Star Wars Without Music is a Galaxy of Awkward

[StewShearerOld]

Star Wars Without Music is a Galaxy of Awkward


Auralnauts has released a new video removing the music from the award scene at the end of A New Hope.

I've never successfully read any of the <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/star%20wars>Star Wars Expanded Universe books, and not for lack of trying. The thing is, there's just something about that franchise for me that demands the whole package. You can have everything else -the Jedi, the Force, the space battles- and they just don't quite work without the visuals or music that, in no small way, made Star Wars the special property that it is.

If you can't see where I'm coming from then I'd definitely recommend you spend a few minutes watching Auralnauts most recent video. An edit of the award sequence at the end of A New Hope, it removes <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/126381-Star-Wars-Episode-VII-Lands-John-Williams>John Williams gorgeous score and replaces it with what has to be the most awkward silence in the history of the galaxy. They also add in a few coughs for effect and swap out Chewbacca's natural <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108928-The-Old-Republic-Gets-Wookie-Localization>Wookie sounds for an alternative growl clearly played for laughs.

Humorous additions aside, taking away the scene's music does, in my humble opinion, a pretty good job of illustrating just how important the score is to the movie's success. Take it away and all you have left is Luke Skywalker smiling creepily at Princess Leia, still thinking all those horrible "wouldn't this be awkward if she were my sister" thoughts.

Source: <a href=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj-GZJhfBmI>YouTube


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[Barbas]

Para 1: (...)I've never successfully read any of the <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/star%20wars>Star War Expanded Universe books(...)


Para 2: (...)and swap out Chewbacca's natural <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108928-The-Old-Republic-Gets-Wookie-Localization>Wookie sounds for an alternative growl clearly played laughs.(...)

Minor typos above.

OT: This edited scene is somewhat of an odd improvement.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Man, I pity you Stew, you can't imagine a soundtrack whilst reading? I've always, ALWAYS had a mental DJ that somehow queues up great music (sometimes its "original" in the sense that I've no clue if my mind is making it up or I heard it and don't know where). Maybe it comes from being a DM and scoring my own games with various music I had on hand... Anyway, reading for me is mental-visual, meaning I kind of see it in my minds eye, like when LOTR was made into a movie I almost wanted to find Peter Jackson and ask him how he ripped the scenes from my head (including like 90% of what the characters looked like). Fucking mindstealer...
Well, sorry you can't do that sir. Its a loss really, I couldn't imagine life without it. No seriously I couldn't imagine it at all, there would be silence and static.

 

[The World Famous]

Apart from Chewie's ridiculous screaming, it just plays out like a normal award ceremony: Boring, drawn out, with the entire audience waiting for it to end so they can get to the part where they drink.

 

[StewShearerOld]

Man, I pity you Stew, you can't imagine a soundtrack whilst reading? I've always, ALWAYS had a mental DJ that somehow queues up great music (sometimes its "original" in the sense that I've no clue if my mind is making it up or I heard it and don't know where). Maybe it comes from being a DM and scoring my own games with various music I had on hand... Anyway, reading for me is mental-visual, meaning I kind of see it in my minds eye, like when LOTR was made into a movie I almost wanted to find Peter Jackson and ask him how he ripped the scenes from my head (including like 90% of what the characters looked like). Fucking mindstealer...
Well, sorry you can't do that sir. Its a loss really, I couldn't imagine life without it. No seriously I couldn't imagine it at all, there would be silence and static.

I envy you. The only book I read that comes with its own mental soundtrack is Dune. And that's mostly because I was listening to the same All American Rejects CD the entire time I read it. Hmm... maybe that's why I don't ever feel like rereading Dune very often...

 

[Scarim Coral]

Ok I lost it with Chewie scream!

Also wow, that must of what happened without the music from their perspective unless the Rebel musicals were hidden in the hall somewhere...

 

[Li Mu]

Ok I lost it with Chewie scream!

Also wow, that must of what happened without the music from their perspective unless the Rebel musicals were hidden in the hall somewhere...

Ahaha, yeah. The Chewbacca scream is awesome.

 

[chocolate pickles]

Doesn't actually seem that bad to me. Though maybe the classiness of Luke's jacket makes up for the missing score (first time seeing the scene, so i don't know)

 

[RicoADF]

That was a great job adding the sounds into the scene, and chewies lines were hilarious.

 

[josemlopes]

Dat Half Life walking sound effect.

But yeah, it did look and sound like an actual award ceremony.

 

[Talvrae]

Most of the awards ceremony of the sort i have seen have some music playing too... otherwise, well that's exactelly what happen

 

[Scars Unseen]

It kind of reminded me of my wedding ceremony.

 

[DrOswald]

Meh. Not really that bad. The only strange thing here is that she didn't say something along the lines of "You get these medals for being really spiffy".

 

[Draconalis]

Apart from Chewie's ridiculous screaming, it just plays out like a normal award ceremony: Boring, drawn out, with the entire audience waiting for it to end so they can get to the part where they drink.

That's exactly what I thought. It was appropriate.

 

[Leemaster777]

Doesn't actually seem that bad to me. Though maybe the classiness of Luke's jacket makes up for the missing score (first time seeing the scene, so i don't know)

What you need is context:


OT: That was pretty funny. I got a good chuckle at that first Chewbacca yell. I wonder how much of Star Wars is rendered hilariously awkward by an absence of music (I'd bet alot of it).

 

[Olas]

This reminds of the music-less ET ending.


My favorite part is the mom awkwardly laughing.

 

[Veylon]

I'm suddenly recalling that lots of Sci-Fi movies of that era had loads of awkward soundless standing around. Or walking here to there. Or tapping on tech stuff. Or panning across scenes. Take out John Williams and Star Wars isn't quite as high above them as I was expecting.

 

[Bergthor86]

I'm suddenly recalling that lots of Sci-Fi movies of that era had loads of awkward soundless standing around. Or walking here to there. Or tapping on tech stuff. Or panning across scenes. Take out John Williams and Star Wars isn't quite as high above them as I was expecting.

Really, if you take out the music from any movie it would be more or less like this, so while Star Wars without John Williams isn't as high above other films with their score intact, Star Wars without John Williams is probably still a fair bit above many other films with their music taken out. The music is as much a part of a film as anything else, and crucial to setting the mood of a scene.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

"*Sung to the tune of the Star War theme*Boring. This is so BORRRING. Get to the show." That's all I could think of while watching this. If they're gonna make Chewey do stupid screams, they might as well have made Han or Luke do the Goofy laugh when staring at Leia.