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Controversy aside, this was a highly influential film, in many ways. As for us specifically, it gave us the first "new" Star Wars score in well over a decade. It was also the reason @Ricard decided to start a website about the music for this film, which eventually became JWfan. I can't say Iove the film, its boring. I can't help feel grateful towards it, in some way. Happy birthday The Phantom Menace!

My sense with this 3rd Kylo Ren motif is that Williams did originally conceive of it as a kind of intro or supplemental idea, but that over time it's grown legs of its own so to speak. Especially in TLJ, there are a few instances where it really does sound detachable. And there are some moments with material strongly evocative of that I'm not sure are derived from it, but belong in the same motivic family. Example: Alternatively, I think you could make a fair case that this rising string motif is actually a variant of the First Order motif in TFA which, besides the unused Parade Grounds cue, is really undeveloped in that score. Both are based on a C-D-F-Eb melodic cell.

With all due respect, Chen, I think you're contradicting yourself. First you say it's related to either one of the two themes, then you say it's a little baby manta ray to the secondary theme, and there are times, like in "Escape", where it doesn't play off that theme at all. And if they play off each other, why would that be excluded from being a distinct musical idea? There are a number of times where the other Kylo ideas bounce off each other, but everyone considers them two distinct themes. And what about times when parts of a theme don't interact with other, does that mean they're separate? Like in Empire Strikes Back, there's a part where the little woodwind bridge in Yoda's Theme plays solo, and I don't think it precedes or follows the theme. Does that mean Yoda has two themes? This is all silly music semantics in the end, but all I'm saying is I don't think juxtaposition of musical ideas, or lack thereof, is necessarily the best indicator of an idea being a distinct theme or not.

So basically, they’re deliberately ruining an album presentation.

That's me!! (not that you would know...)

While obviously another apples and oranges situation, Akira Ifukube went in and out of scoring Godzilla films over the course of 41 years, continuously incorporating themes from earlier installments in new ways and all while adding to the franchise's musical lexicon with new thematic material that seemed to stem from Ifukube having, like Williams with Star Wars, an infinite number of things to say about his defining franchise. After scoring his last Godzilla film at 80, Ifukube concluded a musical relationship that had lasted more than half of his life and that comprised approximately 15 scored entries. Again, to compare Williams to Ifukube is pointless. Apples and oranges and what have you. Some may scoff at even attempting to draw a parallel between the two. Regardless of personal opinion, Ifukube's relationship with Godzilla highlights a unique music career distinction shared with the likes of Williams and his relationship with Star Wars, a distinction that makes the Star Wars scores so largely tantalizing to me. This is to say, you have a composer who defines their career with a single film and throughout the course of multiple decades (that see both the franchise and the composer grow and change in ways not realized during the inception of the first installment) that same composer repeatedly comes back and somewhat literally has to confront the writing style of an older incarnation of themselves that no longer exists. How the composer chooses to deal with that confrontation of a previous musical identity, either through embracing it and trying to write in a style reminiscent of those years of old or by adapting and updating that identity to conform to the new musical norm for the composer, is a dilemma both Williams and Ifukube had to deal with. One of the greatest benefits in being an observer to this unique relationship as a listener is being able to more directly than usual realize and appreciate the growth a composer has had. For example, Crumbs has said before, and I agree, that Rey's theme is representative of a piece Williams couldn't have realized even 15 years ago. Yet, at least to me, Rey's theme, while being a creation deeply entrenched in the writing sensibilities Williams is currently in possession of, fits perfectly within the Star Wars musical landscape. You get to be witness to great musical moments like the build to the Rebel Fanfare statement followed by the perfect segue into Rey's theme in The Battle of Crait, whereby you have a seamless bridging between the music of new Williams and the Williams of old. Those moments, those decisions the composer had to make in trying to consolidate different sensibilities, are so delicious to be able to observe. Once again, as is usually the case when I decide to create a post on here consisting of more than two sentences, I have taken to rambling. I guess ultimately what I'm trying to say is that, while we can all find instances that are at least partially comparable to the journey Williams has taken to crafting and now having to conclude a three trilogy saga, such instances are incredibly limited. As others have put more eloquently than myself, we are witness to a very unique musical occurrence and it'll be a treat to see how Williams chooses to conclude such a journey in just a few short months.

Figuring out why TLJ is actually secretly genius after all and 9 will save humanity, 2019, colorised

I’m sure some of you have seen this. Really cool stuff.

Familiar with, perhaps, but there's (quite beautiful) original music by Hanan Townshend in most of his recent films. Especially love the TO THE WONDER score. But I guess TREE OF LIFE is the last time he used a "top" composer.

The Core. Such a fine score. The world needs more Christopher Young. Karol

Or at least he might drop by to use the toilet.

When we first heard the theme on the 60 Minutes segment, I thought it was going to be the theme for the First Order, and sometimes it seems like Williams flirts with the idea. And that cue, before it segues into the mischievous frantic stuff, is one of my favorites from the last two scores.

There have been at least two instances I can think of where it played solo, without any segue to the other Kylo material (though I think one of them was nixed from the final score for Force Awakens).

You honestly never noticed the name? Ever read the credits on CD booklets?

I actually really like the OST. There's a huge stretch starting after Battle of the Heroes where the music is so contemplative and brooding, and it sits with that mood for a good while before being interrupted by relatively dark and harsh action music before settling down again. All of his albums from 2005 have a pretty gloomy, "fate beckons" atmosphere that go on for good chunks of their respective runtimes.

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It is now down to 12 minutes. Turns out the first big chuck was for West Side Story. He had begun scoring and then told Spielberg that "you are going to need a better composer than me for this." To which Spielberg said, "okay."

We're in the Endgame now! Just a few hours, mere hours...and it will all be over!

Interesting! But I guess it’s going to be usual Malick needle-drop galore nonsense, where original music is edited in as found music.

No, it's very clearly a distinct musical idea, even if it's related to the other two. All 3 of Kylo's Themes interrelate in one way or another, it's part of Williams' genius. This idea serves its own purpose the other two motifs don't capture, as evidence in that scene above. AOTS did a great breakdown of the three ideas in their TFA podcast, you should check it out.

Last night, Darth Vader came down from planet Vulcan... and told me that if I didn't take Lorraine out, he'd melt my brain!

And yet Goldsmith did Alien the same year.

I'm sure they saw it, but if that influenced any part of TROS? Who knows? I doubt it, there's a whole process for the last film that would be concerned with concluding the story, making the film that they can be happy with. I don't know how much of TLJ could even influence TROS, to me it's kind of like Johnson (if he did do anything wrong with TLJ...) already did the damage and what comes after is business as usual...

But do the fans really know what they want though?

I don’t mind studios listening to their fans. I thought TLJ was a mess. But I also realize that times change, and not everything is made for me. If SW shuld keep evolving around SJW-themes and bad/cheap character development - I will stop watching the coming films. There are other things I enjoy, and I don’t have to like this. And that’s how it goes - fans drop out, new ones come in - whichever is the most lucrative will be served by the studio. But demanding that something should be remade - due to personal preferences - is a little different, it’s a new phenomenon I think. But in the time of remakes and reboots of old franchises, why wait a couple of years for nostalgia to kick in - just remake the damn thing immediately after it’s released! 😂

I've been dead before.

You expected a Tarantino movie to not end in a bloody showdown? For shame!

The orchestration is actually pretty straightforward here, you can find more of the same style in the more recent Tintin, for example. The whole string section is mainly playing rythmic eighth notes in the first part of the track (sort of a scherzo in 9/8, with a really cool rhythm here which I didn't really "get" until I had a look at the manuscript score). The low strings often double big low brass chords, the high strings double some of the high trumpet lines, there's a bit of high strings and woods playing the dazzling, whirling figures Williams likes to embellish action cues with, most of the strings double the aggressive low brass stabs later in the cue, etc. You might not realize this at first, but the whole thing would sound very empty if you'd take away the strings! They add a lot of color and substance to the whole ensemble.

I think Logan's Run is very much in that more experimental tradition of the 50s/60s (well, at least the first half ). Just compare Logan in '76 to Star Trek TMP in '79 to see how Star Wars changed everything!

I don't watch that program. In the golden years of TNG, DS9 and Voyager, the Japanese Garden at the water reclamation plant in Van Nuys stood in for the Starfleet locations.

What I find weird is that I've loved watching this show most of the time: I never watched interviews or read articles or anything like that, but always liked watching. And tomorrow we'll have the finale, but I'm feeling totally relaxed about it, not even excited. I'll happily accept whatever they give me, but there's not really a lot of anticipation on my end.

We built a large rubber mannequin, really that we were able to move around from set to set. He had a big stick in his head that somebody could sit alongside and move the head back and forth and that was as much movement as we could get out of it.

Karol

Guinan. What are you doing here? I thought you were onboard the Enterprise.

I dunno, TFA sounded pretty "restrained" compared to TLJ. I hope JJ did not influence this I want Wiliams to go all "Galaxy's Edge" for TROS. Well if he doesn't , at least I got one of my favorite SW pieces from somewhere else I keep thinking of the monumental finale with a recap of all the major themes interwoven in epic proportions..something like Reunion of Friends but even more bombastic. The Finale RotJ never got .Yub Nub was my biggest letdown of JW's career I hope we don't get a piano bit like BFG with a scene Rey sipping tea on her porch with Luke's force ghost

I made another attempt at this with better results: EDIT: Video Link Replaced with updated version (better sync)

From the late 90s through early 2000s, specialty labels releasing scores from the catalog of big film studios was still a new thing, no label was putting out THAT many of them per month, so many releases were snapped up quickly. From the mid/late 2000s onward, more film studios opened up their vaults, leading to many labels releasing scores on a regular basis (LLL and Intrada averaged 4 a month for a very long time) so less individual titles sold out quickly as there was many more titles for people to choose from

I think it's OK there but whatever. Maybe I'm just very used to the SonicAdventure edit, many transitions of which I recreated just for familiarity. (Introduction to Quidditch/Hermione's Feather, It's a Basilisk/Ginny is Snatched, etc.) As for Azkaban, much care was taken to handle all the little cues and alternates, some, even out of chronology, work simply brilliantly where they were placed (Up the Stairs/Brief Snow Scene, Befriending/Bonding with Hippogriff), you don't even notice they're alternates of the same thing (The Big Doors back to back), or are just such simple, standalone, outlier perfection that they cannot really be joined with anything else and make sense (The Executioner, Walk to Buckbeak).

Last time I watched it, I couldn't help having a massive grin on my face all the way through. It's quite nuts, but also a lot of fun. Underrated, I'd say! Also, "On the Tank" is pretty great.

The "Forest Scene" from Franz Schreker's DER FERNE KLANG (9:53 - 14:49) is one of the most gorgeous pieces of music I've listened to in recent memory: I just love the constancy of the rising chords set against a constantly-shifting key center. It gives the climax at 12:53 a truly "force-of-nature" kind of feeling.

Yea, I dunno what Martinland is talking about. There are 16 great reasons to buy Spielberg/Williams III

Portman was going to get work and be what she is now whether she took Phantom Menace or not. Also, this is pretty interesting as a quote: The bolded is my emphasis. That's someone very familiar with politics very subtly removing themselves from a situation in which they'd have to admit that as movies on their own they probably do not work for her. The perspective she's lacking is of that "avid group of people" who are using a frame of reference that is honestly, self-marginalized. Not that it honestly matters what the people who make the movies think of the movies they made once they've finished their obligation to the production. But Natalie Portman isn't really speaking about whether she thinks the movies are good. What she's saying is that it sucked being looped into what was considered a disappointing series of films at the time, at such a young age, and that was how she learned that the cycle of over-hype/disappointment exists, on a giant scale to boot. Also, I disagree with the idea that the Prequels seem/feel "cohesive" in a way the other movies don't. Lucas was making these up as he went just as much, if not moreso. Certainly from the writing perspective, he spent much less time working on the screenplays and stories than he did in the 70s and 80s. IIRC, the Episode II script had Jonathan Hales brought on because he basically started production without having finished his first draft. It also explains why the story as he'd been describing it in the intervening years was so different every time he added a new chapter to it: He wasn't really checking his "notes" or any larger outline. He just kinda sat down and made it up. And that's a valid form of creation! Perfectly okay, and very often successful as a way to tell a story. But it's not necessarily "cohesive." If anything, I'd argue that the Sequel trilogy (and to an extent, the Clone Wars tv series) is doing a better job making those six movies feel coherent than anything, because the sequel trilogy's vantage point allows for them to occupy the same space in "the past" and that backwards-looking POV tends to smooth out the discrepancies as a larger narrative is wrestled with.

When you listen to "On the Tank", do you visualize yourself... On the tank?

Shhh.. he's sleeping.

With more serious topics and films, I'd agree, however after watching RotJ as a kid, I didn't come away from the film thinking that their heritage was sloppy writing. To be honest, I didn't care much for it at all. I don't feel as though it was tacked-on or poorly written because it doesn't in any way detract from the main character arcs of Luke and Vader.

That's fine, though - isn't it? To tease something like that, because neither the characters or the audience are aware of their true heritage. It seemed (and still seems) natural for Luke to be attracted to a young princess, but as far as the 'teasing' of a love triangle went, I never for one second thought it would end up with a Luke/Leia couple. Han was this rough, sleazy charmer and Leia an uptight princess who didn't have time for Han's advances - then as the conflict climbs and accelerates through Empire, so too do their feelings for one another, leading to a more natural 'opposites attract' relationship.

Could be. So what about Helen Hunt? She starred in AS GOOD AS IT GETS, which also starred Jack Nicholson, who played in both THE MISSOURI BREAKS and THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK, both scored by Williams, who is a friend of Dudamel. Yes, that must be it.