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Sometimes you find weird things on the web. Like this blog about Stephen King that has an excellent article on John Williams. It’s a four part blog entry called “A Guided Tour to the Works of John Williams.” It was written by Bryant Burnett in 2016 and doesn’t tackle the most recent scores, it doesn’t look further than 2005. That hardly matters - it compensates by going back to JW’s early days instead, chronicling his career from 1956. It’s also sensibly written, insightful and thorough as hell. Is Bryant a member here? Must be. But I can’t recall hearing about this earlier, and this really is a must read for any serious JW fan. Part 1: 1956-1967 Part 2: 1968-1974 Part 3: 1975-1986 Part 4: 1987-2005

For “us JW hardcore fans” there isn’t much left to surprise us, is there? But I hardly think that is the point. That said, the piece is way too “deep” to be aimed at newcomers. I think it contains a lot of interesting info and backstory on both big, mainstream releases as well as small, obscure ones. If you exclude the 20 people who are regular posters here, I’d say there’s a lot of stuff here that JW fans might not know about - especially regarding the early years.

A Star Wars per year keep the psychiatrist too near!

<super-pedantic mode>You need to consider the length of the films: Star Wars films got longer and longer as time went by.</super-pedantic mode> It so does! And they're not really comparable franchises, anyway.

The success of a Star Wars movie is directly proportional to the screen time of R2-D2. I'm sure I can scientifically prove that!!!

I wouldn't read too much into this Kathy Kennedy thing either way. Star Wars is in flux at the moment and I doubt Disney is prepared to make any major changes. And who would the logical replacement be anyway? Nothing in this deal prevents Disney from making a change if things with Star Wars don't improve. It's no different than signing a football player to a five year deal and cutting him the next year if he's off his game. A big part Disney's problem with Star Wars at the moment is mechanising, sales of which are reportedly way down. For the merchandising to be successful, the movies and TV shows have to make the kind popular impact that Disney expects of Star Wars. If that happens, Kennedy will be fine. If it doesn't, she'll be gone, it's as simple as that. It's those factors that will decide her fate, not her gender.

True. That aspect certainly holds it back from greatness. But as a film its still a joy to watch. Its fun, while still having darker passages. It flows quite nicely (much better than The Last Jedi). The production design is excellent, and the way its photographed is unique and engaging but also doesn't call attention to itself (again unlike The Last Jedi).

Happy 100th.

Because fucking Perseverance are holding Witches of Eastwick hostage with 4500 unsold copies of a pointless OST reissue.

@Bryant Burnette

Kennedy's contract extended 3 years @Mattris: 😄😄😄

Hello, Some of you are already aware of this, but I want to spread the news to every JWFan here: After a few months working on it on and off, I'm now ready to launch this side project of mine which I hope will encounter interest among fellow John Williams admirers. It's time for me to give back the immense amount of gratitude I have toward this great composer. It's a blog called "The Legacy of John Williams": https://thelegacyofjohnwilliams.com/ The purpose is to build a platform to collect and gather material from people around the world who were inspired by the music of John Williams--mostly musicians, composers, conductors, but also filmmakers, film professionals, historians, music critics and scholars. I want to give space also to admirers who have interesting stories and perspectives to tell and share. The goal is to celebrate the rich musical legacy John Williams is giving and leaving to our lives, for centuries to come. There is a larger and much more ambitious goal at the core of this project, but it’s too soon to speak about it. If this blog will get momentum and will become the platform I hope will be in the foreseeable future, everything will be addressed. As you can see, it's still work-in-progress, but from now on I plan to build and update it regularly, so be patient, I promise it will be worth your time. Taking a cue from the Maestro's writing process, I see this project as a living thing that can be improved and changed over the course of time. Today I published the first piece of content, an exclusive interview with pianist Gloria Cheng about the Montage recording/documentary: https://thelegacyofjohnwilliams.com/2018/09/27/conversation-with-pianist-gloria-cheng/ I've also set up Facebook and Twitter pages, so I hope you will like/follow: https://www.facebook.com/thelegacyofjohnwilliams https://twitter.com/TheLegacyofJW Of course feedback from anyone is greatly appreciated. Thank you for listening!

I'm sure there are a gajillion errors. Feel free to point them out, and I'll correct them! No way, Thomas and the King is shite. Although it's grown on me a little since I wrote that thing. ONLY a little, but still. There's actually a fifth part covering 2006-2015: http://thetruthinsidethelie.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-guided-tour-to-works-of-john-williams_17.html Thanks for the kind words! I can't really remember what motivated me to put such a thing on my King blog, but it was fun to write.

Mattris, if I may direct you to the wisdom of a countryman of mine... "A fanatic is someone who won't change his mind and can't change the subject" Winston Churchill

Superhero fatigue is real!

Oh, you answer me like if I spoke seriously. So cute!!!

So this list tells me Rey was in TFA for 43 minutes, which beats Luke's longest screen time (37:30) in SW 77 by almost 6 minutes. And Jyn Erso's 33 minutes almost ties Luke's TESB/ROTJ screen time of approximately 34 minutes each. Conclusion? It appears that @Mattris's feminist conspiracy was right after all.

Ah HA! You listen to me more, you live longer!

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if there was something to that! Off the top of my head, I'd certainly say R2D2 has the most screen time in Star Wars '77 by far. Probably in the neighbourhood of 20 minutes.

I love this score to death. It's practically an anti-depressant. If I know work's gonna be hell today, I make sure to put this one on, because it's just so infectiously joyful and bouncy and happy!

It will never exist for passionate fans like yourself, perhaps, regardless of where they fall on the divide. But, for more causal filmgoers, I feel things are different. A Star Wars movie is supposed to be a rather rare event to them, not a central gospel in an overall scripture that must be drawn from daily. How much money is made overall is what is important, and the die-hard fans only contribute part of this. Overall, despite a couple of missteps, Kennedy has delivered return on investment, and this, more than other considerations, is what lead Iger to decide to keep here on.

Oh, for love of God, shut hell up!

False. JJ Abrams movies are characterized (and in times plagued) by the camera being on steroids, constantly moving and/or cutting. So to see him deliver The Force Awakens in long takes was a real surprise, coming from him; and a real treat. All the more impressive is that he doesn't overdo it. When you're going for long takes, its all-too-easy to make them too long, to the point that they start calling attention to themselves. That may be my main reason to leaning for this film over Johnson's: the camera doesn't call attention to itself. Abrams is confident and more established as a big-budget director, that he doesn't have to stand between me and the movie and say "look at me! I can direct a movie! Isn't it great?!" True, there are a lot of scenes where I felt like he was one take away from a much better cut of the scene. It should be said, his camerawork isn't terribly engaging, either. I was shocked by how little the camera moves in his films, how scarcely he pushes in for a close-up, and how high-key the lighting is in his films. That's partially why films like Empire Strikes Back and The Last Jedi feel so "different".

That voice is very fitting for Dallas Howard's attractiveness.

I'm surprisingly positive about Gia's score from Rogue One just by my single watch of the film. I feel bad for him actually. I'm sure he was dying to score one of the new Star Wars scores, but the situation must have been a mess.

Statements like this are why I laugh at you. Sexism usually goes the other way. Here's another one that's laughable.

I have no choice. If I don't support her, the feminitht'th will smear me and destroy me. The Force is Female!

Agreed. Like I said, if it isn't Williams, it's the best Williams impersonation I've heard by a modern composer. Unlike a lot of the pastiche we hear from composers trying to emulate the JW sound, that cue sounds exactly like how Williams would've written it if he'd scored the whole film. Which is different to how Powell approached the rest of the score. He didn't impersonate Williams; he wrote a John Powell score using the musical idiom of Star Wars as his template. Those are two very different approaches.

How great is this?

Indeed. Someone has to record this for us poor blokes who can't listen to the broadcast because we'll be at the RAH.

New track "Memory Lane" added:

Calm down my good man, it was a compliment.

I like him. He's silly!

Maybe as a Force Ghost you can access all the JW recording sessions you want

Tense and fairly grim WW2 thriller, located on a german battleship with Marlon Brando as british/german agent who must stop the vessel before it's reaching France and Yul Brynner as disillusioned german captain. It's a technically brilliant film (Conrad Hall did the spectacular b/w photography) that knows how to deepen its characters and actions in some important scenes that make it go beyond mere war adventure. German director Bernhard Wicki's only Hollywood movie. It tanked, of course.

You must be joking?

Exactly. You only need two takes. Slower/not so intense, and faster/more intense. Anything else is a waste.

Moby Dick is an awesome score. As I have said before it feels more like a nautical tone poem than a mere film score. For some reason I have never listened to Goldsmith's Logan's Run. War of the Worlds by John Williams: I love the mix of Stravinskian rhythms, apocalyptic kinetic orchestral and choral bombast and delicate Americana string elegies in this one. The use of human voices harkens back to Close Encounters as the Maestro uses them both as a signifier of humanity and something utterly alien and frightening. While not very theme driven vehicle, the aforementioned rhythmic propulsion is the the carrying force of this score and the 60 minute album is a pretty succinct listening experience although I would have loved to hear Williams' synth Prologue and Epilogue sans Morgan Freeman's narration.

Bryant is a longstanding member here.

Naw, I don't think so...which is good, 'cause he reads like a dickhead. I bet Thomas and the King is his favorite John Williams score, that asshole!

Yes, I saw it before. Nothing that us hardcore JW fans don't already know, but well written and a good intro to the newcomers. A few uncertainties, omissions and errors, but nothing major.

That woodwind ending is so Williams-esque that I expect it to segue into a Harry Potter ending cue (Han's Wonderful World??)

It's the guy from POLTERGEIST.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind by John Williams The River Wild by Jerry Goldsmith Witches of Eastwick by John Williams

I took these a week ago and forgot to post them.

One of the greatest Williams cues EVER.

Really? There are a ton of very specific Williamsisms all throughout the cue. Like the War Horse-esque descending major chords, the Phantom Menace-esque brass writing, the woodwind resolve at the end, etc

One of the most head-scratching thing about AOTC score is that they never used that amazing arena march in the film (except for that one small excerpt towards the end). It is easily one of the most distinctive things Williams wrote for the prequels. As is the heavily butchered Coruscant chase. Amazing stuff. The score might not be as theme-heavy as other films but it has an unmistakable sound of its own. The percussion-heavy action cues are quite specific to this score. And the love theme provides the music and film with a strong emotional arc. You can understand why many people consider this to be the weakest SW score of all, especially given its treatment in the film as well as lack of music in the crucial final act. But weak music it ain't. It is also the most focused of the three. Yes, but the tracked music on that one must have been planned from the start. Because it fits in much better with the new music. Karol

Film looks like absolute shit. The only thing it had going for it was the gore, now they've gutted all the good shit and turned it into a PG-13 garbage-fest. Get fucked Sony. Assholes.

I decided to spend my free time this week literally drawing and designing my own cover art for Rogue One. Everything from front covers, to back covers, to spines. I made two, one with Jedha as the main focus and the other with Scarif as the main focus. They are for my eventual burn of a OST FYC edit. What do you think of the good old hand made covers? The Jedha set is my personal favorite and I don't quite like how Scarif turned out scale-wise.