Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones - Original Soundtrack

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Not applicable
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	A solid Star Wars score with an absolutely fantastic new theme
Disadvantages:	Muddy recording quality and a little less exciting action for a Star Wars score

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Now that the Star Wars prequel saga has reached its Third and final episode I think its time I handled the remaining Episodes in my soundtrack evaluations, handling Episode II first. With The Phantom Menace proving to be a big disappointment for audiences due to its weak story, incredibly irritating and silly characters, and the over-reliance on CGI, there was much less expectation and trepidation for Attack of the Clones. With Anakin Skywalker now grown up he is assigned along with his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi to protect Princess Padmé Amidala who has recently become a senator and whose life is now being threatened. This then leads to a forbidden romance between Anakin and Padmé, the consequences proving to be far-reaching as we all know. And furthering the rise of the Galactic Empire is the Trade Federation's creation of an army of mindless warriors along with Senator Palpatine's continued rise and fall to the Dark Side. As always composer John Williams with the London Symphony Orchestra followed Lucas in creating the soundworld for the galaxy far, far away with the same kind of grip he always has.

In The Phantom Menace we essentially had Williams harking back to the style of his earlier Star Wars scores in terms of thematic development and stylistic similarities. With the creation of two new major themes (Duel of the Fates and Anakin's Theme) as well as a number of smaller themes and motifs along with the inclusion of older themes like the Force Theme and Imperial March (in a more subdued and foreboding form) The Phantom Menace proffered a rich tapestry of thematic material that maintained the connections to the earlier scores as well as worked great as a stand-alone score and as a prequel to the events that were to take place later on. But with Attack of the Clones Williams took a distinctly different route being more in touch with Williams style of today. Attack of the Clones blurs the lines of distinct action featured in the earlier trilogy and The Phantom Menace by making the overall approach more streamlined. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the action music which, especially in the beginning of the film, is more percussive than before. This can well be heard in the cue "Zam the Assassin and The Chase Through Coruscant" where Williams' usual percussive and rhythmic approach makes the music much more subtle and eclectic than grandiose and edgy. This is both a weakness and a strength in the score in that it makes the music flow more freely while it can get a little uninteresting and similar after awhile. This prevents the prequel scores to reach the same kind of stature than the original trilogy enjoys, and to some extent the same can also be applied to the themes used.

Unlike the earlier scores that provided at least two major new themes, Attack of the Clones offers only one large new theme, the love theme for Anakin and Padmé entitled "Across the Stars." This theme is arguably the best of the themes presented in the prequel trilogy (and standing highly in the mass of other Star Wars themes as well) with its sweeping nature, being beautiful yet troubled and restrained at the same time, a perfect representation of forbidden love. The bittersweet melody is accompanied by an elegant but staggering rhythm that prevents the music to be as free-flowing as it could be. The five-and-a-half minutes of the concert arrangement features the theme in its full glory and also works quite well in the underscore. More than any other theme, the love theme crops up more often in Attack of the Clones and can be heard in cues like "Yoda and the Younglings," "Anakin and Padmé," "The Meadow Picnic," "Love Pledge and The Arena," and "Confrontation with Count Dooku and Finale." The nature of the theme changes much as the score progresses with its lovely yet troubled appearances in the early cues to the more agonizing presentations in the latter cues, particularly in the final two tracks.

Returning to the action writing, the thematic material becomes more tangible and pronounced as the score progresses. At the end of "Bounty Hunter's Pursuit" the robust action music for the invading droid armies in The Phantom Menace return for one strong marker point. After this the action music that appears becomes stronger and less ruminative. The appearance of "Duel of the Fates" for a moment in "Return to Tatooine" makes for a very effective and welcome inclusion, although it remains unfortunately short to make a full impact. The action music reaches its climax in the latter half of the cue "Love Pledge and The Arena" which is a spectacular action cue. The music is a variant of The Phantom Menace's invasion music taken a step further to even darker territories. This is particularly effective because of its appearance at the end of the album when the preceding action was basically so much more elusive and subtle, thus making the more sharply defined lines of the darker brass much more powerful.

The final track, "Confrontation with Count Dooku and Finale," is a spectacular ending and contains the most famous aspect of the score. After a short preamble, that also includes the Force theme, the finale cue launches into a full presentation of the Imperial March, something that fans were eagerly expecting. Although this time around the march isn't signifying Darth Vader but the Trade Federation's army that is to become the Imprial army, thus signifying the real birth of the Galactic Empire. Unfortunately the impact of this presentation is somewhat lessened by the mute mixing of the music which for a Star Wars score of today is saying a lot. The march segues quite brilliantly into an epic performance of the love theme before the Star Wars theme opens the end credits. The credits sequence follows the usual platform of Star Wars theme - concert presentation of new theme - coda. The finale, though it offers nothing spectacularly new, is much better executed than in The Phantom Menace which was essentially nothing more than a cut and paste job. After the "Across the Stars" theme reaches its end, Anakin's theme makes an appearance like in the previous movie, only much shorter and feebler, and when the foreshadowing of the Imperial March comes around, it is mixed with the love theme's dying phrase.

In addition to the more solid orchestral writing, there are also a few small bits of interest on the album that grabs one's attention. The famous electric guitars in "The Chase Through Coruscant" make for an interesting albeit a rather distracting appearance for the first and last time in a Star Wars score. After all the guitars sound so misplaced among the music for a Star Wars film while not contributing anything of real importance to the overall proceedings. The harp that concludes "Across the Stars" emphasizes the Romeo and Juliet aspect of the theme which is quite a nice touch, and the haunting vocals in the final tracks are eerie to perfection. The general tone of the score is dark and more dramatic than any of the previous Star Wars scores that emphasized the cartoonish sci-fi melodrama. The score is also remarkably free of previous themes (though this is mainly the fault of the album and doesn't mean that the older themes don't appear in the film itself). Yoda's theme makes one brief appearance in "Yoda and the Younglings," The Imperial March and the Force theme is tagged on a couple of times, Anakin's theme appears only in the end credits, "Duel of the Fates" appears once, and there is no trace of the Emperor's theme. Of course this is nitpicking as the album presentation is not a reliable source to analyse the overall architecture of the score as a whole, but it does give a few pointers as to what to expect. After all Williams often excludes some really exceptional pieces from these soundtrack albums, the arrangements for which he has a big influence over.

The soundtrack album offers 74 minutes of music which gives a good overview of the score. Time will tell whether there will be an extended version like there was for The Phantom Menace, but if something like that takes place it is hopeful that the execution will be better handled than previously, so that the score won't be lifted straight out of the film with all its faults. The European version (or so I have read it as being) features an extra track "On the Conveyor Belt" which features another piece of percussion heavy action music and is not exactly all that interesting to go out of your way to get. The funny thing though is that it's not credited anywhere in the liner notes, only on a sticker on the jewel case. There are warning labels indicating that it will not play on PC/MAC but I have not encountered any such problem, while I have read that some US versions have an extra CD-Rom function with the extra track but don't actually play on a CD-Rom which is very curious behaviour from the record label. And then there are the silly collectible covers slipped over the actual liner notes which are basically nothing but a waste of paper. The album presentation and the score as a whole presumably is not as strong or as diverse as The Phantom Menace or the earlier trilogy and this prevents it from standing as highly among the other Star Wars scores, but is still a solid and enjoyable listen with one of the strongest themes in all of Star Wars to help it along. Of course for all film score fans there really is no question of whether to get it or not, but to everybody else it's worth getting for the love theme in all its glory alone.

1. Star Wars Main Title and Ambush on Coruscant (3:47)
2. Across the Stars (Love Theme from Attack of the Clones) (5:33)
3. Zam the Assassin and The Chase Through Coruscant (11:07)
4. Yoda and the Younglings (3:56)
5. Departing Coruscant (1:44)
6. Anakin and Padmé (3:57)
7. Jango's Escape (3:48)
8. The Meadow Picnic (4:15)
9. Bounty Hunter's Pursuit (3:24)
10. Return to Tatooine (6:57)
11. The Tusken Camp and The Homestead (5:55)
12. Love Pledge and The Arena (8:29)
13. Confrontation with Count Dooku and Finale (10:49)

Bonus track found from "European" versions
14. On the Conveyor Belt (3:07)

Music Composed and Conducted by John Williams
Performed by The London Symphony Orchestra and London Voices
Chorus Director: Terry Edwards
Orchestrated by Conrad Pope and Eddie Karam
Recorded and Mixed by Shawn Murphy
Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London
Supervising Music Editor: Ken Wannberg
Music Edited by Peter Myles
Sony Classical, 2002 (SK 89932)

© berlioz