YoYoMama

Rey S K Y W O H K A H

Yep, 100% masterfully produced samples.

Yeah I agree. These are his twilight years afterall, and I think that is reflected in his music. Not in a bad way, but his music now is like looking at a calm sunset rather than getting blasted with the hot afternoon sun. 

It did, and most of it sucked ass.

The theme is cohesive as fuck. What on Earth are you dribbling about?

No, I'd say he did just fine.  Wrote two pretty good themes and arranged them in a tasteful, energetic suite.
Powell surpassed my expectations on the score, though.  I highly recommend Mine Mission, Lando's Closet, and Testing Allegiance.    

1.12 to the end of the last track, Dice and Roll, I wonder if that is one of the Variations Williams wrote as an ending, it sounds pure Williams there.
 
All and All, in the end, honestly, it's funny, no one can deliver that sound that Williams  does in a full score. It's just not possible for any composer out there today. But then again, why should they? It should be the Star Wars sound however still that composer's score. There is a reason (and I know I'll be bashed but I don't honestly care because it's not a dig) there is a reason why someone like Zimmer is easily copied, easy pop type of blanket scoring, and a composer like Williams is hard, because of his harmonic language and complicated scoring. I love that we get such a unique sound from this legend. But also in the end, music is subjective. Love what you love and listen and support who you love regardless what anyone else has to say, but then again, I don't have to really say that here, lol. OK, off to the gym and I will give it another listen. Well a full listen. I just sort of went through the score here and there. Can't wait to go see the movie.
Agreed, because those are snares and timpani etc etc, not synth drums clicking away or bashing away on every beat on top of the orchestra.
Is that what it is? It sounds like synth drums but I'm not savvy on that stuff (I call all that type of sound synth drums). It just doesn't sound orchestral or that it meshes at all but rather just pounds on top of the orchestra making a lot of the music inaudible.

On my first listen. Adventures of Han is good JW material, maybe a little directionless but still very good.
 
Holy fuck is John Powell frenetic. I love some of his orchestrations but I HATE the generic percussion loops that are all over the score. The rythym in the second track is ripped directly from Horner's Avatar score, which worked because of the tribal imagery, but here it makes the score feel very generic because it's so overused to create tension nowadays. Want a good example of how to use percussion to create tension? Duel of the Fates. There's almost zero percussion in it except at really poignant moments, because it relies almost solely on real tones to create the tension. 
 
Aside from that, I really like how the score sounds like a classic hollywood score at times. Some of the softer moments are quite nice (when Powell slows the fuck down for a second) The throwbacks are a nice welcome, but when you place them toe to toe with the new music it makes the new music sound VERY generic. 
 
Powell for the love of god get your hand out of the percussionist's panties please. 
 
I give the score a solid B-

On my first listen. Adventures of Han is good JW material, maybe a little directionless but still very good.
 
Holy fuck is John Powell frenetic. I love some of his orchestrations but I HATE the generic percussion loops that are all over the score. The rythym in the second track is ripped directly from Horner's Avatar score, which worked because of the tribal imagery, but here it makes the score feel very generic because it's so overused to create tension nowadays. Want a good example of how to use percussion to create tension? Duel of the Fates. There's almost zero percussion in it except at really poignant moments, because it relies almost solely on real tones to create the tension. 
 
Aside from that, I really like how the score sounds like a classic hollywood score at times. Some of the softer moments are quite nice (when Powell slows the fuck down for a second) The throwbacks are a nice welcome, but when you place them toe to toe with the new music it makes the new music sound VERY generic. 
 
Powell for the love of god get your hand out of the percussionist's panties please. 
 
I give the score a solid B-

The qualities of the movies are one thing. 
 
Taken only the scores, though...Yeah, there's no comparison (I think). It's Harry Potter, hands down. I'm listening to LOTR now.

Well I just listened to the whole thing. 
 
This soundtrack is way more punchy than the last one, and in some ways Williams is returning to form here. The mix doesn't sound quite as dry as TFA which I like. Rose's theme is very nice, I hope her character deserves it. Yoda's theme.... well I guess I'm spoiled now. Looking forward to that scene. There's a lot more "magic" in the orchestration this time around, more glossy flutes and bells which is definitely welcome. Apparently this movie has a lot more metaphysical stuff that happens in it which I'm looking forward to. Luke and Leia's theme making a return makes me wonder if they'll see each other again or... worse it's as close as we'll ever get to that happening. I'm scared for the fate of Luke now.
 
Both TFA and TLJ are very smoothly orchestrated which I find interesting, compared to the rock concert like approach to the OT. I'm disappointed with the lack of concert arrangements, but maybe we'll get a more expanded score in the future. John Williams is getting old and I think a little less adventurous, but that doesn't really take away from the score in my opinion. I consider the OT scores to be some of the best orchestral music ever written especially ANH, and these new ones will always feel a little subpar because they work less like concert pieces and more like a film score, which is fine because that's what it's supposed to be, but I wish the music would follow it's own path sometimes. The TLJ score comes the closest to the god tier orchestrations of the OT, but you can see where it falls a little flat when put nose to nose with the old themes. I just feel like some of the themes aren't as poignant as they could be with maybe the exception of Rey's theme. Most of them are relegated to a few notes, like Kylo's theme for example, which comes off more like motifs than fully fleshed out themes, whereas a lot of the old themes have a beginning middle and end that move in and out of each other. Some of the themes feel more like stingers than anything else, maybe because the film doesn't leave a lot of room for John to work (pacing is too frenetic in movies today). There's a lot more to chew on in this soundtrack which I'm so happy about, and I think a lot of people who were disappointed by TFA's score will be a lot happier with this. If ANH is a 10/10 score, then I think I can safely say that this score is a solid 8.5/10, with TFA maybe being an 8/10. Definitely better than AOTC and ROTS, and maybe not quite as dense as TPM (which is actually some of my favorite music by JW)

Unfortunately all I've seen so far is very similar criticisms to Empire, mostly nitpicks that are blown out of proportion, a lot of it focusing on "what could have been" rather than what's there, or malcontent with characters not living up to people's own ridiculous standards, not answering questions that really don't need to be answered because they were built up in the heads of fans rather than the movies themselves. The only valid criticisms I've seen is the Canto Bight stuff, but even then that's only 10% of the movie. Rian trolled people hard with this movie, and the fans fell for it which I find pretty brilliant. You can tell this is what happened because hardcore fans are foaming at the mouth over the minor details while general audiences seem to be blown away by it.
 

Congratulations all you idiotic morons, now because of the massive fan backlash to this movie LFL and Disney are going to respond by making the most formulaic, safe, bullshit Star Wars movies for the next 40 years. Fuck the the fans. The completely vain, whiny criticisms of this movie are absolutely laughable, hold zero weight, and are only going to turn Star Wars into a completely uninteresting franchise. They're never going to take risks ever again. Fucking ridiculous. 

Absolutely loved this movie. I have no quarrels at all. The only thing that was weird was the milking of the tits, which is growing on me. I tend not to overly scrutinize stuff i thoroughly enjoy, because why? The stuff on Canto Bight was perfectly fine, it moved alone and they were off the planet before it over stayed it's welcome. It came full circle in the end too, and I really want a Rebel Alliance secret ring. We also cut back to the main story enough that it doesn't matter. I absolutely don't understand anyone's gripes with the movie. Leia's force move was fantastic imo, I understand if people don't like it but it clicked with me. The music I think shined quite a lot and was mixed pretty damn well, although sometimes they should let the explosions fall behind the music, because music is more powerful than explosions (to me)

Absolutely loved this movie. I have no quarrels at all. The only thing that was weird was the milking of the tits, which is growing on me. I tend not to overly scrutinize stuff i thoroughly enjoy, because why? The stuff on Canto Bight was perfectly fine, it moved alone and they were off the planet before it over stayed it's welcome. It came full circle in the end too, and I really want a Rebel Alliance secret ring. We also cut back to the main story enough that it doesn't matter. I absolutely don't understand anyone's gripes with the movie. Leia's force move was fantastic imo, I understand if people don't like it but it clicked with me. The music I think shined quite a lot and was mixed pretty damn well, although sometimes they should let the explosions fall behind the music, because music is more powerful than explosions (to me)

(post redacted)

I loved loved loved the resolution to the Snoke thing.  Snoke wasn't even really a mystery in TFA.  He was a bigass hologram guy who was "the boss." 
 
We eventually understood Palpatine in the prequels, but once upon a time, he was a bigass monkey human hybrid hologram who ended up being the powerful boss.  From 1980 to 1999, we didn't ask or need anything more than that, nor did we get it.  He was just a cool, powerful bad guy.
 
The whole fact that it just HAD to be a twist seems to be completely created by Internet Star Wars fans and theorizers, and I never understood it.  A twist that Snoke was actually Darth Plagueis would not have been a functional twist - as Johnson states in his abovelinked interview, it would have meant nothing to Rey.  And unspoken, but more importantly IMO, it would have meant nothing to the vast majority of viewers - just 0.05% of fans who read all the literature and come up with fan theories.
 
 
If I walked out of TLJ knowing absolutely nothing about Episode IX, I would vehemently disagree with you.  Johnson attempted to idiot-proof the Kylo thing, making Rey and Luke both come to the realization that Ren is unredeemable.
 
BUT, JJ Abrams is back in the chair for IX, so all bets are off in that regard.

Absolutely loved this movie. I have no quarrels at all. The only thing that was weird was the milking of the tits, which is growing on me. I tend not to overly scrutinize stuff i thoroughly enjoy, because why? The stuff on Canto Bight was perfectly fine, it moved alone and they were off the planet before it over stayed it's welcome. It came full circle in the end too, and I really want a Rebel Alliance secret ring. We also cut back to the main story enough that it doesn't matter. I absolutely don't understand anyone's gripes with the movie. Leia's force move was fantastic imo, I understand if people don't like it but it clicked with me. The music I think shined quite a lot and was mixed pretty damn well, although sometimes they should let the explosions fall behind the music, because music is more powerful than explosions (to me)

In *retrospect* that's how people see it, but at the time ESB was largely polarizing. A lot of people couldn't really stomach Yoda at first, or the fact that it ended on such a sour note where the hero gets his ass kicked and completely fails in the end, where Han Solo failed massively and got frozen in carbonite which lead to questions about whether or not he'd even return for the next one. My dad mentioned to me that a lot of his friends "swore off" Star Wars after ESB because it was so cold and dissimilar to ANH, and what he told me today is that the fan reaction to TLJ feels *exactly* like an echo of 1980. As an example you can read this NYT review from 1980 (a very fun read btw) that feels *very* similar to what people are saying about this movie:
 
http://www.nytimes.com/library/film/061580empire.html
 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/review97/empirestrikesbackmartin.htm
 
 

Missed?  So there will never be another chance to have a woman in the White House?  Maybe even one whose election wouldn't feed the growth of a shady political dynasty which nevertheless I'm sure has George Washington rolling in his grave?

I think if you had really been raped in your life, you’d realize how fucking stupid it sounds to compare thinking a Star Wars movie was bad to being raped.

After reading all of this, I'm almost hesitant to say I actually... loved the movie?
 
A few things:
 
- I agree that the Finn/Rose subplot could've been shorter, however in its defense it nuanced the whole good vs. evil conflict, highlighting this decadent society that couldn't care less about the outcome of the war, and DJ is pretty much an extension of that (although not so necessary). Plus it gives a bit of Rose's backstory. I can see how it fits in the movie conceptually, but its execution is not perfect. However, it provides some awesome Williams music and I loved how Canto Bight really felt alive. For me it didn't detract from the movie enormously. 
 
- Luke's end felt very poignant to me, even more when I watched it the second time. Very emotional climax. I'm sure he'll be around as a force ghost in ep. IX.
 
- Speaking of that, I really hope we'll get a brief explanation about Snoke's origin in IX, perhaps in relation to the Knights of Ren. Didn't Andy Serkis say he was fully informed about his background? Otherwise I'm totally fine with him killed off.

- Also about the rise of the First Order etc. that was discussed a few pages ago, I think it makes sense to have similar consecutive wars with a few decades inbetween... I mean, look at history of our actual world. But it is a pity that JJ excluded the explanation of it all in TFA, I must say.

Congratulations all you idiotic morons, now because of the massive fan backlash to this movie LFL and Disney are going to respond by making the most formulaic, safe, bullshit Star Wars movies for the next 40 years. Fuck the the fans. The completely vain, whiny criticisms of this movie are absolutely laughable, hold zero weight, and are only going to turn Star Wars into a completely uninteresting franchise. They're never going to take risks ever again. Fucking ridiculous.