How To Remake A Fantasy

Analysis of "The Crab Warden" Cue as Musical Metaphor.

I've been a Final Fantasy VII fan since it came out on PlayStation 1, and I've been loving the remakes. While jamming out one of Nobuo Uematsu's spectacular pieces from the FFVII Remake's score, titled "The Crab Warden," I realized that this song is a perfect metaphor for what the Remake has done as a whole.

Where it stays true to form. Where it deviates. How it plays to nostalgia and uses our expectations against us. How it aims at the original's emotional intent rather than it's literal execution.

In homage to one of my favorite games and its worthy sequel, here's a musical analysis of the cue "The Crab Warden" and the lessons it teaches us on remakes and adaptations as a whole.

0:01 - A recognizable first few bars from FFVII's classic battle theme, but slower, more stately, with different orchestration. An immediate signal to the audience that this is going to be different. It's going to be grander.

0:19 - Fan service and credibility. Introduce the elements your fans have come to respect from the source IP in a familiar way - yet the production value is much higher, thanks to the orchestration.

1:45 - A bridge that's totally unique. Just as the story will prove, we are bridging to entirely new material. The remake will tread new ground.

1:58 - Drop the beat. Uptempo reinvention of the familiar but injected with new life and energy. The phrases take unexpected turns from the original. There's no way for the hardcore fan to predict the way we'll get there...

3:03 - ...but as this section resolves back in a familar way, its a promise. We're not going to take the same road, but we're still going to stick the landing.

3:42 - My favorite. The sweeping string section. What's captured here is not what the original did LITERALLY its how we FELT when we played the original. The theme is far more energetic, filled with yearning. It's how the MIDI made us feel at the time in a way that can't be repeated, but CAN be recaptured. It aims for the emotion, not the executional recreation.

4:00 - Another unexpected bridge that becomes dischordant. This is where the music plays against our expectations. The fact that it doesn't sound like what we remember makes us uncomfortable. That emotion is exactly what this scene is meant to evoke. The score uses our expectations against us.

4:38 - Unison medley of the entire string section. We're all on the same page now, aren't we? Punching. Driving. We're sold. Change what you will. Go where you will, developers. We're with you.

5:21 - A few measly notes from the original is expanded into its own section, just as the remake as a whole will expand upon narrative material to embellish surface details.

4:38 - Back to the unison driving medley.

6:25 - The Shinra theme is woven into the climax. Its a reminder that that the pieces are not being individually remade without a view of the whole, and that the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts.