Not as original as you'd hope and the last film cue
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace was probably the most expected film of 1999. After filming episodes IV-VI between 1977 and 1983 there had been a growing demand for the earlier episodes as well. The story of how Anakin Skywalker bacame Darth Vader was one that intrigued many Star Wars fans as well as the history of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, and after waiting for almost 20 years, George Lucas finally finished the filming of the very first episode entitled The Phantom Menace. Here we finally meet Obi-Wan's teacher Qui-Gon, we are introduced to Anakin Skywalker as a young child, and the Star Wars universe is expanded by several new planets as well. However, despite state of the art CGI effects, fast-paced action and a strong story, The Phantom Menace suffered from the same Lucas deficiencies as did Return of the Jedi, namely overtly goofy characters of the Ewok line and adding to this Lucas' new affliction: over-reliance on CGI. As a result the new movie loses some of the magic that made the original trilogy such a success. It is decent enough in its purpose but eventually falls short from being in the same league as its predecessors.
For filmscore collectors the score of John Williams was perhaps even more anticipated than the film; after all it was great to have Williams return to his roots of large scale symphonic scoring for a Star Wars film. With over 10 separate themes composed for the original trilogy, there certainly was material enough to expand or choose from. However, if you were expecting The Phantom Menace to resemble anything like the original scores you might be a little disappointed. Williams has moved a long way forward since 1983 and hasn't looked back. His big stylistic brake came at about the turn of the 1990s with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Hook. At around this time his music took on a more streamlined approach and sometimes even a little derivative one, with his orchestrations becoming more predictable and repetitive in future projects. That is not to say that Williams' music became worse over the years, but, especially with Star Wars, there is a certain learned professionalism inherent in his music that translates as the "Williams Sound" everybody so well knows.
For The Phantom Menace, Williams composed two major new themes. The first and most impressive is the grand choral piece "Duel of the Fates". It opens very powerfully, with the choir, unaccompanied, singing out the opening lines. The orchestra joins quietly after this, with the strings scintillating in their lower range and the woodwinds and brass presenting the actual, main musical material. The choir provides a countering sub-theme over the orchestra's jumping brassy music. The music always builds to great climaxes, comes to an almost full stop twice, and always leads into another buildup. The middle part of the music offers some fateful and tragic undertones, before the action comes to a powerful conclusion with the main material. Never before had Williams used such choral might in Star Wars before. Apart from a few moments in Return of the Jedi, there hasn't been much choral writing to speak of in Star Wars. "Duel of the Fates" was originally released three weeks before the film's premiere and two weeks before the album release for radio broadcasts. It was even made into a music video, complete with dialogue excerpts from the movie. It is a most impressive piece and a great signature for the new movie.
The second new theme and the more important one, "Anakin's Theme", is perhaps even greater. The music is the complete opposite to the preceding number. It is shorter, there is no chorus, no great drama to be heard. Anakin's theme presents music that is at the same time innocent and wistful, but also strangely menacing underneath. It is led forward by mostly the strings, floating forward effortlessly, but at the end of each full sentence leads to an ingenious inversion to the opening strains of the Imperial March, hinting of what will ultimately happen. The innocent music returns for a moment, subdued this time, but ultimately the shadowy and haunting appearance of the Imperial March at the end provides the ending for a truly wonderful example of Williams' mastery of theme manipulation. It is this innocence turned to menace that ultimately sets Anakin's theme over "Duel of the Fates". It is also Anakin's theme that concludes the film and that foreshadowing of the Imperial March is truly a stroke of genius in setting us up for what is to follow.
Apart from these new themes there are also some old acquaintances as well. The Star Wars main theme of course opens and closes the film, although there is the contradiction that it's original purpose was to represent Luke Skywalker, but works here as a more general theme for the Star Wars universe. Also making their appearances are the Force theme, the Emperor's theme, Yoda's theme and the Imperial March, though never really to the same extent than in the previous scores. As a matter of fact, The Phantom Menace is incredibly free of the overwhelming use of thematic material that adores the earlier scores. Instead Williams constructs the score as a whole from many distinctly separate pieces that are tighed together by the orchestrations rather than themes.
There are plenty of highlights to choose from, but a few tracks particularly stand out. The score features a number of outstanding action cues. "The Sith Spacecraft and The Droid Battle" has extremely fast brass with hints of the minor "Sith" key reference of the Imperial March and the noble Phantom Menace theme. One of the key highpoints of the movie, the great race on Tatooine, (titled "Anakin Defeats Sebulba") is scored with much typical Williams action material that at times sounds unbelievably fast. An interesting aspect of this track is also the appearance of Jabba the Hutt's theme that is performed by the entire brass section instead of a lone tuba. Likewise the cues "Panaka and the Queen's Protectors", "The Droid Invasion and The Appearance of Darth Maul", and "Qui-Gon's Noble End" provide some wonderful high flying action, tense and pulsating brass and pounding percussion to your heart's desire.
Apart from the action we also have the spectacular "The Arrival at Tatooine and The Flag Parade" which gives us some of the most bombastic music not heard since the "Throne Room" sequence in the first Star Wars, with a little oriental accent thrown in. The haunting vocals and instrumentation in "Passage Through the Planet Core" brings to mind a misty morning at a lake surrounded by forests. About midway into the cue there is also an explicit reference to the Grail theme from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, one of many such occurrances in the score. "The High Council Meeting and Qui-Gon's Funeral" then finally brings us music of noble and poignant temperament as the Imperial March makes a sinister appearance and the Force theme (complemented by the choir) takes the Jedi knight to his final rest. If there is one criticism that I have to make of this score it is the final "Augie's Great Municipal Band". It features some really stupid electronic drumming, "laa-laa-ing" childrens' chorus and vocal effects, complete with really inappropriate funky trumpet flourishes. It sounds so out of place after all the rest of the score and the disagreeableness of the music is unfortunate, since you have to listen through it in order to get to the End Credits, that it makes one wonder why Lucas likes music like this so much. The transition is also poorly managed as the key of the Augie piece does not correspond with the sudden B-flat opening of the Star Wars main title. This makes the transition sound sudden and incredibly annoying.
The score, like always, was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra with the London Voices, offering a good 74 minutes of score on album. There is an incredible amount of tracks that are mixed together from two different cues on this album, more than is usual with Williams. This however makes for a more listenable album and the sheer amount of material should make fans happy. However in a time when the complete Star Wars music has become almost an axiom, it was only a matter of time when an expanded 2-CD set of The Phantom Menace was made available. Sure enough Sony released something they called "The Ultimate Edition" that was to include all the music written for the film. However, the release wasn't exactly what everyone was expecting. Instead of compiling this album from the original master tapes, the score was isolated from the film itself and presented exactly like it was in the film, complete with edits and all. The problem with this is that you now have some very undesirable and monotonous underscore (some of it clearly recycled over and over again) and the flaws of the recording are more apparent. Especially in the final battle scenes, the edits and fade-outs really strike you, when there are no special effects to hide them. Of course there is much to be happy, too, with some much-hoped-for cues like Anakin's farewell to his mother. But I would still recommend getting the original album over this expanded release, for the original offers a more cohesive presentation.
1. Star Wars Main Title/The Arrival at Naboo (2:56) 2. Duel of the Fates (4:14) 3. Anakin's Theme (3:09) 4. Jar Jar's Introduction/The Swim to Otoh Gunga (5:07) 5. The Sith Spacecraft/The Droid Battle (2:38) 6. The Trip to the Naboo Temple/The Audience with Boss Nass (4:08) 7. The Arrival at Tatooine/The Flag Parade (4:04) 8. He is the Chosen One (3:53) 9. Anakin Defeats Sebulba (4:24) 10. Passage Through the Planet Core (4:40) 11. Watto's Deal and Kids at Play (4:58) 12. Panaka and the Queen's Protectors (3:24) 13. Queen Amidala/The Naboo Palace (4:51) 14. The Droid Invasion/The Appearance of Darth Maul (5:15) 15. Qui-Gon's Noble End (3:48) 16. The High Council Meeting/Qui-Gon's Funeral (3:08) 17. Augie's Great Municipal Band/End Credits (9:39)
Music Composed and Conducted by John Williams Supervising Music Editor: Ken Wannberg Assistant Music Editor: Peter Myles Orchestrated by John Neufeld and Conrad Pope Music Recorded and Mixed by Shawn Murphy Performed by The London Symphony Orchestra, London Voices and New London Children's Choir Chorus Masters: Terry Edwards and Ronald Corp Music Recorded at Abbey Road Studios
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