Star Wars: The Force Awakens Meets Dark Side of the Moon

It’s a sync up for the next generation, as fans discover that the rhythms of Pink Floyd’s album pair up with Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

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Perhaps you had to be there in the 1990s when we all first learned that Pink Floyd’s seminal album Dark Side of the Moon sync’d up perfectly The Wizard of Oz. Trust me, it was a thing we all did in college–start the VHS tape, then start the CD on the second roar, and watch Dorothy left the black and white world and flew away to Oz as Roger Waters crooned along. (To this day I still can’t hear the guitar breakdown on “Money,” without picturing a screen full of Munchkins dancing.)

The reason behind the sync is due to the rhythms of storytelling. The Wizard of Oz follows a classic storytelling format, with the pacing of the beats of the story falling falling in a specific, and pleasing pattern. (There’s a reason the movie has been popular going on nearly 100 years, and it’s partly due to that.) Dark Side of the Moon, though the “story” being told is less linear and more musing on the generalize experience of being a white male in the UK in the latter half of the 20th century, follows those same key beats, which is why it is still one of the classic rock albums that has stood the test of time.

But now a new movie for a new generation had come along that also follows those same key storytelling rhythms: Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Though some left the theater complaining that it’s merely a straight retelling of Star Wars: A New Hope, I would argue it’s actually a better one. Where Star Wars: A New Hope is far slower than movies nowadays, The Force Awakens takes that same story and retells it following that same key storytelling rhythms that made The Wizard of Oz a classic.

The proof is in the pudding, as they would say, because as stoners of the next generation have discovered, Dark Side of the Moon syncs up perfectly with The Force Awakens–just as it did with The Wizard of Oz. In fact, it syncs up better than it did with Oz. With Oz, when the CD ended the first time, it just ended–there was no restarting it to play again. Instead there was the weird jolt of flipping over to the movie’s original soundtrack and the 1930s score with the Tin Woodman. But, according to reddit, with The Force Awakens, one can just let their media player repeat the album from the beginning–the album will complete three cycles across the entire movie and end on the third pass exactly when the movie does.

Here’s how to sync it:

Play the album after the crawl, when the camera moves from the stars to the ship that’s flying over and eclipsing jakku’s moon (hint hint). Leave the “Repeat” on, it needs to be played 3 times in a row, one for each act, with no interruptions.

Edit: Being more clear about it: Basically, press play as soon as the text from the crawl vanishes from the screen. The screams at the end of “Speak to Me” sync perfectly to bb-8 running after seeing the ships arriving at jakku, so, if you’re having trouble syncing at the crawl, leave the album paused at the second the screams begin, then press play at the exact moment that bb-8 turns around after seeing the ships.

Need an example? This video shows how the first eight minutes of the movie and album line up perfectly.

The reddit goes on to note some of the best sync up moments between movie and lyric. But we suggest discovering them on your own.

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