@corseque is someone in the fandom that I have mad respect for, as I’m sure all of you do as well! She made a video with every instance of The Force Theme/Binary Sunset musical leitmotif composed by John Williams, as it used across all 8 saga films. It’s 30 dang minutes long and a thing of glory – and she sent it to me with a request for some meta. I’m using this video as my main reference point. Here is her original request:
“I put together 99% of the times the Force Theme (Binary Sunset)* plays in all the Star Wars movies, including The Last Jedi. Since this music is used in interesting ways during Rey and Ben’s scenes together (the fight on Starkiller, the hand touch, the decision in Snoke’s Throne Room, etc), I wanted to edit all of them in one place for easier comparison reference, mostly so I could tempt tumblr users @enjoyallneednothing-blog and @reylo-musings (and anyone else who has more musical knowledge than me) to look through this and answer this questionasked me by @superkeenstarwarsbean:
“I heard something interesting in the scene where Ben and Rey touch hands. The three notes played with the left hand in Across the Stars plays softly and lowly under the force theme. Or at least something very similar. It’s hidden and hard to hear but there is definitely three notes played in much the same way its played in the prequel love theme.”
In this video, the hand touch is @25:31. As far as I can hear, this playing of the Force Theme sounds different than any other time the Force Theme is used in all the movies (I put them all together here just so people could easily check my work and correct me if I’m wrong).
interesting – the Force Theme seems to be used sometimes as romantic music during a few of Anakin and Padme’s scenes in the prequels, even when the Force is not being referenced or used. also interesting – how many, many times this theme appears in TLJ, especially compared to TFA.”
I want to answer the question of @superkeenstarwarsbean AND properly celebrate the awesome power of this theme, and I’m so sorry, but I really don’t think I can do it justice in one meta. So I’m breaking it up into three parts! The Force Theme in the Original Trilogy. The Force Theme in the Prequel Trilogy. And the The Force Theme in the Sequel Trilogy. I will get to the original question in the Sequel Trilogy segment – and I plan on having them all done by the end of this week, so not a huge wait I hope! 🙂
It’s entirely possible that this is John Williams’ most well known and beloved piece of music – and that’s saying a lot. Can you remember the first time you saw the scene in Ep IV: A New Hope, where young Luke gazes out at the binary sunset, and the questioning french horn swells with strings and harp into a mystical theme of longing and struggle? I know you do. Cuz I do. I remember that shit like it was yesterday.
In his comprehensive catalog of John Williams Star Wars Leitmotifs, Frank Lehman labels this theme “Force/Obi-Wan/All Purpose.” We’ll get in to why the Force Theme is sometimes used in an “All Purpose” manner, but I really hate when I see it described as being used “like wallpaper.” That’s a common theme in criticism of The Last Jedi score and essentially, I think it’s hogwash. Balderdash. Poppycock. You get my drift.
This scene above is actually the second time we hear the Force Theme – the first time is a brief statement as Leia gives the Death Star plans to R2-D2. The music segues into Princess Leia’s theme as we get the wide shot of the Princess and Artoo in the hallway. As New Yorker Music Critic Alex Ross notes:
“Something more substantial happens in the celebrated scene in which young Luke Skywalker looks longingly toward a horizon lit by twin setting suns, dreaming of a life beyond the desert planet Tatooine. Williams writes a melancholy, expansive G-minor theme for solo horn, which is soon taken up by full strings. Akin to the noble C-minor melody that Wagner writes for Siegfried, this leitmotif represents not only Luke but also the mystical medium known as the Force. Buhler points out that the music is heard before the Force has been explained; thus, in classic Wagnerian fashion, it foreshadows the not-yet-known. This may be the point at which “Star Wars” steps out of the adolescent-adventure arena and into the realm of modern myth.”
But what’s actually happening with this iconic theme? Why can it be used in so many different scenarios and work SO WELL for what’s happening onscreen, and in our character’s inner worlds of emotion? Or as Richards says, “Emotionally, the theme ranges from the gentle poignancy of cues like this that can bring a tear to one’s eye to a brash militarism that can rouse the spirits and make us root for the good guys. So what is it that gives this theme its emotional qualities and makes it such a perfect fit for what we see onscreen?”
I’m putting the rest behind a cut because it got way, way long 🙂
This is just something I got to thinking about as I was writing my PadMay Day 2 Post. Why is it you rarely, it seems to me anyway, hear people complain about Luke going to redeem his father–and throwing away his lightsaber rather than kill him and compromise his principles–but you hear people complain that Padme didn’t draw a weapon on Anakin and betray her principles? Surely, people do realise that what Luke did and what Padme did are the same thing, right? Actually, what Luke did was arguable “stupider”.
What Luke Knew About Darth Vader
He’s a mass murderer
Has committed genocide
Is a Sith
Cut of His Hand
Is Loyal to the Empire
Has Killed Many of His Friends and Comrades
Was, allegedly, a Good Man Once
Threatened to Turn his Sister to the Dark Side
Dueled him to protect the Emperor
What Padme Knew About Darth Vader
He was a good man
He was a sweet and kind-hearted boy
He loved her
He loved their child
He loved Ahsoka
He loved Obi-Wan
He loved his mother
He loved people
He wanted to help people
He had a lot of compassion in his heart
He’d been lost and confused lately.
He’d been friends with the Chancellor since he was a boy
Obi-Wan said he’d turned to the Dark Side
He’d even killed younglings
He has the potential to be quite Dark
Maybe he did go Dark…But Why?
From the above we can observe that Padme had far more reason to believe in her husband than her son did to believe in his father. He has been her beloved husband of three years. She’s seen him do lots of good things. When Padme goes to Mustafar, Anakin hugs and kisses her. He clearly still has some kind of caring for her. She’s horrified by what she discovers, but is trying to get through to him when Obi-Wan interferes and Vader turns on her. She is strangled by a Sith while she is weaponless.
Luke, on the other hand, has nothing much to go on, but the vague impression that Vader doesn’t really want to kill him, and might have been a good man once. He knows for certain, Vader has already cut of his hand, and indirectly killed his family, and has committed numerous other atrocities when he goes to face Vader. Nevertheless, after all that has happened, and Vader defends the Emperor, and Luke uses his rage to win a duel, Luke throws away his lightsaber, when the Emperor is right there, rather than betray his ideals. He does not want to become someone who will kill, his own father no less, in anger. He gets electrocuted by a Sith for it while he is weaponless.
Why is it then that Padme is the naive, “weak,” delusional one? Whose reactions were more reasonable and understandable in which situation? Why the double standard? Both Luke and Padme were coming from the same place. Whether you admire or disdain their choices, they were both making the same fundamental choice.
It’s because Padme is a woman. There’s always that double-standard where a female character is criticised for doing something while a male character who does the same thing isn’t criticised and might even be praised. People are obsessed with the idea of a strong female character and whenever any female character does something that could be seen as cliched/stereotyped they criticise them mercilessly. They see Padme’s actions but they seemingly don’t understand or choose to ignore her motivations and reasons. Yes Padme confronting Anakin/Vader on Mustafar was reckless and unwise and ended in her death. If she’d lived maybe people wouldn’t be so harsh on her, but she didn’t.
And not only did she die, she died because she ‘lost the will to live’. Most people assume that it’s a cliche feminine stereotype. However, they fail or refuse to understand that Padme had understandable reasons for ‘losing the will to live’. She lost everything that she cared about. She literally saw everything she’d worked so hard for go down in flames. It sent her into acute depression. She lost her drive and before she could get it back again she went into labour and she died having ‘lost the will to live’.
Now Luke, on the other hand, is a male character and by throwing away his lightsaber he’s going against male cliches/stereotypes. People like that.
(Feel free to tell me if I’ve gotten something wrong. Meta discussions are not my forte. I really don’t want to be jumped on for anything.)
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