[Chefelf]

Yesterday I was remembering my initial reaction to seeing the video for "Duel of the Fates" on MTV. I have long avoided the Music Television Channel, but in the early winter of 1999 I remember my cousin telling me of the video for the new song off the upcoming Episode I song, Duel of the Fates. I had to watch.

I remember waiting on his couch to see the video. The video was, and still is, a clever mix of behind the scenes studio footage of the orchestra at work and short clips and soundbytes from the movie. I had tried to avoid the hype surrounding Episode I to avoid getting too worked up about it and, more importantly, to avoid spoilers. The video did its job in making me pretty stoked about the prequel(s).

The video takes some of the more stunning visuals and soundbytes and presents them in the best possible way: out of context. You can see a podracer skimming the ground and not have to know it's all part of some silly race to free a slave. You get to see Qui-Gon Gin and Darth Maul battling furiously through the sands of Tatooine and not have to be bothered by the fact that Darth Maul is clearly a KISS reject and Tatooine's inclusion is unnecessary.

I popped in the DVD yesterday and gave the video another look. It still works. It doesn't work on the same level as it did originally, but if I let my feelings go I can watch the video, hear the music, take in the visuals and legitimately enjoy it. It lets me almost reclaim those feelings I'd had in pre-May '99. Most importantly it allows me to imagine what could have been.

[Mike Mac from NYU]

Yesterday I was remembering my initial reaction to seeing the video for "Duel of the Fates" on MTV. I have long avoided the Music Television Channel, but in the early winter of 1999 I remember my cousin telling me of the video for the new song off the upcoming Episode I song, Duel of the Fates. I had to watch.[QUOTE]

I must be dense, or being hiding under a rock during that time.

What exactlty is "The Duel of Fates"?

Is it some pop song that is featured in Episode 1.?

In what part of the movie???

Who sings it?

An inquiring mind wants to know???!!!!

[Chefelf]

Sorry, sorry. I was unclear.

It's the music during the battle between Maul, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon with the gothic choir.

Bum Bum Bada Bum, Bum Bum Bada Bum

I hope that helps.

[Mike Mac from NYU]

"Sorry, sorry. I was unclear.

It's the music during the battle between Maul, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon with the gothic choir.

Bum Bum Bada Bum, Bum Bum Bada Bum

I hope that helps.  "

Ohhhh, that music !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was wondering what the hell people were talking about with this "Duel of Fates" song!!!!!!


That actualy was some pretty good music.

All though it was a knock off of the choir music in Luke's "beserk" scene in ROTJ.

It's a nice piece of music, but to make a video out of it seems a little extemporaneous.

***Did I use the word "extemporaneous" wrong???!!!! ***

***or did I just mispell it?*****

BTW, isn;t the duel of the fates kind of a misnomer? {am I using that word wrong??? }

Whose fate is being fought over?????

I also though that Anakin's Skywalker's fate was more important.

Do we really care about the fate of Darth Maul and Qui-Gon Jinn.

This post has been edited by Mike Mac from NYU: 28 October 2004 - 01:30 PM

[Vwing]

That actualy was some pretty good music.

All though it was a knock off of the choir music in Luke's "beserk" scene in ROTJ.

It really wasn't. Other than the choir they have nothing in common. The music in ROTJ (which is fabulous) was very slow, dark, moody, the voices are very deep, and it's basically just the strings with the choir. Duel of the Fates (which I think is a great piece of music, no comments from JYAMG here ) is extremely fast-paced, with a much higher and more powerful choir, and an underlying theme usually carried by the French Horn (along of course with the bum bum bada bum of the strings). And I agree with Chef, it's a great music video, because it's great music combined with great visuals. There' s no dialogue and no story, which is an improvement over TPM. I still say the music for the prequels is some of the most underrated music of all time, merely because of the crap they are attached to. Williams' prequel scores tell the story of the prequels so much better than the movies themselves do.

[ernesttomlinson]

I've not listened to the Episode II soundtrack but I have listened to the Episode I album a few times but never succeeded to make myself as happy with it as with the soundtracks for the first three movies. There are some good individual pieces; I like the droid invasion music, especially, and the song that ends the movie (before the credits roll.) But I liked less of it than of the other albums.

Also (as I've said somewhere before) I didn't think that the overall score for Episode I was as complex or coherent as for the original movies. Perhaps it's just my misperception, but I'm fairly sure that certain pieces were repeated verbatim without the richness of Williams's previous Star Wars music, where pieces are repeated but with variations. With the original movies I get the sense almost of one continuous piece of music running the whole length of the movie, with smooth transitions between scenes. With The Phantom Menace I got the sense of a number of self-contained pieces being played, many of them good maybe, but not presented in a coherent, unified manner.

[civilian_number_two]

I for one hate the name "Duel of the Fates" for all of the same reasons, I think, that Mike does. It's a pretentious name, aking to making a movie about an FBI agent who tracks a bad guy through the snowy wilds of Northern Washington and calling it "In the Halls of the Mountain King" (working title; sagely they changed the name to SHOOT TO KILL).

A more apt name is "Lightsaber Duel" or "action montage finale" or "episode I is nearly over." Duel of the fates? It's not a duel, for one fucking thing. Let's get that straight. A duel is a fight betwen two people. And since there are three other action scenes crosscut with it, this fight involved more than a thousand guys. If I have to scale back the definition to "duel between two opposing ... grr ... 'fates,'" then what are they?

The first person with a decent answer to that last question will be fired.

[Vwing]

Well actually, yes, it was crosscut with other scenes, but the music was different for those scenes. "Duel of the Fates" was used only for the lightsaber fight. So technically it is correct.

And I agree with you on the title, but he tried to make it dramatic, and as long as it's good music I don't care.

[Chefelf]

Oh, I agree. "Duel of the Fates" is a really, really stupid name. It is meaningless on every possible level. The titles of songs on soundtracks is almost always dumb. Particularly when it's orchestral music.

The music, apart for the sound design, is one of the things that remains most consistent between the OT and PT.

That aside, I think the music video was a really good teaser. Unfortunately it didn't deliver. Watching it now you can associate meaning with all the stupid visuals they show you. IF you let your mind go you can almost try to forget what actually happened.

[Despondent]

I just watched it again. Not bad, on its own. DM had some additional dialogue, did he not? Nice way to gloss over what was already a dire offering. The yoda line: "Hate leads to suffering" brought be back around though.

No matter why we hate the sequels, we suffer :angry:

[Mike Mac from NYU]

I for one hate the name "Duel of the Fates" for all of the same reasons, I think, that Mike does. It's a pretentious name, aking to making a movie about an FBI agent who tracks a bad guy through the snowy wilds of Northern Washington and calling it "In the Halls of the Mountain King" (working title; sagely they changed the name to SHOOT TO KILL).

To: civilian


I'm intrigued that you brough that movie up.

I liked "Shoot to Kill" as a movie, though it was very cliched at several points

It had one of Sidney Poitiers top ten perfomances in my opinion.

Being that I notice your located in BC, Canada, and if my memory serves me wel, that film was shot in BC.

Were you associated with this film at all. Or knew some people who worked on it?

Just curious. I completely understand if you refuse to answer. I respect your anonymity as much as I do mine.

I just find it odd that of all the movies to make that analogy with, tthat right of the top of your mind, you choose a movie that relatively obscure to do so.

This post has been edited by Mike Mac from NYU: 29 October 2004 - 10:20 AM

[civilian_number_two]

No, I was a freshman when that was made, and it was made in the interior mostly (with a brief period in downtown Vancouver).

It does stand out for me, of course, because like INTERSECTION it is one of those rare Hollywood films that allows Vancouver to play itself. SHOOT TO KILL is almost confrontational about it: when Vancouver is used to double for Seattle of Chicago or Mars, the writers naturally can't tie any scene to a specific location. Since Vancouver was Vancouver, they named districts ("The British Properties") and street corners ("Robson Square"). Of course they still broke rules of geography: A car chase that begins downtown ends up at the ferry terminal at Horseshoe Bay. This would be an hour-long drive, and by the time they got there every district along the way could have added a few dozen cars. By the time the chase made it to the ferries, there would have been hundreds of cops. The movie made it look like the chase lasted a more-film-credible 4 or 5 minutes.

INTERSECTION is of course terrible, and really batters geography, allowing Richard Gere at one point to drive from UBC to Coquitlam using the Sea to Sky highway.

This all means something to me and to Jordan and to Reader. Maybe some others I don't know about. The rest of you can just move on to the next one ....


Anyway, Mike: my involvement in films isn't really that involved. You probably have more experiences. I have done AD on a couple of Indies, and worked all kinds of roles on a bunch of shorts (some festival stuff there). But mostly I work tech support for a fortune 500 company, support a few investments here and there, and the film stuff, including a regular gig doing digital production for a modern dance company, is a hobby.

Also, I hang out here about once a day.

[Mike Mac from NYU]

Anyway, Mike: my involvement in films isn't really that involved. You probably have more experiences. I have done AD on a couple of Indies, and worked all kinds of roles on a bunch of shorts (some festival stuff there). But mostly I work tech support for a fortune 500 company, support a few investments here and there, and the film stuff, including a regular gig doing digital production for a modern dance company, is a hobby.

That's nothing to sneeze at.

To be honest, my own acheivements really just include a few things to date. .

Like most people I like to overblow my accomplishments.

They include

Numerous shorts including a controversial piece showing how Osama Bin Ladin and George Bush are alike. I think that short is running some where on some ultra-left wing website.

The other short was actually supposed to be an hour long, but got so stupid I gave up on it and turned it into a 15 minute short.

I actually have a bunch of these shorts I made here and there that are still laying somewhere in my dad;s basement.

One minor acting role as an obese in a low budget horror film, that I wager a few of you may have actually seen. I've heard rumors from people that they actually saw it once on Cinemax. I'm almost tempted to tell you guys the name of this film. Although I'm not entirely sure if I was even credited for the thing. I should find a copy of the movie, somewhere just to remember how bad I was.

One documentary that I directed for TV in Scotland about the origins of MacBeth. I'm most proud of that work, since it involved meeting so many interesting people in that.

One absolutely frigging bizarre music video for avery bad and now defunct local Irish/ Grunge/ whatever band named "Call me Ishmael" . Wonder whatever happened to those guys???? Still have the free CD they gave me, though....

One commercial for a karate school.

And ah, yes..........the absolute creme de creme of the Mike Mac film career.

"The Commando Squad"

A film made when I was 10 years old with my friend Jumane and couple of my brother, cousins, slash kids.

It was part of our project for Mr. KAufman's 5th grade class.

I was director and writer.

It was an epic battle of a US submarine crew.

Done entirely using our Queens, NY house.

We used the backyard to similute jungle terrain.

The Garden shed in the back was a munitions dump.

I think the wading pool was our boat or something.

I think we used our two German shephard dogs to represent the enemy. {some good stage prescence by those dogs}

We convinced my sister to be a love interest.

I remember a huge professional argument over who was going to be the commando squad leader.

I think I cried over having to be dead and therefore not being in the movie.

Even dad, was cooperative, he was willing to act officious and play our commanding officer at the base. Now that I look at it Dad's performance was a little over the top.

I long since forgot what the plot was. Something about a war on the Jupiter in the future or something like that.

We didn;t even script anything........we just came up with whatever on the spot, discussed about what we were going to do right on camera. said whatever.

The whole movie on a cheap VHS tape was about two hours, It had no end because I think we got bored or something.

Well I showed it in Mr. Kaufman's class and the other kids loved. Besides Rick the "star" of the film was a popular kid in the 10th grade.

My dad watched the tape and thought it was priceless. So priceless that he would show this tape every damn time we had company.

*Sigh* my first foray into movie making

Sorry for going off on a tangent there, but that brought back memories.

You know I'm going to see if I can get you guys a look at that tape. You guys would find it hysterical.

One of my dream is to actually turn that movie premise into a real movie in some sort of manner.

[Stongbah]

One thing about the name Duel of the Fates. You could argue that it's a duel between the two sides of the force. Of course, you also could argue that the whole Star Wars story arc is an allegory for making a tuna fish sandwich.

[J m HofMarN]

Of course, you also could argue that the whole Star Wars story arc is an allegory for making a tuna fish sandwich.

Oh, mister Strongbah wants to knock the tuna fish sandwhich theory eh? Well what do you think it is smart ass, a story about the temptation of the dark side or something? -rolls my eyes-