December Sun – A Web Comic

I heard a response from George Lucas regarding my earlier note. It was actually a very cordial response from George’s secretary, but in the note it mentioned that George read my note, and that he made the comment that he had “never interfered with Mr.Williams’ film compositions.” Well, I’m not sure this is completely accurate: while he never interfered, clearly someone on his crew did. Anyhow, here’s my second note. Hopefully I’ll get a response. Hopefully I’m not just beating a dead horse here:

Sep.12, 2007

Dear Mr. Lucas:

Thank you for your response to my earlier note, in which I strongly urged you to use John Williams’ music as he decides to write it, uncut and unedited, for the new Indiana Jones film. I am happy to read your comments that you have “never interfered with Mr. Williams’ film compositions.” And while I believe that you did not make these changes personally, clearly someone within your production staff had made the decision that Williams’ music was not adequate in “Attack of the Clones” and “Revenge of the Sith”, and took it upon themselves to make edits to Williams’ music in these films.

For instance, in “Attack of the Clones”, during the sequence when the Jedi make their appearance before Dooku in the arena, the music is taken note-for-note from the beginning of “The Phantom Menace”, when Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are exposed to poison gas onboard the Federation Ship.

Another example of music reuse would be the sequence from “Revenge of the Sith” when Yoda confronts Palpatine. When Palpatine attacks Yoda initially with force lightning, the music, as Palpatine walks up to Yoda, is again taken from another film, this time from “The Empire Strikes Back”, taken from a sequence where Luke Skywalker battles Darth Vader in Bespin.

To fans of Williams’ music, when watching sequences like this, we can readily identify where and when these cues were taken from. Surely you are aware of the fact that fans of the Star Wars saga will watch and rewatch these films, and musical cues, when reused, tend to stand out noticeably, ESPECIALLY for fans of Star Wars who listen to Williams’ music isolated from the film (e.g. on CD recordings of the Star Wars music.)

All I would ask is this: clearly someone on your production staff heard Williams’ music as he recorded it for these films, was dissatisfied with the music, and took it upon themselves to MODIFY Williams’ music with segments of his older music used instead. Perhaps it was your sound editor? Perhaps the producer? I don’t know.

What I would ask is this: when the next Indiana Jones film is being assembled and produced, please send out a notice to the production crew, stating something to the effect of “Please show respect to John Williams and leave his score completely uncut. Retain his music exactly as he writes it, without cutting and pasting music from older Indiana Jones films.”

This will mean so much for fans of John Williams. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the film contributions that you’ve made, and I greatly look forward to the next Indiana Jones film. And I look forward to hearing a new composition for this film by Williams, with hopes that it can be heard and enjoyed exactly the way that he intended it to be scored, uncut and unaltered.

Thanks