Word: vader
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...Star Wars main title opens the soundtrack. And after the opening fanfare, there's the traditional subsiding into a more subdued theme. In this case, it is not the sound of a threatening attack of a Star Destroyer on a tiny vessel or the thumping triad notes of Darth Vader's theme but a grand, sweeping piece that is reminiscent of the Indiana Jones films. Mark my words: the opening scene of the film judging simply from the music, will have some sort of advancing army or caravan, be it droid, human or beast, across a plain or desert...
...third track, "Anakin's Theme," is one of the finest examples of Williams' genius in film music. Anakin Skywalker, of course, will become the Darth Vader of the original films (if that's a spoiler for you, then you probably don't care anyway). Having to work backward from the other three Star Wars soundtracks, Williams has embedded the familiar notes of "Darth Vader's Theme" (also known as the "Imperial March") within the slow, thoughtful piece. One can easily imagine the notes solidifying more and more over the next two films and into the familiar, thundering music of Darth...
...have probably heard, for example, that Liam Neeson signed to star in The Phantom Menace before he was able to read the screenplay. Neeson later joked that when he eventually got his hands on the script, security was so tight that Darth Vader himself was standing guard outside the room. (Neeson was, of course, well-paid for his enforced ignorance.) You probably know about the sandstorm in Tunisia that demolished most of the Mos Espa spaceport set when location shooting was only half-finished...
...blow up a Death Star twice, but you better have a good reason. The first Star Wars trilogy, uneven as it might be, at least developed a story that grew and widened with each sequel. When Darth Vader bent to pick up the Emperor, taking a posture unprecedented in the previous movies, the meaningfulness of that moment rested on Vader's character development, which had been unfurled and complicated over the length of three feature films. It is this sort of meaningfulness that Star Wars: Episode I lacks. Instead of real character development, it relies on name recognition. At every...
...today taken with its action may grow up to imbue it with as much meaning as our generation has found in the original movies. Some scenes have the potential to become psycho-emotional monuments in our cultural memory: just as Han Solo rocketed out of nowhere to send Darth Vader hurtling through empty space in Star Wars, so does Anakin Skywalker throw his racing pod into a breathless ascent and flame-out half-way through Episode...