Michael Giacchino's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) - 2022 Expanded Edition now available

[Will 2,215]

From the Giacchino Variety interview posted in the score thread (http://variety.com/2017/film/spotlight/michael-giacchino-rogue-one-score-1201952495/):

 

Quote

There is a heartrending moment near the end of the film that needed “a sense of hope and a sense of loss. I wanted it to feel like a church hymn. It’s about sacrifice, and I didn’t want it to be completely maudlin; I wanted it to feel balanced, for what (the rebels) accomplished.”

 

Giacchino indeed struck a marvelous balance in that wonderful cue (I presume he's referring to "Your Father Would Be Proud"). It starts slow and very Giacchino-y, but beautiful of course - and I do like how the wavering strings from Leia's theme come in at one point! Then the lead up to the big, very Giacchino-y choral statement of Jyn's theme is the same as that heard at the end of "Confrontation on Eadu" after her father's death, making a connection between his death and hers. 

 

I love the bass pounding here as the screen fades over the shot of Jyn and Cassain hugging and waiting to die:

 

 

Then a moment of calm and reflection as the explosion spreads as Tarkin watches from space before Giacchino writes a crescendo and precedes to really go all out Williams-y. I love the end of this cue! (not that the other parts aren't good though) 

 

4:08 - Strained Jyn's theme variation with an absolutely kickass heroic conclusion, then afterward an almost "punching," vengeful quality; it's almost as if the music wants to explode with rage at something, anything, after the heroes' deaths.

 

4:28 - the string run is awesome! 

 

I didn't like this cue on first listen but I adore it now. Seeing the film helped. 

 

This cue is so close in feel to how Williams scored Han's death in TFA. It starts restrained during the lead up, gets a little more emotional over time, then there's a brief moment of reflection after it happens, and then everything absolutely lets loose throughout most of the rest of the cue:

 

 

 I've always thought of that music as exemplifying Chewy's rage and shock, which mirrors the audience's, as well as of course the gravity of what we've just seen, as he shoots wildly at Kylo. 

 

At 3:14 in Torn Apart, we get possibly the most kickass Force theme statement ever - just as Giacchino does the same for Jyn's theme in his cue!

[Will 2,215]

6 hours ago, mstrox said:

I think I read somewhere that they did the main title theme just as an orchestral warm-up.

 

Yep. 

 

 

 

[DominicCobb 194]

"Your Father Would Be Proud" starts off sounding a bit too much like "Labor of Love" to me, but it definitely comes into its own towards the end.

 

Also 3:59 in that track reminds me of Jedi Steps.

[Will 2,215]

1 minute ago, DominicCobb said:

Also 3:59 in that track reminds me of Jedi Steps.

 

I never thought about that but this opening does remind me of Jedi Steps:

 

 

[Will 2,215]

Was very much looking forward to this!

 

http://filmtracks.com/titles/rogue_one.html

 

Have to say what Clemmenson says is very different from my own opinions, but that is often the case, even with JW scores (sometimes we even think they deserve the same rating but have different reasons). 

[Miz 139]

I always appreciate his depth of analysis, but there were some thematic allusions he didn't mention. He also continues to have an autistic approach to leitmotif.

[Chewy 2,380]

17 hours ago, Will said:

Was very much looking forward to this!

 

http://filmtracks.com/titles/rogue_one.html

 

Yes!

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

I think he gets some things wrong.

 

I think Williams impwrial theme statements are just for fan service and to check a box. Gia quoted them but did not need to.

 

His 2 themes are strong, one for the empire and one for krennick.

 

Clemensen says that there are 4 bad guy themes with Gia's 2 and Williams' 2. Now that would be a clusterfuck if true. But its not. I think Gia's 2 themes are the defacto bad guy themes. And williams themes are quoted for homage. So we cannot necessarily apply thematic connection to willuams theme. 

 

So in actuality, there are only 2 bad guy themes which is fine. 

 

I think for clarity Gia should have completely left off williams themes except end credits.

[Demodex 557]

I wouldn't call the Empire theme strong when I can't figure out how it goes, even listening to the soundtrack multiple times. 

[Giftheck 916]

I actually have grown fond of this score. It's certainly not a patch on the Saga scores, and even though TFA might be considered one of the weakest it's definitely a stronger one, but... I like it.

 

But I do find parts of "The Imperial Suite" corny. As in Saturday-Morning-Cartoon-Villain corny.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

1 minute ago, Gistech said:

I actually have grown fond of this score. It's certainly not a patch on the Saga scores, and even though TFA might be considered one of the weakest it's definitely a stronger one, but... I like it.

 

Get out of here.

[Giftheck 916]

Just now, BloodBoal said:

 

Get out of here.

 

No, you get out of here.

 

I said it was one of the weakest of the Saga Star Wars scores. No where did I say it was bad. And I do believe I said it was better than Rogue One's score. It took a few listens to nail down the themes in this one, while I got the themes from TFA pretty much instantly.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

Still, TFA is not one of the weakests of the saga!

[Jay 37,294]

1 TESB

2 SW

3 ROTJ

4 TFA

5 TPM

6 AOTCS

7 ROTS

8 R1

[Giftheck 916]

I put TPM and ROTS above TFA, and AOTC below it, personally. Then again, I do have an attachment to TPM. We agree on TESB though: it is the best one.

[Will 2,215]

1 hour ago, TheUlyssesian said:

I think he gets some things wrong.

 

I think Williams impwrial theme statements are just for fan service and to check a box. Gia quoted them but did not need to.

 

His 2 themes are strong, one for the empire and one for krennick.

 

Clemensen says that there are 4 bad guy themes with Gia's 2 and Williams' 2. Now that would be a clusterfuck if true. But its not. I think Gia's 2 themes are the defacto bad guy themes. And williams themes are quoted for homage. So we cannot necessarily apply thematic connection to willuams theme. 

 

So in actuality, there are only 2 bad guy themes which is fine. 

 

I think for clarity Gia should have completely left off williams themes except end credits.

 

The thing about supposed over-theme-writing here is that a ton of people would have bashed Giacchino nearly to death if he had largely avoided writing new themes.

 

42 minutes ago, Gistech said:

I put TPM and ROTS above TFA, and AOTC below it, personally. Then again, I do have an attachment to TPM. We agree on TESB though: it is the best one.

 

I've listened to all six in complete form at least once, and assorted tracks from each many times, and, while I'm terrible at ranking things and won't attempt to here, I can't say I agree that TESB is clearly the best one. Granted, perhaps more listens will enlighten me further. 

[Arpy 4,145]

This is how it really goes:

ESB

      TFA | ROTS

                        AOTC | ANH

                                           TPM | ROTJ

                                                              R1

 

                                                   

[karelm 2,903]

I liked the way Giacchino merged the ESB Imperial march with ANH Death star motif at the end.  That really worked for me.  Keep in mind that this motif is frequently transposed so the intervals are more important than the chord. 

 

 

Notice at 0:58 the ending cadence to the Imperial March is C minor major 7 (C, Eflat, G, B) and in a New Hope, the Death Star Theme is A minor major 7 (A, C, E, G#) so same intervals.  He is linking Vader with Death Star from the new hope and I think that was cool.  I do wish MG kept the rhythm to solidify the link but I previously mentioned one of my issues with MG was he didn't match JW's rhythmic ingenuity. 

If you took JW's Death Star motif up a minor 3rd, it would be the same notes MG used to end his version of the imperial march.  Yes, slightly different rhythm and pedal but he clearly meant to link the themes and I think he did so successfully.

 

[DarthDementous 1,059]

Rogue One continues to impress me with how much it oozes Star Wars to the point the more Giacchino-y moments I don't even bat an eye at.

 

you know what would be fantastic though? if someone but together a 'Battle of Scarif Suite' in the manner of the end action suites of the Williams scored Star Wars movies. there's enough strong musical moments in that part of the movie that convey a dramatic narrative that I think it could work really well if it was arranged properly.

[igger6 894]

Speaking of action suites, I was listening to "The Battle of Hoth" this evening (as is my custom when driving to or from work in a snowstorm), and I had a melancholy thought: The

 

Artoo and Threepio cameo in Rogue One

, in a film scored by Star Wars nerd Giacchino, might have been our last legitimate shot at another airing of ESB/ROTJ droid motif.  Man, do I love that little melody.  So prim and nervous, but so tense when necessary!  I still wish Williams had used it in the prequels.  Lord knows he had plenty of opportunity while Artoo was doing loop-de-loops on Geonosis and flamethrowing half the droid army over Coruscant...

[Will 2,215]

Never realized that link @karelm. Cool!

 

There are some other incredible links mentioned in SW Oxygen. 

[Cerebral Cortex 3,357]

7 minutes ago, igger6 said:

Speaking of action suites, I was listening to "The Battle of Hoth" this evening (as is my custom when driving to or from work in a snowstorm), and I had a melancholy thought: The

  Hide contents

Artoo and Threepio cameo in Rogue One

, in a film scored by Star Wars nerd Giacchino, might have been our last legitimate shot at another airing of ESB/ROTJ droid motif.  Man, do I love that little melody.  So prim and nervous, but so tense when necessary!  I still wish Williams had used it in the prequels.  Lord knows he had plenty of opportunity while Artoo was doing loop-de-loops on Geonosis and flamethrowing half the droid army over Coruscant...

 

 

 

Oh, shucks! That would have actually made those superfluous cameos worthwhile. Neat idea. 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

1. RO

2. AOTC

3. TPM

4. TFA

5. ROTS

6. ROTJ

7. TWOK

8. SW

9. ESB

[BloodBoal 7,538]

The Wrath Of Khan should be lower.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

It's the only one in the series that has some scenes on Earth.

[Demodex 557]

52 minutes ago, Daniel Clamp said:

1. RO

2. AOTC

3. TPM

4. TFA

5. ROTS

6. ROTJ

7. TWOK

8. SW

9. ESB

 

This is worst to best, right?

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Luke Skywalker 1,792]

13 hours ago, igger6 said:

Speaking of action suites, I was listening to "The Battle of Hoth" this evening (as is my custom when driving to or from work in a snowstorm), and I had a melancholy thought: The

  Hide contents

Artoo and Threepio cameo in Rogue One

, in a film scored by Star Wars nerd Giacchino, might have been our last legitimate shot at another airing of ESB/ROTJ droid motif.  Man, do I love that little melody.  So prim and nervous, but so tense when necessary!  I still wish Williams had used it in the prequels.  Lord knows he had plenty of opportunity while Artoo was doing loop-de-loops on Geonosis and flamethrowing half the droid army over Coruscant...

Hah. Just listening for the 1st time oficial CD (it arrived today at last...) and i was listening to that cameo when reading this

 

I also thought about this. By the least he shouldnt have used Luke skywaker's theme in 'Lars homestead-kind of orchestration...but when you hear it you are completely transported to ANH.. so in a sense it works. But i would have preferred some Dune Sea or Little people work... (since the droid motif didnt appear until ESB)

[mstrox 6,647]

14 hours ago, igger6 said:

Speaking of action suites, I was listening to "The Battle of Hoth" this evening (as is my custom when driving to or from work in a snowstorm), and I had a melancholy thought: The

  Reveal hidden contents

Artoo and Threepio cameo in Rogue One

, in a film scored by Star Wars nerd Giacchino, might have been our last legitimate shot at another airing of ESB/ROTJ droid motif.

 

People making Star Wars music are aware of this - it popped up in an early Kiner "Rebels" score.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Never really understood this ongoing obsession with some of the minor themes.  The TESB droid theme, Boba Fett's etc.

 

Sure they are very nice in the context of their scores. But its not like they HAVE to be used again and again.

[Miz 139]

Clemmensen would demand it.

[Quintus 5,399]

Clemmensen can do one. 

[Tom 4,639]

4 hours ago, Stefancos said:

Never really understood this ongoing obsession with some of the minor themes.  The TESB droid theme, Boba Fett's etc.

 

Sure they are very nice in the context of their scores. But its not like they HAVE to be used again and again.

I would tend to agree, though in the case of the droid theme, it is better than most movies' main themes.

[Luke Skywalker 1,792]

So... "The Master Switch" 3:04-3:10...is Giacchino quoting the 'electric fence' motif from Jurassic Park?

[crocodile 7,984]

It's all Dies Irae anyway.

 

Karol

[Lewya 360]

Three takes on the score:

 

Quick Takes on Rogue One: Michael Giacchino's Sacrifice

 

By James Buhler


Composing the music for Rogue One would inevitably be a thankless task. Though many composers have written Star Wars music for games, television, and animated features, this is the first live action theatrical release Star Wars film without a score by John Williams. Anyone taking on the task would know the music would be heavily scrutinized, and the chances of scoring a real success were slim. Two sorts of objections, difficult to reconcile, were almost certain to appear: those who thought it strayed too far from Williams’ sound, and those who thought it hewed too closely. Perhaps writing a score on a very tight deadline, where a composer would not have time to fret and be overwhelmed by the anxiety of influence, was the only way it was going to get accomplished in a meaningful way. 

In any event, that is what happened with Rogue One. The official story is that reshoots on the film caused a delay in postproduction that meant the composer originally hired, Alexandre Desplat, was unavailable. Michael Giacchino, who has been scoring the recent round of Star Trek films, had won acclaim reworking Williams in Jurassic World, has worked frequently for Disney, and was fresh off scoring Marvel’s Doctor Strange, had a window in his schedule and agreed to take on the task. In around four weeks he produced his score. 

The tight deadline resulted in a score that feels more reactive to the various situations than a score with a strong conception of what this film should sound like musically. The film has the requisite citations of Williams’ themes; besides the Force theme, which is the most frequently deployed, often in very striking arrangements, Giacchino calls on the Imperial March, less deftly handled, as well as numerous motifs associated with the Death Star that Williams had used in the original Star Wars film. Giacchino also devised a number of new motifs: a shockingly overblown main theme, evidently modeled on the original Star Wars theme though sounding like it came from a completely different kind of film, that accompanied the title card (Rob Deemer provides a fine analysis of the problems with this theme); and a few other themes for the various characters. None of these themes have the same problems as the main theme, though none are especially memorable. Of these Jyn’s theme is given the most attention, but as with most of the other material in the film, it consists of marked but simply constructed, even commonplace, motives situated in an allusive and constantly changing form that resists settling into a fixed thematic identity. 

Indeed, I initially thought that the bulk of the new material Giacchino composed for the film had that underarticulated quality typical of contemporary action film scoring. Having now spent considerable time with the score, I think the problem, if it is indeed a problem, is that thematic material is not so much underarticulated as rarely stated in a cogent form. That is, it's constantly meandering, breaking off, dissolving, striving to become something else so we can’t be sure what constitutes the core of thematic identity. The theme that accompanies the title is characteristic: it sounds curtailed, as though it aims at mighty bombast but loses steam and stalls as it reaches its all-too-conventional harmonic pattern. Deemer states that this harmony suggests “a much more mundane, banal science fiction musical environment.” And so it does: the music sounds grossly overinflated but before it can come to a conclusion or even properly unfold whatever promise it might contain, it dissipates. Then, too, for all its prominence at this moment in the film, the title theme seems strangely inconsequential over the course of the score, even though it recurs at several important dramatic junctures (if memory serves: the council debate, climbing the data column, the destruction of the gate). Giacchino also picks up and works motives and gestures from it, but the theme never achieves the form that its initial aspiration seemed to call for. I don’t have space to follow up on this thought, but other themes are treated similarly. (Giacchino’s Imperial music is different in this respect, with sharp thematic profiles that cleverly evoke Williams while remaining distinct.) 


Perhaps the lack of definition to the themes captures a certain indefinite quality in the characters, who as Todd Alcott neatly points out begin as “one thing, but they yearn to be another thing, while circumstances insist on them being a third thing.” I’m tempted to draw an analogy to the music: themes start as one thing, but yearn to be another thing, while circumstances insist on them being a third thing. This gives the score something of a diffuse quality. The score, which is rarely absent from the film, is generally unobtrusive, as it settles behind the sound effects of blasters and explosions—sonic representation of the unrelenting violence of this world—but also the music does little to define the world, explicate or redeem its characters’ actions, or suggest that their actions have a larger meaning than the moment of action itself. The scale of this film is very human, and for all its ubiquity and occasional bombast, the music follows the film in exuding a mundane, down-to-earth sensibility that the desperate invocations of the Force seemingly cannot overcome. Aside from the awkward handling of Darth Vader (both filmically and musically) and the charming but problematic figure of Chirrut Îmwe who provides the film its mantra—the depiction of Chirrut is thoughtfully criticized by Tessa Gratton—the mythic world of Star Wars has evidently receded into the far distance, and Giacchino renders this distance in his music, where the Holst sound, so integral to Williams’s conception of Star Wars, is rarely in evidence.

The film and its music may want to follow Chirrut’s mantra and become one with the Force so the Force is with them, but they, like the film’s characters, must settle for sacrifice. Myth is reborn, as it is always reborn, as the new hope that would redeem the sacrifice. But, as Gratton astutely notes, this new hope unravels because it is fated to be what it always already was. Moreover, the myth erases the sacrifice that made it possible, just as the main title from Star Wars, Luke’s theme, appears at the start of the end credits to recenter the Skywalker saga and to displace Giacchino’s mostly non-mythic music just after Leia receives the stolen plans that will segue neatly into the beginning of the original Star Wars film. After this musical nod to the ritual script of the Star Wars film, which always begins the end credits thus, the cue returns to Giacchino’s original music from the film for the bulk of the credits. But at the end of the credits, the original Star Wars music appears again, as though to bookend the Rogue One music and remind us that the original Star Wars saga and its myth will give this film its coherence and meaning. Yet, then, after the Star Wars music has found its ritual conclusion and hammered home the tonic, the high strings continue to resound, shimmering as though an impossibly extended echo of the final chord. Into this void beyond the end, Jyn’s motive delicately sounds, in memoriam, perhaps, of those who were fated to be forgotten. 


 

- http://musicologynow.ams-net.org/2017/01/quick-takes-on-rogue-one-michael.html

 

ROB DEEMER· Musings on the Rogue One Score

 

After seeing Rogue One: A Star Wars Story twice over the last two days, I was not only bowled over by the visceral world-building that director Gareth Edwards and his team have achieved, effectively sharpening so many details in this universe while pulling the audience much further into the environment than any previous director. The diverse new characters, the extensive nods to the film’s “sequel”, the simultaneous ground, air, and space battles, the dirt, the grime, the rain, and DARTH EFFING VADER all made my inner 9-year-old howl with excitement and glee.

When I heard that John Williams was not going to be taking on the non-saga Star Wars films, I was not surprised – he has to pick his projects carefully and it makes the most amount of sense for him to focus on the big-dog story line and let someone else have a go at the stand-alone films.

When I heard that Alexandre Desplat was to score Rogue One, that was a surprise - I’ve enjoyed his film scores for years, but other than his film scores for the last two Harry Potter films and Godzilla (another Gareth Edwards film - the primary reason, I assume, that Desplat was picked in the first place), there are little evidence that his compositional voice would be appropriate for this extension of film’s greatest space opera.

When I discovered that Desplat stepped away from the project three months before the premiere and that Michael Giacchino had replaced him, my reaction was a combination of “Wow! Who would leave such a project?” and “Yeah, that makes sense…MG has been slowly becoming JW’s heir-apparent for years now” and “Jeez, he better not screw it up!” I’ve been really pleased with his Star Trek scores and LOVE his Pixar scores, but his latest score for Dr. Strange had several troubling instances of sounding too much like Star Trek, so going into Rogue One I was more than a little apprehensive.

OVERALL THOUGHTS ON THE SCORE

My primary reaction to the score to Rogue One are as follows

• Michael Giacchino is probably the only composer in Hollywood who could have pulled a score of this magnitude and detail off in such a short amount of time - he had to write and record it in FOUR #%$&*! WEEKS!!! All further comments made should be viewed through this lens.
• 65% of the score works really well with the film - there are many spots where the music is tailored exquisitely to the film and his craft as a film composer shines through.
• 10% of the score is freakin’ brilliant - the string glissandi that sound as Cassian investigates the cavernous space where the Death Star plans reside are as deep cut to A New Hope as Ponda Baba, and the choice to go slow and beautiful as the star destroyers collide and crash into the shield generator was as sublime a musical moment as any in the film.
• 20% of the score was lacking both in its fear of using the motives from the original trilogy and in its frustrating lack of thematic exposition. An example of where a thematic exposition of an established motive does occur happens when Darth Vader first emerges in his suit; we get the full theme head-on with no development or side-eye hinting at the theme. This instance was absolutely effective and the overall concept could have been easily incorporated in other areas of the film. Too many film scores hardly ever develop their themes…they just repeat them in different instrumentations over and over, but in this case the opposite is true and it doesn’t serve the film well. Star Wars as a musical world is based on melodies - full, mature melodies that have structure and sentences and phrases, and if we don’t hear that in a Star Wars score, we are left wanting. (There is a reason why these full-blown melodies are not introduced early on that I will discuss in a bit.)
• 5% of the film is not only frustrating, but discordant to the point where I have been wrenched out of the experience both times I’ve seen the film and every time I’ve listened to the soundtrack over the last two days. It’s not technically 5% of the running time of the film, but the importance of this particular theme and its placement within the film is such that it equals at least 1/20th of the film and stuck with me far after I left the theater.

It was this last item – this small, 4-measure theme – that made me want to write this post. It’s very difficult to isolate what makes a composer sound a certain way, and even more difficult to determine what makes a particular set of scores by one composer sound fresh and unique from other scores by that same composer and yet are still recognizable as being from that composer. This one small musical nugget that sounded so discordant to my own ears made me wonder if I could figure out why it sounded “not-like-Star-Wars” so I could get a hint as to what makes Williams’ scores sound “like-Star-Wars”.

“ROGUE ONE…IT’S A STAR WAR’S STORY!”

Before we can figure out what’s tweaking my ears with the Rogue One score, we need to look at the beginning of the main Star Wars theme, presented thusly with a wonderfully-notated reduction by Brad Frey (specifically measures 4-12):

Below is a very rough outline of the first eight measures of the Star Wars theme as it is notated in the score (transposed so that the melody fits on the white keys of a piano). For those of you reading who are don’t read music, that’s okay - the top line is the notated melody and the bottom line is the rhythms of the rest of the orchestra along with the harmony. Several things are notable here: 

1. The melody starts with a leap up from C-G, then soon after leaps down from a higher C back down to the G. The emphasis on these two pitches create a sense of stability within the melody as a whole and it is only when the melody ends on a D that it makes us expect the melody to move forward (ostensibly to go back to C in the second phrase);
2. The harmony is both simple and complex. In a simple way, the chords underneath the melody vacillate back and forth on chords built up from those two important notes in the melody, C and G (I-v-I-v-I-V), making it seem as if the harmony is not moving forward but rather sitting still. However, the addition of chromatic tones (in the Gm11 and the Bb-Ab-Bb chords) that use the black keys on the piano makes that simple chord progression sound colorful. This combination of a stable harmony that sits still while at the same time constantly changing its color is an important aspect of JW’s music.
3. Rhythmically, the melody uses very simple rhythms throughout the melody, but the grouping is more complex that we might first imagine. Looking at the music above, the theme is visually segmented into eight measures of equal length…which makes sense, because most music that we listen to tends to be broken up into segments of two, four, and eight. However, music can look one way on the page and yet sound differently when we hear it…and in this case, I feel that JW wrote a theme that SOUNDS like it is actually broken into unequal lengths! In the score below, I’ve re-written the theme in a way that I think many listeners would hear the theme, with the triplets in the melody acting as pick-up figures. Written out like this, it’s interesting to see that JW actually groups the melody in uneven segments of 5-4-4-3 rather than 4-4-4-4…he could have easily made it even, but he intentionally chose to throw it off (again, simple vs. complex).

[UPDATE: It has been pointed out that some folks hear the triplets not as pick-ups but as strong beats; the fact that they are indeed on the written downbeat lends much credence to this, but it also points out the complexity of what John Williams has done with his theme. By simply making the first G in the example above twice as long as the other two G’s and shifting where the strong beats occur within the melody, Williams has created a musical statement that can be interpreted correctly in more than one way…this complexity is, unfortunately, not to be found in the following Giacchino example.]

Alright, now to discuss the theme that’s bugged me ever since I first heard it: the melody that plays just at the spot where the ROGUE ONE title card bursts into view. Obviously I can’t show you the music in the context of the film, but the YouTube clip below has the theme in it at 3:37…feel free to listen to the entire clip or skip ahead to about 10 seconds before 3:37:

 

As soon as I heard this theme. I was immediately pulled out of the film…I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it felt that we had jumped into another movie for ten seconds!

So I listened to the score soundtrack this morning and wrote out in a rough format what MG had written in that spot:

Comparing it to the “what it sounds like” version of the JW theme above, you can see the following:

1. There are less notes…half as many, in fact (16 in the JW melody, 8 in the MG melody);
2. The music is segmented simply in a group of 4 even-length measures;
3. You can sing the words “Rogue One…it’s a Star Wars Sto-reeeeeeee!” to this theme.
4. The MG melody starts exactly the same way as the JW melody…it might be related (more on that soon!);
5. The JW melody I wrote out is only the first chunk of a much longer melody, much like a musical paragraph. MG’s theme, on the other hand, is only what I’ve written (we hear a longer version hinted at in the score but under dialogue and therefore we shouldn’t be listening to it) (more on this soon too!)
6. Finally, the harmony. I-V-vi-IV. When I wrote out the chord progression for MG’s theme…I froze. I know that progression. I’ve heard that progression. YOU’VE heard that progression…so…many…times. Don’t believe me? I shall let The Axis of Awesome prove it:

[UPDATE: Jim Buhler just reminded me of the other aspect of this passage that is so jarring - the music that happens before the theme is a perfect 4th below and in a minor key, so to our ears it sounds REALLY HAPPY to go from either a v-I or a i-IV in a not-so-awesome way.]

Please note - no color tones, no chromatic flavorings, no black keys in sight. Just I-V-vi-IV. The more I think about it, I think that the melody (that puts a lot of emphasis on E, a note/chord tone that does not have much importance in the JW theme) over top of the same chord changes that you’d find in a Taylor Swift tune is what wrenched me out of the Star Wars universe and into a much more mundane, banal science fiction musical environment for about 10 seconds.

WHY…WHY DID YOU DO IT, MICHAEL? (SPOILER: IT WAS KATHLEEN KENNEDY’S FAULT…AND THE RESHOOTS…AND ALEXANDRE DESPLAT…AND BASIC COMPOSITIONAL CRAFT…)

First, I place the fault of not only the opening title theme but most of the issues with the score not at the feet of Michael Giacchino but at the feet of the film’s producer, Kathleen Kennedy, and for one very specific reason: NO TEXT CRAWL! Everyone and their sister has been bitching about the lack of the crawl because without it, the plot has the potential to be super-confusing for those not knowing the backstory of the Star Wars universe. What they’ve forgotten is by eschewing the crawl, the producers have also gotten rid of what was basically the “overture” to the movie! By having a huge chunk of time with nothing to line up to in A New Hope, John Williams got the chance to give us fully-formed mature musical melodies and introduce many of the motives that would come back in the film - priming our ears for what’s to come, so by the time we hear it again, we recognize it. This is why when people left Star Wars the first time, they were humming the melodies…because they had been exposed in the crawl and repeated enough in the film so that they became earworms of the best kind!

Now in Rogue One, we only have the title card splashing up on screen for about 10 seconds, so that’s all that MG had to work with. Musically, the material doesn’t make much sense because, to be honest, the placement of the title card doesn’t make much sense and MG had to tailor his score to the film he had in front of him.

Second, please remember what I said - MG only had FOUR WEEKS to write what could be described as the most challenging scoring gig ever. The fact that there’s only a four-measure phrase that makes me go “WTF?” is not bad considering everything else more or less stays within the JW musical lexicon. I still have no idea why Desplat jumped ship, but it very well could have been because there were massive reshoots over the summer that pushed back the amount of time the composer would have to write the score and that could have pushed Desplat into the time that he was supposed to be writing another score…or he didn’t want to risk his reputation taking on an extremely high-profile project with a less-than-optimum timeframe. Who knows, but both the reshoots and Desplat’s departure made it so that Giacchino did not have a lot of time to mull over each and every musical decision he had to make…sometimes you have to just pull the trigger and hope everything turns out okay.

[TECHNICAL STUFF ALERT!!!] Finally, I look at the two melodies together and I get the sense that MG decided to build his new theme out of JW’s main theme - which makes sense! Take the building blocks, re-arrange them a bit, and create something new that is related to the original…I would have done the same thing.

Below is both melodies that have been written in a way so that you can compare the two “side-by-side”-ish. Here’s what may have gone on inside the creative mind of Michael Giacchino:

1. Gotta keep the first two notes - that perfect fifth is iconic and underlies the heroic nature of the main characters!
2. The next three notes - can’t go down by step or else it will sound too much like JW, so we’ll pull out our compositional craft and use a technique called “retrograde” which lets me re-order those three notes backwards…
3. The “high” C (3rd space up) is an important note and was used a lot in the JW theme, but we can’t just jump up there from the fifth note (a 1st-space F) because of some technical music theory that makes a leap in the same direction after two steps in the same direction sound lame, so the best choice is to save the higher C till the end…
4. The now-retrograded D-E-F bit in the middle…our ear really wants the F to go back to E, but we also want this to sound different than JW, so let’s add an extra note (D) before it…
5. Finally, the harmonies he chose are the most simple and clear-cut…they follow the melody super-clearly and it’s almost impossible for us to hear the tune without hearing the harmonic progression he chose.

The issue here is that JW’s theme sets a trap for anyone trying to reconfigure it as MG has…if you don’t care whether or not people can recognize it, then it’d be easy to develop it into something else, but MG’s task here was to create a new melody out of the old melody as well as sound both uniquely fresh and organically linked to the vast musical world that JW had already created. To this end, JW’s melody – because of both the intervals he chose and the simple-yet-complex harmony he enveloped it in – is surprisingly difficult to re-work into something that sounds new-yet-related.

If MG had time to consider his options, he may have decided that coming up with a new theme out of whole cloth might have been a better solution rather than try to make something out of JW’s original theme…but he had no time, so this is what came out and this is what he used.

Final Thoughts

Why is any of this important? From a compositional viewpoint, it’s fascinating to see what a composer with the skills of John Williams has done over the course of almost 40 years writing in the same musical universe - there are VERY few examples in film music and concert music that one could find a similar situation. At the same time, now you have other composers (Kevin Kiner with the animated series Clone Wars and Rebels as well as Giacchino) who are trying their hand at writing their own music within the language that Williams set up back in the 70s…all because George Lucas wanted to use pre-existing concert works like Stanley Kubrick had done and Williams suggested a score with ties to 19th century opera and early film scores by Erich Korngold and Max Steiner would be more appropriate.

From a filmic viewpoint, it does point out the double-edged sword that comes with a film score that is both successful and is based on the “leitmotif” concept; the sustainability for such a score concept is going to be challenging the more films that get added to the series (we’ve already seen this with Harry Potter, while most of the Marvel super hero films tend not to have themes attached to characters because of the sustainability factor as well as the financial requirements of using a previous composer’s musical ideas).

Ultimately, Rogue One is an “awesometacular” film that has so much goodness in it that I wasn’t sure how much nit-picking to do…but hopefully this exploration into a small chunk of the score has been as interesting for you as it has been for me!

Some interesting comments on that write-up:

And yeah, that Rogue motive was rather weak, and don't you think the build up to that moment, starting at 3:25... it's his Star Trek opening in reverse.
Listen from 1:30:
https://youtu.be/QxbJJ995Vjo
That quasi-unresolved suspension, at the end of the Rogue title motive is George Kirk's death! :/ Totally pulled me out of the film!

Thanks, Michael! I just added an update that a former teacher reminded me of…the music that happens on the title card is so shocking because it's preceded by a minor passage a P4 below, so it sounds either like a i-IV or a v-I…either one of which are SUPER SUGARY SWEET  And YES, the last chord in the RO theme is straight out of Star Trek!

Joe Kraemer Four weeks is no excuse. JW did ESB with 1 orchestrator and no assistants in 6 weeks

Joe Kraemer I'd imagine R1 was temped with both JW Star Wars music and other MG scores by music editor and/or picture editor before MG started writing. So he would've had a lot of the decisions made for him already....

Joe Kraemer And I'm telling you, there was no time crunch  Four weeks is plenty of time!

Thanks - I may be trying to give MG the benefit of the doubt more than I should…

Quick Takes on Rogue One: Leitmotivic Use vs. Mention

 

By Frank Lehman

When approaching franchises that boast networks of leitmotifs, I find it helpful to bring in the use/mention distinction from the philosophy of language. In everyday speech, the distinction is fairly straightforward, exemplified in the difference between the two statements:

 

1. Leitmotiv enjoyed a resurgence in American film music following Star Wars.
2. "Leitmotiv" is a German word that traces back to the 1860s (Gray 1996).

While the first sentence uses the word "leitmotiv" to say something about film scoring practice, the second sentence mentions the word in a more abstract way; it points to itself. Mention, unlike use, draws attention to a signifier as such, its status as an utterance or element of a discourse. Can music do the same thing? Is there a difference between the following pair of melodies?

 

3. G-G-G-E♭-B♭-G-E♭-B♭-G
4. " G-G-G-E♭-B♭-G-E♭-B♭-G "

Musical themes are, of course, not words, despite having word-like qualities (London 2000). The use/mention distinction is best applied as an informal heuristic rather than part of a rigorous theory of leitmotivic semiosis. Nevertheless, I believe it can get at that sense in which themes are sometimes deployed "in quotation marks," so to speak. This is opposed to Wagnerian musical prose in its ideal form, in which continuously varied and transforming motives constitute—and in a sense motivate—the entire musical fabric. 

Neither paradigm is intrinsically worthier than the other, though critics of leitmotif have tended to treat the propensity for "mere" mention as an aesthetic shortcoming, musical signposting of the crudest sort. But this overlooks the delights and complexities inherent in quotation. After all, a certain stripe of fan loves mentions, regardless of their tendency to breach cinematic immersion. Indeed, self-reflexivity has become an increasingly important aspect of modern media. Attentive filmgoers relish picking out in-jokes and callbacks, even (especially!) when not justified on storytelling grounds.

Rogue One has more than its share of obscure references, and Michael Giacchino has elsewhere proven himself a the lover of compositional Easter Eggs (Godsall 2014), populating his scores with little nods to his own work or that of others. Film music is, of course, an extravagantly citational art-form, the original Star Wars: Episode IV score being a particularly famous example of this. As a skillful pasticheur, Giacchino captures the sound of Williams' musical heptalogy through, among other means, layered intertextual allusions. Note, for instance, the richly scored sonorities when the heroes first arrive at Yavin 4—this is a reference to Williams's earlier Episode IV references to William Walton's yet earlier references to Elgar's nobilmente style. And down it goes.

The more internal history a franchise has, the deeper the well of leitmotifs it can draw from, the greater the temptation towards a mention-paradigm. But while there are a few instances of leitmotifs behaving in an entirely citational way in the Williams-scored episodes, most exist somewhere between musically-driven use and more allusive or memory-justified mentions.

Giacchino, I believe, continues this balancing act. His new themes are well-developed, and rarely deployed in an excessively literal-minded way. Jynn's motif, in particular, is applied in a semantically loose fashion, acting more as an all-purpose "mythic" theme than a sonic calling-card for Felicity Jones. Giacchino's original themes are also capable of referring to earlier ideas, but do so indirectly, by working in small elements of familiar leitmotifs: a characteristic rhythm or interval here, a suggestive chord progression there. Family resemblances like these allow the leitmotifs for Krennic and Chirrut, for instance, to sound of a piece with Williams's originals—more remix than regurgitation.

This is not to say Giacchino does not include some requisite iterations of established tunes—the Rebel, Death Star, and Imperial motifs from Episode IV are all well if sparingly represented. On the other hand, the Imperial March cannot help but sound citational, rather than musically integral. I believe this owes to four factors: 1) the theme's fame and iconicity; 2) its rarity (and thus markedness) in Rogue One; 3) its participation in a pair of narratively shoe-horned-in scenes; and 4) its treatment as a character leitmotif, rather than the more denotatively flexible way it had been treated in the prequels. The Imperial March is musical fan-service, its appearances surrounded by glowing red quotation marks.[1]

One of the most effective moments in Giacchino’s score involves a shift from use to mention. The Rebels are preparing an offensive, to the accompaniment of a contrapuntal mélange of the Force Theme and a new march melody. This march is itself thick in allusions, tipping its hat to Giacchino's military style in mood, William's neo-Baroque style in texture, and several earlier Star Wars motifs in melodic detail. Despite its allusive density, the music does not draw attention to these citations, chugging along of its own accord, contributing to mood without screaming "reference!" This changes the second Bail Organa elliptically refers to someone he trusts. The score suddenly opens up with an expansive (though extremely truncated) variant of Princess Leia's theme. The moment is a big neon sign saying "pay attention, this is Leia!." For listeners familiar with the Star Wars motivic lexicon, the intended referent of that musical mention will be clear—and, with Carrie Fisher's recent passing, especially poignant.

 

 

---

[1] It's not all so on-the-nose. Giacchino smartly reduces the Imperial March down to its harmonic skeleton for the choral version that appears when Vader cuts down the Rebels. Because of this act of compositional deconstruction, the sequence's score falls more on the side of use than mention.

- http://musicologynow.ams-net.org/2017/01/quick-takes-on-rogue-one-leitmotivic.html

[Luke Skywalker 1,792]

6 hours ago, crocodile said:

It's all Dies Irae anyway.

 

Karol

Isnt  that (the dies irae) the Fury main theme or the rivendell arpeggios?

 

The jurassic park segment in to note by note like those...

 

 

[karelm 2,903]

4 hours ago, Luke Skywalker said:

Isnt  that (the dies irae) the Fury main theme or the rivendell arpeggios?

 

The jurassic park segment in to note by note like those...

 

 

Dies Irae shows up all over the place.  Here are a few big examples:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DominicCobb 194]

On January 9, 2017 at 5:26 PM, Jay said:

...

6 AOTCS

...

 

Attack of the Crystal Skull?

 

.

 

Is it just me or does the melody that plays throughout this track (first instance at :08)

 

 

reminiscent of "Into the Trap"?

[steb74 53]

Yeah, there's some melodic and rhythmical bobbing and weaving that sounds reminiscent but not as blatant as The Radar Train.

[Luke Skywalker 1,792]

5 hours ago, steb74 said:

Yeah, there's some melodic and rhythmical bobbing and weaving that sounds reminiscent but not as blatant as The Radar Train.

I dont hear any blatant connection between the radar train and Into the trap, really...

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Manuel. Everything is connected!

[Luke Skywalker 1,792]

ah

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Illuminati man!

[Will 2,215]

19 hours ago, DominicCobb said:

 

Attack of the Crystal Skull?

 

[igger6 894]

Just discovered these half-written thoughts on the score that I meant to post before Christmas. I stand behind everything, except to add that I've seen the movie again and listened to the score a ton, and I mostly applaud Gia's work now, especially given the time constraints. It sounds VERY Star Wars. 

--------------

I saw the film Thursday night and listened to the OST yesterday and today. I loved most of the movie (especially the last act) but thought the score was a letdown. I could hardly distinguish the themes from one another and still can't hum any of them. There were isolated moments of triumphant Star Ward sound, but more often the melodies seemed to crinkle at the ends like paper jammed in a copy machine. I think my exact words in the theater were, "It sounds like John Williams with ADD on laughing gas." Kudos to whoever just pointed out the tendency to repeat the hook of a theme with one altered note and call it a day. 

 

I grinned and then immediately grimaced when I heard the Hope theme over the title card, but I love it every time it comes up on the album. I think we'd all be praising it if it didn't appear there and were just a cheery optimistic motif derived from Luke's theme. But in that spot in a SW film, you could put the most incredible melody on earth and it still wouldn't feel right. It's as if they vacillated between having a crawl and not having one and decided at the eleventh hour to awkwardly split the difference.  

 

I absolutely agree that the OT themes were mostly well-used but criminally underused. When the Yavin IV base appeared to the strains of the Hope theme, it felt unearned and wrong, as someone pointed out about the new Imperial music as well.  

------------

P.S. Is that an early hint of the Episode IV Imperial motif at 1:29 in this track?

 

 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I agree. Gia generally does nail the Star Wars sound rather well. 

[Quintus 5,399]

No mean feat? 

[Luke Skywalker 1,792]

1 hour ago, Stefancos said:

I agree. Gia generally does nail the Star Wars sound rather well. 

 

Humour, it is a difficult concept?

 

You lost me there...

[Quintus 5,399]

Are you denying the pastiche for the most part exists?