TLJ 23: Holdo’s Resolve (Minutes 111-115)

Star Wars Music Minute

You won't find it on the commercial soundtrack, but the music leading up to Holdo's sacrifice represents the culmination of profound thematic transformation rarely heard in all of Star Wars. Let's talk about why.

Highlights:

• How the Desperation motif spawned from the Tension motif (after various iterations).
• Desperation motif is heard in its final form as the three subplots come to a head and finishes right as Holdo rams into the Supremacy.
• Frank Lehman's "Thematic Transformation and the Limits of Leitmotivic Analysis"
• Basic vs. advanced ways that leitmotifs tend to undergo transformation in Star Wars
• The shelf-stable analogy of preserving precious leitmotifs for future use... and how that isn't the case here
• Teleological genesis: when a theme develops from a motivic fragment and culminates in a final instance, never to reoccur.
• Speculation, philosophical questions, and who cares about thematic transformation anyway?
• Also in these minutes: silence!

Where we are in the soundtrack: "Holdo's Resolve" -- it's not on the commercial soundtrack. https://youtu.be/3rIBFn3oU7c

Sources and References:

• Buhler, James. 2000. "Star Wars, Music and Myth." In Music and Cinema. Wesleyan University Press. https://academic.csuohio.edu/kneuendorf/c49415/Buhler00.pdf
• Darcy, Warren. 2001. "Rotational Form, Teleological Genesis, and Fantasy-Projection in the Slow Movement of Mahler's Sixth Symphony." University of California Press https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/ncm.2001.25.1.49
• Lehman, Frank. 2019. "Thematic Transformation and the Limits of Leitmotivic Analysis." Talk given at Society for Music Theory, 2019 https://youtu.be/4ZBCNK0PYrk
  • -- 2021. Complete Catalogue of the Musical Themes of Star Wars: https://franklehman.com/starwars/
• Schneller, Tom. 2014. "Sweet Fulfillment: Allusion and Teleological Genesis in John Williams’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind." https://www.academia.edu/6928980/Sweet_Fulfillment_Allusion_and_Teleological_Genesis_in_John_Williams_s_Close_Encounters_of_the_Third_Kind
• Svejda, Jim. 2018. "John Williams Discusses “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” and “The Post.” KUSC Interviews. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/john-williams-discusses-star-wars-the-last-jedi-and-the-post/id616808075?i=1000403320805

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