Miz

The bittersweet, fall-of-innocence tone of the Rise of Skywalker suite reflects the fall of innocence of Star Wars itself, its heart now lost to the cash-grab motives and mishandling that have characterised Episodes 7 and 9. Discuss!

In what way do these new themes serve the film, or the score in-movie or as a stand-alone listen? Not much, methinks. But it is the film's fault more than the score's...

I get that JW can throw in whatever new themes he likes into appropriate points of the film. For me, the addition of this theme into an otherwise-scattered action cue reflects the larger issues of the score and the film. There's an extra theme here when existing themes aren't used in obvious places they could be, and in the wider film there is a new 'Rise' theme used in plenty of places where existing leitmotif would probably have the greater impact. All in all the score to TROS seems to be an accumulation of existing transposed themes from before, a few new, unnoticable themes that the plot or character development didn't call for (and are not served by), and lots of scattered action music or meandering underscore. This all reflects the film itself: lacking any core identity, solid plot progression or decent character development. It throws in the new without developing it, or giving the required gravitas or development to the old. Personally I think JW was on autopilot for this one. He saw the cut of the film, thought it was a mess, and duly scored it sufficiently from scene-to-scene (because the film feels like a fast sequences of scenes), but could not use his music to lift it above what was written, filmed and edited. That's why we got a couple of concert pieces, and those new themes threaded thinly throughout, with just-enough working of existing themes (most notably Rey's).

Can anyone confirm the ostinato is of Rey's Theme, because to me it sounded more reminscent of Imperial March, i.e. an allusion to Anakin. It occured to me that the second phrase of Rey's Main theme may have been initially constructed to allude to the concluding notes of Vader's theme.

My clue about this disappointing film came when I listened to the score as a preview. I love listening to the pure musical storytelling before seeing the film, when it becomes forever associated with the images and scenes. Now I'm a devotee to John Williams, but how strange that I found this score dark, melancholy, and even meandering and lost. I thought it was the characters that might get lost, but alas it was the film itself. It's also worth noting this score features the fewest hearings of original trilogy themes, which have served as storytelling anchors since Episode 1. This has few, the film has no centre, and an avant-garde score didn't help. I agree with all your points. Poor characterisation is this films biggest flaw. Ben's turning to the light - the TITLE OF THE FILM - was handled so badly: a talk with ghost dad, Rey saying she would've taken Ben's hand, and Leia reaching out to him. (The last had to happen so that Leia could go the way of Carrie Fisher, her big CGI head and odd one-liners were getting awkward). And to cememnt his turning, the Knights of Ren were one of the many lost ideas in this trilogy so a face off with them was already going to be flat, but might have had more effort put into it (after the choreography of TLJ's red-suits fight, this felt like they didn't want to bother). I would've loved Rey's tantalising delve into the dark side to actually have been a struggle and gone somewhere, but nah. Finn and Poe's charisma was great, but didn't make up for their lack of development - bickering yes, but exploring how strife and the presence of evil turns the best against one another, and how they find solidarity, is what their story could have, should have, been about. Finn didn't need a new friend, he needed to focus on working on his existing friendships lol. Lando did his best, introduced unceremoniously within a moving box. And yes, Rose was criminally ignored. So if you're not going to work on your characters, get a good story. This plot was pish. I was hoping for the plucky rebels rallying support across the galaxy, new helpful, interesting friends, and looking for a way to defeat the baddies in one last desperate assault. The Emperor could get a twisted reveal as master orchestrator and Rey and Ben destroy him together, never quite eliminating evil as the light and dark balance is alluded to. But no, the Emperor is flagged up in the first line - "This film will be about Emperor Palpatine" - and gets shlocky flash-shriek horror treatment from the off. Our heroes know about him already and have to find a Horcrux or whatever to be able to access the necessary final battle. We fly from place to place, or back and forth, while seeing lots of people we don't know much about. Jeopardy is missing for a number of reasons, and the ultimate threat of the Final Order fleet doesn't really help. The action is flashy, but doesn't matter much, and feels 'lighter' than ever. That 'ground battle' was pointless, was entirely exposed to cannon fire from above, and knocking out a comms dish does not neutralise a fleet. An entire fleet of rebels is great, but how many destroyers do they manage to destroy? I didn't really get any sense of the ebb and flow of battle. Does the melting of Palpatine, the destruction of the flagship (sadly not an Executor-type like previous ones), a few more falling down, and "people rising up across the galaxy", count for a total victory? Doesn't really feel like it, except that I'm being told so. I'd rather roll with Return of the Jedi's simple battle station elimination and forest victory, then party with some teddy bears. And the mechanics finally got to me; I could tolerate TLJ's fleet-running-out-of-fuel-and-slowing-down-in-space, the arcing laser blasts and the comms-through-hyperspace. These are totally geek criticisms, but this film really cemented this trilogy's move from away from plausible science-fiction mechanics in the originals, tilted towards science-fantasy by the Force, into the realm of out-and-out fantasy. Now the Force is bending it's own rules arbitrarily to serve story (as per Rey's/Ben's healing and its cost). Now the Falcon's is light-speed jumping into absurd scenarios as if moving at light-speed is like using a portal - the audacious trick is tried twice in TFA where they just about got away with it. But compare it to the original trilogy where the first light-speed jump takes an entire scene to prepare, and the use of one precious light-speed jump to escape capture in The Empire Strikes Back creates almost the entire jeopardy of that film. And now the Empire can destroy a planet with a star destroyer's penis-cannon: isn't it amazing how they've miniaturised their technology! Back in the seventies you needed a battle station the size of a small moon to destroy a planet. Again, too much threat, not enough jeopardy. It's obvious that this film was batted about a bit: the credits show Trevorrow worked on the story before it was handed on. They couldn't have helped Carrie Fisher's absence, and their handling of that would've been forgivable within a better-conceived, better-executed film. But Trevorrow got the gig by directing Jurassic World, and it's clear that him and Abrahms are adept at flashy, hollow fan-service that might carry some gravitas if the studios put enough time and talent into script-writing. Too busy churning them out to a schedule. It's also not very clear in what way this is an ending, with Disney so eager to continue milking this juiciest of cows. For a supposed 9-film arc, it certainly didn't wrap up with the anything like the sobriety or reverence of Avengers: Endgame, or Return of the King. It feels to me like The Force Awakens is the best of this trilogy, while not even being a great film. It could have been so different if Disney, acquiring the OP 5 years ago, before embarking on the first of the new films, had spent some years planning with committed creative minds a whole and well-ordered trilogy, drawing some of the best ideas that many authors have explored in sequel novels since the late 80s. Instead this trilogy tries to be everything, but ends up flitting here and there, overbaked by too many cooks - multiple contradicting intentions and half-executed ideas, and films that feel like they are 'about Star Wars'. The Original Trilogy and Prequel Trilogy benefitted from George Lucas' creative vision at the centre - the first one being seminal, a new context for old mythology with stunning aesthetic design and cutting-edge technological execution. The Prequels famously suffered for Lucas' weak script-writing and flat direction, and the opposite of today's problem: his dominance of the creative process without the diversity of producers to round things out. Both trilogies are also quietly awful in their race and gender representation, though worst in their beginnings. And now we have films for the modern attention-span, featuring the modern ethics, full of the modern self-referential, recycled repetoire. My ill wife was watching The Hobbit, for which all of this applies too methinks, and I remarked how we should go back and watch good old-fashioned racist and sexist Lord of the Rings, because we knew where we stood with those tired old values, and at least each thing mattered in it. If only our new films in beloved franchises could be brought towards better values without having to be hacked to little pieces for the ADHD generation or made-to-recipe for the widest possible box-office grab. I think I'll got watch The Mandalorian. It doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is.

So, I'm trying my best to like this score, but I'm not getting it. Lots of meandering underscore, not much action music (most of it sketchy), a scattering of old themes in familiar presentations, and a few indistinguishable new themes that weren't really necessary. When a blurt of the Resistance march is the most anchoring feature of a significant part of the score, you know there's not loads to grab on to! It doesn't help that the film itself is another swerve in direction, with a weak piecemeal plot and not enough character development for anyone. But what is this new adventure theme during The Speeder Chase, and why does it matter? Can someone point me to the highlights of this score's intelligence? To the new themes getting used in smart ways? To the development of old themes? I do hope this one is a 'grower'.

I'm liking how this score is developing, and enjoying it before watching the series (though I have seen the first two episodes as tasters). Of course there are some unlistenable tracks - however they channel the feel of Morricone's western scores into a new, modern, well-produced realm...and there's some ear-catching and driven pieces too. I'm not ready to deconstruct themes yet, but it will be an interesting mix-tape album I create by the end of it! I think LG and John Powell are definitely recommending themselves to continuing the Star Wars musical universe, but JP is so selective and values-led in his projects, I don't think he'll sign up as Disney's next music-farmer. Let LG take flight instead!

Blatantly gonna listen to the The Last JW SW Score on it's own before seeing the film. His musical storytelling is unsurpassed and it's such a purely musical journey that it can only be listened to before the film, and never unheard after associated with the images. Accordingly, my cinema tickets will be booked later than the immediate rush to the release showings.

I could lap up clips like those for days! Surely the best trilogy of scores since LotR and Star Wars...

So, who has listened to Endurance? I've just watched Endurance after delving into the score for 3 weeks, a fascinating early one from Powell. Eager to know where it came from, I enjoyed the drama-documentary and the tracking of the music wasn't even that disappointing! As an instant-fan of the score I was disappointed that The Final Race wasn't featured in it's crescendo entirety... does anybody know what music was used instead? Was it the Ethiopian national anthem?

Powell has become my favourite current composer based off my early foray into Bourne, then X-Men 3, then of course How to Train Your Dragon (a trilogy of scores that's up there with Star Wars and LoTR, methinks). Solo is a riot, and now I'm interested in many of his other works... but am put off by cutesy Dreamworks silliness. I have tried Happy Feet 1 & 2, and while it has his flavour, I can't feel its coherence and I don't care for its origins. Any other suggestions?

Generally don't like his film stuff? Agreed there's loads of passable scores in his oeuvre, but Waterworld? Lady in the Water? The Village? Fantastic Beasts?

I think this film will probably reflect the post-2000 era of endless Sonic rebooting and expanding, rather than the gameplay and aesthetic purity of the first 3 games. I suspect only 30-somethings like myself will feel that this is not a decent vision of Sonic. I also suspect this score will do very little, perhaps nothing, to reflect the fantastic, genre-pushing scores of those first 3 games - defined by brilliant melody, harmony, baselines and 'capture' of the aesthetic of each level. Nakamura pushed the technological limits of 16-bit sound and the music still sounds fantastic even if in its original recording. Junkie XL was great for Fury Road in-situ, but all of his sounds are forgettable as music.

Appreciating people's thematic breakdown. I need more listens now! Maybe this was posted already: Powell talks about his music for the trilogy on the BBC Radio 3, yesterday. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0002c7x

Just returned from Star Wars LTP at Manchester Arena. HIGHS: The conductor did a fantastic job, the orchestra were tight and the cues were satisfyingly on point...the Death Star explosion got a clap! I enjoyed the sound presentation of the film, actually, having only seen it at the cinema in 1997- the deep bass was satsfying. Brass and violins carried really well, and getting a live mix of instrumentation helped bring out layers of the score I was less familiar with. LOWS: The orchestra were on a flat stage, far away, and not lit. Sometimes I had to remind myself they were there! Worse, the low registers didn't carry in the poor acoustics of the Arena - double bass and timpani could only be heard well on their own, not among the rest of the orchestra. Finally, the horn solo flubbed two notes during the Binary Sunset! Still, a great event and worth seeing, probably my peak of my concerting after Giacchino's 50th, a full Star Wars selection concert and An Evening Without John Williams in the past year. Oh, and my costume went down well, got a few shots with the characters who were hanging around before and during the intermission. Should I join Rebel Legion?

I know nothing of Pokemon or Henry Jackman, but I know that Puss in Boots was an excellent score for what I assume is an average animated film. I expect this could be the same.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1758991460816073/

I think that finale piece was grand and captivating, but by no means the most interesting or intelligent of his writing for the film. It ranks high in my scores which "I know it's great but I don't really listen to it"... when I do it is the soundtrack to the long nights of autumn! By these clips I'm glad to hear the Potter musical tradition is still being carried confidently forward. It has Newton Howard all over it, and that's no bad thing.

Yes, wish him a speedy recovery and good health and no feelings of guilt or feeling like he let down his fans, as it is not his fault. But to speak more crassly and selflishly than I usually would... As I cannot travel from the UK to the USA, I thought I would be able to see John Williams conduct a concert before he passed away. Now I must accept that, by the smallest of margins, I have not been able to see John Williams live during our shared lifetimes. Ever thankful for his existence though!

Cheesy request, but... I'm looking for really Russian-sounding music. I like Dario Marianelli's score for Anna Karenina because it channels so many Russian folk idioms (cliches?). I'm looking for something similar, like Russian folk/chamber/orchestral music than exudes that feel, rather than (from my ignorant point of view), just being written by a Russian.

They released their last podcast only a month ago. Give them some time! I'd rather have another high-quality set of shows later, than some rushed ones sooner.

1:27 in the woodwind, then 1:35 in the strings...both motifs from Chicken in the Pot. I haven't read on this page of the thread the spoilered theories as to why this is here - I haven't seen the movie yet!

1:35... but I'm doubting myself now!

Anyone else spotted the riff from Chicken in the Pot in Spaceport?

I could only listen to this one-and-a-half times before I put it down. Now I have enjoyed this score within the film much more. I appreciate it would've been foolish to musically represent the crowded pop culture references (and if you give a nod to a few, why those and not others?). But the pace and tone of the score fitted the movie well, even the self-conscious Back to the Future music. The themes did not excite me at all, but I can see how they are drawn from the tone of video game scores and work well in that sense.