Listening to John Williams’ latest contribution to the Star Wars epic is a lot like hearing Die Walküre for the first time after having memorized Götterdämerung. We know what is going to happen and Williams reinforces this certainty by reaching “forward” to themes (heck, call them leitmotifs) from the “later” episodes. Throughout the selections on the disc (a complete version of the film music is undoubtedly already in the can), we hear the Force theme, Yoda’s theme, and, most significantly and ominously, strains of the Imperial March. Not since Wagner have so many characters and representations been so clearly delineated and telegraphed. Sure, some might snipe that Williams “copped out” by cutting and pasting to create this latest score, but the outcome is so effective that it will give Star Wars fans nostalgic goose pimples.
As Episode II–Attack of the Clones is primarily a love story between Anakin and Padme, the dominant music that perambulates through the score is the so-called love theme (or “Across the Stars”), an infectious, instantly hummable tune that appears on nearly every track in some variation or another. Williams uses this theme to great dramatic effect by altering its orchestration, tempos, and prominence to suggest everything from heart-swelling romance to sadness. Through it and the passages heralding Anakin’s turn to the dark side, we can aurally sense the building conflict in the young protagonist’s heart, and this is Williams’ greatest triumph: conveying the emotional impact of the film with only the bare (pre-May 16) sketch of the story in mind.
Outside of the love theme and variations, Williams gives us some of his most thrilling chase music, especially in “The Chase Through Coruscant”, which, owing to Anakin’s teen spirit, features an electric guitar in the mix. For continuity’s sake, music from The Phantom Menace makes cameo appearances in “Return to Tatooine” (“Duel of the Fates”) and “The Arena” (an amazingly intense percussion and brass march based on the droid invasion). But the soundtrack’s most captivating moments occur in the various reprises of the Imperial March (the whole saga is really about the rise and fall of Anakin) and Williams makes clever use of this memorable theme at the end of the Finale, with double basses uttering the final notes slowly and morbidly, vividly suggesting that Episode II will be the ultimate cliffhanger in the series.
As with all of the other Star Wars soundtracks, Williams is at the helm of the London Symphony Orchestra, which plays with a lush Hollywood sound and is positively breathtaking in the more technically demanding sections. The sound is sheer Technicolor–multi-miked to the hilt and mixed for optimum impact. As such, it often has an artifical feeling with harps that seemingly swarm back and forth between speakers.
