\I don't remember how I stumbled across Star Wars- The Musical, but when I heard about it I thought, "Yeah, that makes sense." I've often discussed with my friends what movies have influenced society the most and which are referenced most by pop culture in general. I am afraid of my own fandom being a bias, so I often propose the question and let the discussion take its own course. Generally, those whom I have surveyed agree that Star Wars tops the list with maybe The Wizard of Oz being a close second. Because it has been subject to so many references, parodies, spoofs, and spin-offs a musical version only made sense. I downloaded all of the files and put it on my long list of things to listen to when I get the chance. As I read through the Legends Expanded Universe timeline and around Christmas break when I realized that getting through the whole series would probably take the whole school year [two semesters and not just one] I figured that it didn't matter if I tried to drag out the midway point which seems to fall right around the original trilogy [side note, I should actually go back and count and see which novel is the mid-point by novel number and separately by playtime, since so many of the original Bantham books are only available as abridged versions. Heck, as long as I'm doing that, I might as well consider the midpoint from the perspective of print novels and not just audio books, but I digress]. Anyway, I was interested, if not eager, to listen to the musical. I am not a great lover of musicals, but I have enjoyed quite a few. Unfortunately, I was not able to bring myself to finish this one. The lyrics, music, and singing were all just mediocre. Couple that with the fact that it didn't load onto my phone properly and so I was having to stream it file at a time not in proper order from a cloud hard drive, and by the time I was halfway through and to the cantina scene I gave up. Since it is unofficial in every sense, I felt no guilt that I gave up on it and promptly moved on to other audiobooks. Great idea, poor execution- makes me kind of glad they've never taken a stab at the other movies.
Random side note, I was just thinking earlier today, and remembering that I left off at the cantina scene here reminds me all the more: When I was in junior high and early high school there were two versions of the Star Wars soundtrack in reprint one was a "best of" the original trilogy with John Williams guest directing the Utah Symphonic Orchestra and the other was John Williams conducts John Williams with The Skywalker Symphony. I didn't own the second, but I had several friends who did and the Cantina band song ended differently there and also ended with weird blast shot sounds effects and a coin flipping or landing on a table [their take on the Han shot first killing Greedo and "Sorry about the mess" scene]. In retrospect it sounds pretty strange and horrible, but I remember wanting that soundtrack simply because it had those minor differences. Fortunately, someone has uploaded it to YouTube. Later in high school I acquired all of the 2-CD each movie Special Edition soundtracks. They released a similar multi-CD set for The Phantom Menace, but to my knowledge have never done this for any of the other movies in the prequel trilogy or the newer sequels and stories, but if they do I will collect them all.
No comments:
Post a Comment