Shadows of the Empire is sometimes called an "interquel" - the events take place between those of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.  Released in 1996, it is essentially a Star Wars film without the film - there was a novel, a video game, a comic book series, and all the merchandise you could shake a stick at.  There was also an all-new original score composed by Joel McNeely, who was personally recommended for the job by John Williams himself.

Never read the book, and the video game pretty much blew chow.  The score, however, is pretty darned good.  It may not seem fair to compare it to the scores for the feature films, but I still think it holds up well on its own.  Two of the cooler segments are called "The Battle of Gall" and "The Destruction of Xizor's Palace", and there just happens to be a YouTube fanvid that makes use of both of them...

...so go watch it already.

Read the Shadows of the Empire article on Wikipedia.

This is part of a week-long series on music from Star Wars.

Order 66 FTW!

Revenge of the Sith was probably the best of the prequels, and Mr. Williams was his usual brilliant self for the accompanying score.  I'm particularly fond of "Anakin's Betrayal", which is heard during the Clone Army's initial extermination of the Jedi.

Yeah, I know I gave an anti-spoiler spiel two days ago.  But come on, we've known since 1977 that Vader "helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights", we've known since 1980 that Vader is Luke's dad, and we've known since 1983 that Luke's dad was named Anakin.

Besides, no one reads this thing anyway, so it's not like there's anyone here to spoil anything for.  Geesh.

Hear "Anakin's Betrayal" on YouTube.

This is part of a week-long series on music from Star Wars.

Today's choice was rather problematic - there are many great segments from Attack of the Clones.  I think it's the best prequel score by far.  I like "Return to Tatooine" a lot.  "The Arena" is really good.  I even like the sap-drenched love theme (aka "Across the Stars"), which is much more compelling than the actual love story it referenced.

However, for its sheer uniqueness alone, I am choosing "Zam the Assassin and the Chase Through Coruscant."  Seeing as how this was really the first Star Wars sequence to be staged in a dreary and condensed urban setting, there was a definite effort to sort of "modernize" the accompanying music.  You certainly didn't hear a lot of orchestral music written before the 20th century this percussion-heavy.  And is that (gulp) an electric guitar I hear?  Good gravy.

But still, it just fits.  John Williams can score anything and make it fit.  He could compose something for when I take a nice big whiz and make it interesting.

Watch a fanvid for "Zam the Assassin and the Chase Through Coruscant" on YouTube.

This is part of a week-long series on music from Star Wars.

Yes, the movie was flawed.  I'd go so far as to say it was fundamentally flawed.

The Phantom Menace score, however, was not flawed.  If I was some big shot pro athlete, like an NBA god or some fireballing late-inning MLB pitcher, I think "The Flag Parade" would make for good entrance music.  This piece just screams "someone who kicks an obscene amount of ass is about to enter the room, so you all had better take notice."

While I'm on the subject of the TPM score, I wanna mention something:  I really wish they'd keep the spoilers out of soundtrack album track listings.  Imagine this:  you're a big Star Wars fan, and Phantom comes out.  You haven't quite had time to see the film yet, but you decide to pick up the soundtrack CD anyway because you enjoy SW music in general.  You rip the plastic off, flip the disc over, skim through the track titles, and you not only learn that "Anakin Defeats Sebulba" but are also made aware of "Qui-Gon's Noble End" and "Qui-Gon's Funeral."  D-oh!

Thankfully, I had seen the film by that time.  But I can imagine people being none too keen on that practice.

Watch a fanvid for "The Flag Parade" on YouTube.

This is part of a week-long series on music from Star Wars.

For a film score to introduce "themes" to accompany characters or story elements is nothing new, obviously.  Movies have been doing that for decades.

The Star Wars films were, of course, no exception.  The first film brought us several themes, like the Main Title theme, that Force theme and "Leia's Theme."  Empire provided themes for Vader (aka the "Imperial March") and Yoda.  The prequels gave us "Anakin's Theme" and "Duel of the Fates" (Ep1), "Across the Stars" (Ep2) and "Battle of the Heroes" (Ep3).

But you may be asking yourself "What theme came out of Return of the Jedi?", and you may be hard pressed to come up with an answer.

Well, one of my very favorite of the Star Wars "themes" did in fact come out of RotJ, and it was called "Luke and Leia."  Granted, Luke and Leia were already established characters at the time, but I suppose the powers that be felt that they needed to create a theme to accompany their newfound familial relationship...

...and conveniently overlook the fact that they swapped spit in the previous film.

Hear "Luke and Leia" on YouTube.

This is part of a week-long series on music from Star Wars.

In my worthless opinion at least, one of the things that separates a great film score from an average or a merely good one is its attention to detail, and its attention to actual movie details specifically.  Sure, you can simply have a couple of minutes of generic "sad" music here, some generic up-tempo "action" music there, and some generic "atmospheric" stuff wherever.  But if you can take the time and effort to create an individual piece of incidental music for every action of every scene you're scoring, no matter how subtle, and have all of those moments actually work without compromising the scenes' continuity, then you've done some truly great movie music.

The Star Wars scores are just the best at this.  Today's example is probably my favorite segment from my favorite SW score of all, The Empire Strikes Back.  From when Luke is cornered by Vader on Cloud City, to the big revelation, to when he falls down the shaft, to when he makes telepathic contact with Leia, to when he is picked up by Lando, to when he makes telepathic contact with Vader (man, those Jedi and their telepathy), to the droids' little comic relief bit, to the final climactic escape, every note fits, and every note works.

Watch an incomplete fanvid for "Rescue from Cloud City/Hyperspace" on YouTube.

Hear "Hyperspace" in its entirety.

This is part of a week-long series on music from Star Wars.

Sure, I could have posted the main title theme, but that seemed kind of obvious.

I mean, come on, the scene where the Falcon escapes the Death Star and is chased down by the TIEs?  That scene just kicks ass.

Hear "Ben Kenobi's Death/Tie Fighter Attack" on YouTube.

This is part of a week-long series on music from Star Wars.

I spend a whole week asking for suggestions, and I get a grand total of one - from my own sister.  You know that kid who only his Mom thinks is cool?  My blog has become that kid.

Anyway, it was suggested that I feature music from movies.  I like a lot of film music, so doing just a week of it would prove difficult.  So, I'm gonna focus on Star Wars scores.  We all know that the original scores for the Star Wars films were universally awesome, even when the films themselves were not.  It would seem like a good fit, seeing as how there are seven days in a week and I own seven Star Wars soundtracks.  So the Force will be with the MSaD this week.

"Wait a minute, where do you get seven?"  More on that later.

I am about to hook a VCR up to my PC so I can author a DVD from an old VHS tape of Thomas Dolby videos, so I have Thomas Dolby on the brain right now.

Hey, there's a knock on my door.  It's probably the FBI, working on behalf of the RIAA, coming to whisk me away.  Be right back...

Hear "Commercial Breakup" on Facebook. (beware Firefox users:  this page no likey Firefox)

Watch a live performance on YouTube.