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The Force Awakens - Complete Score Breakdown & Chronological Order (Film Spoilers Allowed)


Jay

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5 hours ago, LongTimeJWFan said:

Though many have noted that Burning Homestead (Track 1-09 Episode IV) was intercut with Track 20 The Ways of the Force in the final version of the film, another cue from the Attack on Jakku Village was also intercut at the beginning of the attack of Starkiller base. Please see the attached link for reference:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0mRKLHTnMDdcXY1akFtTEQ2azA/view?usp=sharing

 

Nice work!

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5 hours ago, ChewyBomber said:

 

Yeah! However you forgot to switch the music at 0:50 :P

 Thank you, CB! I'm wondering how many other bits I've missed? What a pleasure it is to be in such great company here.
 

The corrected version is here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0mRKLHTnMDdODhxRmNmaDRtRUE/view?usp=sharing

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17 hours ago, LongTimeJWFan said:

 Thank you, CB! I'm wondering how many other bits I've missed? What a pleasure it is to be in such great company here.
 

The corrected version is here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0mRKLHTnMDdODhxRmNmaDRtRUE/view?usp=sharing

Great! Sounds exactly like in the movie now hehe. Good job!

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1 hour ago, Disco Stu said:

My dream for Episode VIII is fewer awkward music edits.

 

Of course TFA didn't even come close to the nonsensical garble of AOTC.

 

Would be funny to hear an isolated version of AOTC score (especially the arena battle) :D

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27 minutes ago, crumbs said:

Only a few weeks away from, potentially, new unreleased JW music on the 3D Bluray set!

 

We'll see... Fingers crossed. 

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This is completely random, but - if Burning Homestead was tracked directly from the original Star Wars, did the LSO have a credit in TFA for that small cameo?

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3 hours ago, crumbs said:

Only a few weeks away from, potentially, new unreleased JW music on the 3D Bluray set!

Around 13 days away from a foreign (non US) release date. 

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9 hours ago, rpvee said:

This is completely random, but - if Burning Homestead was tracked directly from the original Star Wars, did the LSO have a credit in TFA for that small cameo?

No, and it's a surprising Disney wasn't required to credit the Fox owned recording. Maybe they just figured no one at Fox would notice :P

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1 hour ago, Jay said:

No, and it's a surprising Disney wasn't required to credit the Fox owned recording. Maybe they just figured no one at Fox would notice :P

 

It's a bit of a rights nightmare really. So Fox "own" the score for the original film, not Lucasfilm or Disney? Did John Williams need to be paid a separate licensing fee to use that cue in the film? I'm guessing the LSO musicians get no percentage of profits for the OT scores.

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9 hours ago, crumbs said:

Hopefully the new deleted scenes were scored in the early sessions.

 

Yes. That would be awesome. I can't get enough TFA music.

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27 minutes ago, crumbs said:

 

It's a bit of a rights nightmare really. So Fox "own" the score for the original film, not Lucasfilm or Disney? Did John Williams need to be paid a separate licensing fee to use that cue in the film? I'm guessing the LSO musicians get no percentage of profits for the OT scores.

 

I really don't know how it all works

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Haha yeah that's a really interesting question about Burning Homestead (and the OT rights in general). 

 

Another piece of big Blu-ray news, one that apparently only I am interested in, is that the BFG Blu-ray (and hopefully FYC at some point) will be released in late November, giving us access to the supposedly cool unreleased main theme (I didn't notice it myself) statement from the giant netting, as well as Building Trust with no microedits, etc.

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1 hour ago, crumbs said:

 

It's a bit of a rights nightmare really. So Fox "own" the score for the original film, not Lucasfilm or Disney? Did John Williams need to be paid a separate licensing fee to use that cue in the film? I'm guessing the LSO musicians get no percentage of profits for the OT scores.

 

It's quite a tangled situation in terms of rights and ownership, yes. Technically speaking, the score for the first film (SW 1977) is still property of 20th Century Fox, as Fox owns rights for the film in perpetuity. The score was originally published by Fox Fanfare Music (Fox's own publishing subsidiary, which was also the publisher of the original concert suite score). Later, Lucasfilm renewed publishing rights under its own subsidiary Bantha Music (which is administered by Warner-Tamerlane, now Warner-Chappell), so in theory Lucasfilm controls publishing rights for all Star Wars scores.

 

From what I gather, everything concerning music from the first movie needs to be licensed separately. It's quite absurd, but Williams had to point exactly in percentage how much music he quoted from the original film so that the rights could be calculated. If you look at the TFA concert suite published by Hal Leonard, both "Scherzo for X-Wings" and "Jedi Steps and Finale" have this specification at the bottom of the page:

Capture.JPG

 

So yes, it's quite complicated. EDIT: I amended some of my original post with more accurate info.

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2 hours ago, TownerFan said:

 

It's quite absurd, but Williams had to point exactly in percentage how much music he quoted from the original film so that the rights could be calculated. 

 

Well, I guess that would explain why JW was mentioning a very specific percentage in some interviews (can't remember what it was). It seemed weird at the time -- as well as, actually, him knowing the exact number of minutes of music in the final film (which he may know for a different reason). 

 

Another interesting question is what gets counted as reused material. Every statement of old themes? What about fragments? 

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28 minutes ago, Will said:

 

Well, I guess that would explain why JW was mentioning a very specific percentage in some interviews (can't remember what it was). It seemed weird at the time -- as well as, actually, him knowing the exact number of minutes of music in the final film (which he may know for a different reason). 

 

Another interesting question is what gets counted as reused material. Every statement of old themes? What about fragments? 

 

That's a bit of a headache--typical stuff for copyright lawyers :D

 

I guess there's a rule about how much is required to be recognized as a quote of a copyrighted work, but honestly I don't know how much the minimum would be. The problem here is that you have several parties which hold copyright claims so you have to address all of them.

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God, no wonder he seems almost embarrassed quoting his older themes -- he's just sick of all the paperwork every time he quotes the Force Theme for one bar!

 

I assume they only licence the themes for music used in the final cut, which could make a complete score release a bit tricky down the line?

 

It would be pretty funny if Williams actually got royalties for every quote of an existing theme though. "Yes, JJ Baby, we need yet another reference to the Force Theme here... and here... and here..."

 

50 minutes ago, Will said:

Well, I guess that would explain why JW was mentioning a very specific percentage in some interviews (can't remember what it was). It seemed weird at the time -- as well as, actually, him knowing the exact number of minutes of music in the final film (which he may know for a different reason). 

 

I'm only guessing but it's likely that when a score is copyrighted they have to provide detailed information about all the recorded music for that production (for union purposes, if nothing else).

 

So not just the final music as used in the film but the final takes of every recorded cue, especially revisions, alternates and inserts (as this is all copyrighted material written by Williams and owned by Lucasfilm/Bantha Music). It would also list all the musicians involved in that session, themes re-used from earlier films, etc.

 

That's probably why he knew exactly how much music was recorded (175 minutes is a lot more precise than "3 hours"), which clearly includes all the revisions.

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3 hours ago, crumbs said:

 

It would be pretty funny if Williams actually got royalties for every quote of an existing theme though. "Yes, JJ Baby, we need yet another reference to the Force Theme here... and here... and here..."

 

ROTFLMAO

 

3 hours ago, crumbs said:

 

I'm only guessing but it's likely that when a score is copyrighted they have to provide detailed information about all the recorded music for that production (for union purposes, if nothing else).

 

So not just the final music as used in the film but the final takes of every recorded cue, especially revisions, alternates and inserts (as this is all copyrighted material written by Williams and owned by Lucasfilm/Bantha Music). It would also list all the musicians involved in that session, themes re-used from earlier films, etc.

 

Yes that is likely, although for TFA I wouldn't be surprised if they used lots of code names. 

 

Okay, I know what I'm going for in my next Lucasfilm robbery attempt. I hope to make off like a Bantha ... I mean bandit (yes, this is a terrible joke, but what the hell).

 

---------

 

I suppose this reporting requirement @crumbs talks about is the reason we end up getting cue lists from online databases of the various agencies every once in a while.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/18/2016 at 3:15 AM, crumbs said:

 

And these things almost always break release dates.

Apparently some people have found copies already. 

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  • 5 weeks later...
13 hours ago, tebower said:

Can someone share the actual correctly mixed, screen accurate, mp3 of Rey Gets the Saber, The Ways of the Force?  I made my own, but it's not great.

 

Just as an FYI for a newbie this isn't the FF Shrine asking for something like that here on this forum is against the rules.

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On 10/27/2016 at 10:00 PM, Fennel Ka said:

Apparently some people have found copies already. 

 

Have you found a copy yet? And if so have you found any music? @Disco Stu, do you have anything to report about music?

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

I was watching the awesome Sound of a Galaxy TFA featurette (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cPvY17ZdFM) featurette yesterday and I noticed this sketch below. I remember @Datameister mentioning it a while back but it didn't really "register."

 

I was thinking about how it might play into the "R2 Shows the Map" (scene: end of this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=butLrUvXfuA)/"Rey Meets BB-8" (scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIhKLnZE_IY) confusion. 

 

The music seems to be the music heard at the beginning of the OST track "Rey Meets BB-8."

 

From what we can see of the sketch JW says "C-3PO Wakes" at :00, and "BB Enters" at :06-:08. I presume it's for the "R2 Shows the Map" scene, although if so Williams seems to have confused C-3PO and R2-D2, and also I can't tell if the timings match the final film scene (I can't really read music, I had to use Noteflight to help, and also we're only seeing the very top of the sketch). Perhaps some editing happened so that we aren't hearing JW's intended music to picture timings. Or perhaps I am just confused. 

 

So it does seem that the music heard in the "R2 Shows the Map" scene is not tracked (another piece of evidence is how the map theme is heard right when we see the map!). I do wonder, though, whether that necessarily means the "Rey Meets BB-8" scene contains tracked music, as Jay and Fennel Ka believe. I think I remember Williams saying that he wrote several versions of the music for that meeting scene. Perhaps he did a rewrite that took material from the later cue -- but it was still a separate cue and not tracking. Who knows. It does seem to also fit that earlier scene well -- although the ending transition to the short Star Destroyer cue is very jarring and definitely due either to late tracking/editing/rewrites. 

 

Screen Shot 2017-01-02 at 2.48.09 PM.png

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8 minutes ago, BloodBoal said:

"BB enters".

 

That's my cue.

 

ROTFLMAO

 

2 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

Williams confuses 3PO with R2? More proof he's never actually seen any of these films!

 

I know right? Unless I am confused about which scene we are dealing with, which seems unlikely, he did actually confuse them! LOL!! :lol:

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I drew the same conclusion from that sketch, Will. As far as I'm concerned, we can be pretty certain he wrote the cue for the map scene and it was tracked (effectively!) into their first meeting. I suspect the Star Destroyer music afterward was the end of a cue actually written for that scene.

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3 hours ago, Datameister said:

I drew the same conclusion from that sketch, Will. As far as I'm concerned, we can be pretty certain he wrote the cue for the map scene and it was tracked (effectively!) into their first meeting. I suspect the Star Destroyer music afterward was the end of a cue actually written for that scene.

 

Ah, I'd never thought about the possibility of the Star Destroyer music being the ending of a longer cue. I had assumed it was just a very short cue! 

 

As a side note, I wonder if the presence of, seemingly, two short-score Williams sketches at the sessions (the second one below, also from the same video) indicates that Williams conducted off sketches for many cues. Perhaps for certain cues they had Ross expand out the full orchestration, but for others they just sent the sketches along to JKMS and that was all?

 

I believe we have evidence that Williams has been doing that on some scores recently. Often there's no orchestrator credited in the film these days (for instance, Book Thief, Lincoln, and The BFG) but you'd doubt that Williams actually writes everything out fully. And apparently according to their initial Facebook announcement JKMS was proofing JW's sketches for the Book Thief. JWFanners said they recognized JW's handwriting too. Why would they need to look at the sketches if they'd been sent full "orchestrated"/expanded scores? 

 

Or perhaps Williams just had the sketches with him at the TFA sessions as an extra guide. 

 

Screen Shot 2017-01-02 at 7.14.58 PM.png

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5 hours ago, Will said:

From what we can see of the sketch JW says "C-3PO Wakes" at :00, and "BB Enters" at :06-:08. I presume it's for the "R2 Shows the Map" scene, although if so Williams seems to have confused C-3PO and R2-D2

 

Yeah, he should really watch these movies!

 

also I'm pretty sure JW always conducts from his sketches. Much less page turns (8 or 16 bars vs 4 bars per page) and if there was a copying error he can quickly fix it (there's a bit of him doing that in the AOTC session video). Goldsmith conducted from his sketches too. 

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6 hours ago, Fennel Ka said:

Maybe there was an cut shot of 3P0 waking ala ANH ;)

 

I actually thought about that too for a sec LOL. That perhaps this could even be referencing a different scene. But I highly doubt it. 

 

11 hours ago, MikeH said:

 

Yeah, he should really watch these movies!

 

also I'm pretty sure JW always conducts from his sketches. Much less page turns (8 or 16 bars vs 4 bars per page) and if there was a copying error he can quickly fix it (there's a bit of him doing that in the AOTC session video). Goldsmith conducted from his sketches too. 

 

Very interesting if true. I guess I could see why he'd prefer the sketches. He's intimately familiar with them since he hand-wrote them, and at a glance they provide a more concise and organized overview than the lengthy one-instrument-per-line "orchestrated"/expanded sheets (which would either be created by JKMS or an orchestrator, presumably). 

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15 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

WTF is that hideous mouse avatar, @Will?  Looks like something from a really shitty Dreamworks movie.

 

LOL at your reaction! :lol:

 

It's from the recent film Sing (Illumination, not Dreamworks). You can read my brief review over in the the new films thread, but in short: This is not just any cartoon mouse. It's voiced by Seth MacFarlane and sings jazz/big band. Definitely my favorite character. ;)

 

 

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I liked Seth MacFarlane when I was a young teen as well so I won't judge you too harshly ;)

 

He's somebody I clearly have a lot in common with, judging by his love of film scores and science education (like Cosmos), but I think I grew out of liking him as an entertainer.

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3 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

Too shallow, and not nearly as edgy as he thinks he is.

 

Pretty much.  And his fantasies of being the next Sinatra, which he is able to finance because he's rich as fuck, are kind of pathetic.

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2 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

I liked Seth MacFarlane when I was a young teen as well so I won't judge you too harshly ;)

 

He's somebody I clearly have a lot in common with, judging by his love of film scores and science education (like Cosmos), but I think I grew out of liking him as an entertainer.

 

I'm not a super fan of him or anything. I've just heard a few of his songs and somewhat enjoyed them. Also, Williams' music prep service (JKMS) works with him, so somehow that gives him added credibility in my eyes. Possibly just the fact that he needs actual orchestral music prep LOL. Nice that a modern singer is doing music that requires an actual instrumental ensemble, right? (not that he's the only one! - but he's certainly different in style than most of what you hear on the radio these days, which for better or worse goes largely electronic) 

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2 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

JKMS is a service business, not a curatorial one.  They'll work with anyone who wants to pay them I'm sure.

 

Of course. But I think it's just the fact that he needs an actual orchestral music prep service or something. Strange, somewhat irrational reasoning? Sure. :lol:

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