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But see, that's not true. They're barely adequate thanks to the stodgy, obvious and hamfisted writing. Just better than anything else in that woeful film.

You guys have to have been involved in the countless debates about this before. Do your memories get wiped routinely like a protocol droid?

I continue to think we are making way too much of a fuss about a throwaway quote, but if we are talking about ideal preferences: I would love Qui-Gon's theme to reappear, along with a proper concert version. It is one of my top favorite JW themes of the last 20 years, and Lucas killed it.

Yeah, the Death Star motif is a good sign of Williams wink-wink abilities at this point. Of course, it's just a fun scene to begin with (the iron thing) and I love how Williams totally plays along with it, even chiming with a youthful statement of Luke's theme just after the fake out , if I recall correctly. The droid motif from ESB would be an absolute delight, but I'm more hopeful for a fine balance of nostalgia and freshness rather than a large amount of both big and obscure references.

After 45 years, I am finally free of this crap and Finale

I'd love that, too, Jerry - especially Poe's theme, which is wonderfully swashbuckling and underused. I'd love to hear some of the sequels themes in unexpected ways - Rey's theme has been run through the ringer at this point, happy and sad and pensive and urgent, but I'd like more from the others.

Its a beautiful area so I had fun walking around there on the day of the concert. Saw them setting up the equipment. A couple of musicians were there practicing. Thats how I know they were doing a scene from Jaws live to picture. Which was a highlight of that nights performance.

Referring to the Emperor as the 'Phantom' is just so obscure though. He's the Emperor! Everyone knows the character and the Emperor's Theme. 'Phantom' has to be a reference to the main theme from Phantom Menace, which is DOTF.

That one's always been really puzzling to me. The contrast you mentioned is just sublime!

I agree. The Phantom Menace has quite a bit of charm to it, and always seems to be a lot better than I remembered. It's definetly the best of the trilogy. Attack of the Clones took it self a bit more seriously, which made it laughable because it's a real sludge fest.. Revenge of the Sith though, I always enjoyed enough aspects of that enough to keep things afloat, although it doesn't escape some poor moves.

Great scene!

We got obscure stuff like the Death Star motif in TLJ. The temp probably helps jog Williams' memory on these things, plus his recent reviewing of the entire scores for the OT (for the live concerts).

I think we need to temper our expectations a bit here to avoid a massive disappointment. After Rogue One and Solo, we're basically in the golden age of Star Wars leitmotif callbacks. If Williams—who has forgotten more themes than Howard Shore ever wrote—develops a sudden taste for deep tracks from his SW catalogue, I'll be thrilled, but it would be a tremendous departure for him. If you want nerdy callbacks to prior melodies, JW is not your guy. I'd love to be wrong, but I doubt it. Just give me one shoutout to the ESB droid motif, and I'll die happy. Mostly because it means Artoo and Threepio must have been given something to do.

That happens from time to time. We'll bring it up with Lord Holko. @Holko

I think it'd be good to promote these listening sessions to get a decent turnout. Join us!

Brutal couple of trilogies. First, the Prequels, then the Hobbits.

Apologies if this has been shared before, but I can't recall seeing it. For those curious: R1P1 - Main Title R1P1 - Main Title - Long Version R1P2A - Theme Over Scottish Drums R1P4 - Receiving the News R4P1 - The Railroad Yard R4P3 - Bannisters Office R5P1A - Cubans Everywhere! R6P4 - Effects [synthesizer - "low explosions at varying pitches"] R8P1 - Ruby and Warren R8P2 - Under the Rifle Sights R9P1 - Easter Sunday Morning R9P6 - Shaw's Exit R10P3A - David Ferrie's Apartment R12P3 - Circles of Power R12P5A - End Note Bar 65 R12P6A - Bar 55 Crossover R13P3 - Bedtime T.V. R13P5 - Oswald Visits Hosts R13PX - The Porch Scene R14P3 - The Bedroom Scene Arlington Arlington Insert (Dialogue Version) The Conspirators Drum Loop Garrison's Obsession The Motorcade End Credits Theme From "J.F.K" Theme From "J.F.K." (Piano Version) Source music: R3 - Eternal Father, Strong to Save (Navy Hymn) R9 - "Maryland My Maryland"

Ha-ha! An American overseeing Brexit! That'll be the - oh, crap!

A new arrangement, you say? Honestly, and I can't even tell you why, but I'm really hoping for that one to return as well. If the rumors are to be believed that... ...Then I can see the need to indulge in a reprisal appropriate. Say, for example, that... Williams has always said that he loves returning to Star Wars partly because he has this large tapestry of themes to draw from and add to so I'm hoping that he feels able to just go crazy and have fun with this one.

Naw that's just his Chekov impression.

Oh no, they've got Steve now too!

We're going to watch all of the Star Wars, or at least the episodes, before E9's release in December. It will be the first time watching any of the prequels since they rereleased TPM in 3D 10 years or so ago. I'm hoping I like them more than I remember. Certainly with the context of the often excellent media surrounding them (Clone Wars, comics, etc), I'll go into them with a more favorable mindset.

I'm mashing the imaginary down-vote button

I'm really hoping for a few more, if only brief, takes on Rose's theme and expansion on Poe's theme.

It’s silly to hold that against him because he clearly hasn’t forgotten “Han Solo and the Princess.”

It's baffling to me how you guys don't see the ridiculousness of that scene, how Luke was fishing with that ridiculous harpoon, the way he got there, and how it was filmed and all. That whole scene felt like a comedy show making fun of Star Wars. A parody! And you take it all so very seriously! Saying how dark it was ..

Oh weird! Hedwig's Theme is arranged for prepared piano! Pretty cool.

The Book Thief - John Williams

No, not even remotely.

Lord of the Rings for both score and films.

Howard Shore’s scores suit the films perfectly. In that they’re really boring.

You could be right but the first line I saw was related to plot stuff, so I didn't check anything else. Speaking of the game, I'm stuck on the hardest Fire Emblem level I've ever played. It's like the Casino Royale scene where they bludgeon Bond's balls, that's what it feels like.

I like Bond best when it’s clear they had locations and setpieces/stunts in mind first and then created a story to fit them.

There's Klingons on the starboard bow, starboard bow, starboard bow

They have crappy grab-and-go type of food. Burgers, fries, etc. They do have a salad bar also. But I think there's a nicer cafe somewhere too, if you go out of your way to look for it. There are also restaurants along the road leading to the venue, though I haven't tried many of them. The grounds are beautiful, and definitely worth taking extra time to walk around. You can also picnic there... some people go all out. Plus you can try and communicate with Highwood's ghost. Enjoy!

Casino Royale's too low!

Interesting post. I think LOTR is simply a more complex narrative in that it has more characters, more subplots, and its premise takes a lot longer to establish. Stars Wars by comparison can dispense with its premise in a single scroll per film. I would argue that across the overall saga, Star Wars feels like it narrates a more sweeping tale. Star Wars apart from the Force which is mystical deal in terms readily understandable by modern audiences so is more immediately comprehensible. LOTR is a lot of fantasy mumbo jumbo. I would say simply from the point of view of storytelling smarts, Star Wars has this one. LOTR is very valuable but is very laborious. It doesn't have the easy momentum of Star Wars.

That much is true: the films are much lighter, more dynamic, succint, and the plot is allowed to unfold in an almost completely linear manner (little to no use of flashback/flashforward). The Middle Earth films, by comparison, take an already complex narrative, full of a large number of characters, setpieces, story threads and concepts, and compounds that complexity by playing large parts of it out of chronological order. Technically, too, certainly with regards to the entries directed by George Lucas, the filmmaking style of Star Wars is much more plain: not very pushed closeups, not a lot of movement, high-key lighting, no long takes to speak of, no use of slow-motion, etcetra. By comparison, Peter Jackson's camerawork is full of movement, stark closeups, superimposition, slow-motion, POV shots, etcetra. Its much more florid that way. The space setting really serves Star Wars in this regard, too, because each planet is distilled to one archetypal environment: Tatooine is a desert planet; Hoth is an ice planet; Dagobah is a swamp planet, and Curoscant is an urban planet. We never get - nor do we need - a sense of geography of the Galaxy itself, other than there being an "outer rim" over which both the Republic and Empire - we come to learn - can't maintain tight control. By comparison, the viewer of the Middle Earth films needs to get some sense for the geography of Middle Earth, hence the occasional shots of map throughout the films. I would also say some of the characterizations are more complex. The most complex character Star Wars pulled off is Kylo Ren, but he's still the villain of the piece. The Middle Earth films pull off complex characters as deuteragonists and protagonists, such as Thorin and Boromir. The way the story is serialized is more complex, too. With the exception of The Last Jedi, every Star Wars film is set within some time period away from the previous film, and the text crawl is used to reorient the audience. With Middle Earth, each film within each trilogy is technically set immediately after the end of the previous one, with little to no recap. There are certain thematic ideas in Sir Peter's films which are more complex, too. There's a commentary on isolationism throughout all six films, from the Hobbits' "its non of our concern what goes on beyond our borders" to Thranduils "other lands are not my concern" and Treebeard's "This is not our war." Star Wars isn't in the same thematic ballpark. The imagery's and some story beats are more challenging, of course. I forgot how violent the fight with Lurtz really was! and the severed heads catapulted into Minas Tirith, yeesh! The only Star Wars film to play in the same league was Revenge of the Sith. Part of the distinction comes from Star Wars being aimed at a younger demographic. That also effects their popularity, with people being exposed to Star Wars at a younger, more impressionable age.

My experience is, that if something isn’t super clear, people will interpret it in different ways. Just saying. But the two of us seem to agree overall.

You are worse than everything.

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I'm not exactly sure what "flaws" you are talking about?

And to keep harping on, - check out this rejected score clip from the Matrix: Reloaded (Davis might have used this for his Robin Hood supplement score though) - it is practically awesome on all fronts, swashbuckling is thy name: Gistech - do you mean Tokyo Ghoul or did he score another anime adaptation Attack on Titan - would fracking love that. And Davis' collaboration with Juno Reactor needs to be explored further. Mona Lisa Overdrive is still very likely the leading and certainly the most organic techno-orchestral fusion of all time and it's 17 years old. How did these people collaborate? I mean Juno was HUGE back in 2002 so to have them do this with Davis-----awesome. But what did they do, how did they come up with the rhythms, the crazy orchestrations etc. Cos this is not like Event Horizon where Orbital laid some beats under/over Kamen, this is an actual collaboration:

This is gonna drive you to the drink!

Some people misunderstood the anecdote about the dude getting booted between days. It's not that he dropped equipment or anything during a take--I'm sure even John has dropped a baton or a page during a take before--it's that once that mistake happened, he thought in his mind "Oh well the take is ruined now, might as well get silly", much like how you'll see bloopers in movies or TV. This is very common for musicians, who often are inconsolably goofy-ass people (Fellini's Prova D'Orchestra is only an exaggerated version of the truth). Now we know that in John's mind this is unacceptable, as he sees value in a complete performance, and to throw in the towel so to speak after a slight mishap can potentially rob everyone of an amazing performance of the rest of the piece at hand. In this way he's similar to one of his heroes Miles Davis. "Yo-Yo baby? That take...." "What did I do wrong John?" "Did I ever tell you about the first time I saw Schindler's List? What Spielberg told me?" "Yeah you said he needed a better composer, and he agreed, but said they're all--oh shit!" *jumps out of the way to dodge the chair Williams hurtled towards him, which smashes his cello*

Was listening to The Lost World and I couldn’t help noticing similarities between the theme at around 2.28 and 3.05 in Visitor in San Diego and the new brass fanfare theme for The Resistance. Actually there are many parts of cue that remind me of the opening escape cue from TLJ and a lot of the other action material with regards to the orchestrations and lines of writing (2.42-2.50, 3.31-4.04, 4.22-4.38, 5.30-5.55) I’m so glad JW returned to this writing style for TLJ.