goal. This kind of sense of incoherence is what unfortunately seems to haunt much of Revenge of the Sith and acts as a considerable hindrance to the general enjoyability of the music.

Other cues of interest include "Palpatine's Teachings" where the deep guttural sounds of the male choir make for an interesting effect and the fact that Williams doesn't rely on the Emperor's theme is a notable departure from his normal practices. The appearance of the Imperial March in the lower registers and the Force theme as a counterpoint, the music conveys Anakin's inner struggles quite appropriately with well over a minute of ominous bass string meanderings. The cue ends with the sudden appearance of the Coruscant fanfare that effectively breaks the established mood. "Padmé's Ruminations" is notable for its synthesized bass droning (a very rare occurrence in Williams) and a wailing Middle-Eastern female vocal. This, however, doesn't last for long and the rest of the cue descends into more low-keyed rumbling in the lower registers. A great highlight of the score is "Anakin's Dark Deeds" which begins with gentle choral music that resembles much of Howard Shore's The Lord of the Rings before a full blown choral assault dispels the thought. Here we have another one of those splendid sub-themes that offer much but is not developed anywhere further. Still the music is a perfect accompaniment for Anakin's slaying of the enemies of the Republic.

The zenith in the use of the original themes comes in "A New Hope and End Credits" where we hear an extensive procession of familiar themes. The cue opens with the last piece of underscore where we hear Leia's theme, Luke's theme, and the Force theme in its "Binary Sunset" arrangement (although it sounds pretty modest in this performance) after which comes a somewhat poor transition to the end credits. The "End Credits" surprisingly present the greatest weakness of this score. It begins unsurprisingly with the main title theme which quite nicely segues into Princess Leia's theme. This transitions to the "Battle of the Heroes" concert arrangement, which is only expected, but events turn to the more unexplained after that. All of a sudden a fanfare brings back the "Throne Room" music heard at the end of the original Star Wars. It's inclusion at this juncture is frankly odd since a triumphal march (even though it is based on the Force theme) is not something that one would expect at this stage of the events. It is followed by yet another presentation of the Force theme, which (although it seems to try) fails to make much of an impact due to a disappointing crescendo that seems to lose power as it reaches its climax. The "Throne Room" makes one more appearance before the main Star Wars title heralds the score to its conclusion similarly to A New Hope's End Credits. The overall presentation of themes is admirable but the choice of music to include is very strange indeed. Despite running a full 13 minutes in length, Williams chooses not to make a full thematic sweep of the entire saga, but instead presents a rather uninspired re-edit of music we first heard in 1977. The "Throne Room" in particular is a jarring inclusion as it seems to have nothing to do with the events just witnessed and to have a triumphal victory march at this early stage is a little too premature.

The album presentation of the score, although offering a full 72 minutes of material, does not make great favours to the score as a whole. Williams' decision to include so much rather nonsensical underscore does not make much favors for the full score. It is a known fact that often spectacular pieces of music are excluded from the original soundtrack album either due to lack of space or through the avoidance of music heard in previous installments. However the music as presented on album suffers greatly from a lack of focus and cohesion with many wonderful sub-themes appearing throughout but not explored afterwards, the action music lacks direction, and some of the original themes (as well as prequel themes) are terribly underplayed or missing altogether, even when a particular theme could well have been used during certain scenes like the Luke/Leia theme during the birthing scene. Yoda's theme is missing, the Emperor's theme appears only once very faintly, the love theme is barely quoted… there are simply so many things that the album is missing that one can't but help feel a little cheated. The score as a whole would most certainly be a very fine composition in and of itself (and of course excluding the horrendous editing that has graced the prequel trilogy so far) and the only question that remains is whether an expanded edition of Revenge of the Sith, as well as Attack of the Clones, will be made available sometime in the future. Only then will we find out whether Revenge of the Sith is truly the great culmination that the Star Wars saga deserves.

Bonus DVD
Chapter 1: A Long Time Ago
(20th Century Fox Fanfare/Star Wars Main Title)
Chapter 2: Dark Forces Conspire
(Duel of the Fates from The Phantom Menace)
Chapter 3: A Hero Rises
(Anakin's Theme from The Phantom Menace)
Chapter 4: A Fateful Love
(Across the Stars from Attack of the Clones)
Chapter 5: A Hero Falls
(Battle of the Heroes from Revenge of the Sith)
Chapter 6: An Empire is Forged
(The Imperial March from The Empire Strikes Back)
Chapter 7: A Planet That Is Farthest From
(The Dune Sea of Tatooine/Jawa Sandcrawler from A New Hope)
Chapter 8: An Unlikely Alliance
(Binary Sunset/Cantina Band from A New Hope)
Chapter 9: A Defender Emerges
(Princess Leia's Theme from A New Hope)
Chapter 10: A Daring Rescue
(Ben's Death/TIE Fighter Attack from A New Hope)
Chapter 11: A Jedi is Trained
(Yoda's Theme from The Empire Strikes Back)
Chapter 12: A Narrow Escape
(The Asteroid Field from The Empire Strikes Back)
Chapter 13: A Bond Unbroken
(Luke and Leia from Return of the Jedi)
Chapter 14: A Sanctuary Moon
(The Forest Battle (Concert Suite) from Return of the Jedi)
Chapter 15: A Life Redeemed
(Light of the Force from Return of the Jedi)
Chapter 16: A New Day Dawns
(Throne Room/Finale from A New Hope)