"Ord Mantell Junkyard" from Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire on the Nintendo 64 (1996)
Composer: Joel McNeely with themes by John Williams
Album: No Official Release
Developer: LucasArts
So, today being the fourth of May, I feel obligated to use a track from a Star Wars game as a way of acknowledging "Star Wars Day," which apparently is only 5 years old, although it hearkens back to 1979, but those were the Thatcher years, and we'd all like to forget about that.
On with the music!!
I chose "Ord Mantell Junkyard" partly because it was one of my favorite levels in SW: SotE, but also because I can recognize the musical theme that composer Joel McNeely used/ripped from John Williams' score for Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. It's from "Snowspeeder Rescue" in case you wanted to know/listen to the original. I felt that knowing that 1) Joel McNeely didn't write some of the main themes to SotE was important when talking about music from a video game based in a universe with an already recognized soundscape, and 2) that Joel McNeely wrote/arranged a great score that sounds enough like a traditional John Williams score that it's near indistinguishable from the real Williams. Or at least to my ears. But I feel that this music, originally composed for snowspeeders, works great as a theme for a train stage (which is "on rails" eh!?) intent on driving the action. Basically it's a fun level with a lot to look at, until you have to go up against IG-88.
I should also note, that while there is a soundtrack to Shadows of the Empire, it is music written/arranged by Joel McNeely as a soundtrack to the novelization (which came out about the same time as the game) and not taken from the N64 game.
So happy May 4th, 2016. . .which doesn't really have the intended ring to it that the internet so often demands/craves.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
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