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


mrbellamy

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It sounds more like the author is just saying that he's the next logical person to succeed John Williams in the Star Wars franchise or to take up that type of mantle, and not really saying that he's become John Williams in any musical sense.

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It would actually make sense for them to continue with a single composer since right now the Star Wars musical sound is just completely John Williams.

 

But they are gonna be cranking these out, so I don't think Gia would even be interested in doing every single one.

 

Star Wars needs a Dennis McCarthy, really! ;)

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9 minutes ago, nightscape94 said:

It sounds more like the author is just saying that he's the next logical person to succeed John Williams in the Star Wars franchise or to take up that type of mantle, and not really saying that he's become John Williams in any musical sense.

 

But is he really the "next logical person"? What's logical about it?

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2 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

I'm not your son!

 

Rogue One felt more than Star Wars than his Trek scores felt like Star Trek, lemme put it that way.

 

True, son.

 

1 minute ago, nightscape94 said:

The only real offense that the Rogue One score was guilty of was being unmemorable.

 

True.

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His Rogue One score is memorable. I can easily hum all his new themes without a seconds thought. And although the usual film goer talking about film music is painful to read, by the looks of the Rogue One score's comment sections on youtube, a hell of a lot of people really love his Rogue One score and say how they adore certain themes and that they are stuck in their heads. That qualifies as memorable. 

 

Giacchino has written many memorable themes for many films. And I wouldn't be surprised if some have entered the general public's consciousness on a level of instant recognisability.

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I don't find Rogue One memorable either.

 

I'm someone who has loved dozens of Giacchino's scores, have various melodies from his body of work running through my head constantly... but if someone asked me to hum Jyn Erso's Theme, the new good guy theme, or either of the bad guy themes right now, I couldn't do it.  I could hum the Doctor Strange theme though, and that's another score I basically didn't like exactly the same amount as Rogue One.  Though that's probably because the main theme is used over and over in that score

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If a random person was played the 3 notes of Signs, they wouldn't recognise it, but if they were played the two notes of Jaws, they instantly would. That is because the Jaws film was a sensation, not solely because of the quality. I believe Signs to be of equal quality to Jaws musically. 

 

Williams' memorability is 90% due to the films memorability. No one in the general public remembers Jane Eyre or Memoirs of a Geisha. No one in the general public could recognise anything he did before Jaws, because Jaws was his first blockbuster. 

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I saw Rogue One seven times in the cinema and listened to the OST dozens of times.

 

I've been away from it since January and I can't recall much of the music TBH.

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21 hours ago, Stefancos said:

 

Seven times? It's an OK movie, but it's no Skyfall.

 

Theyr'e both better than TFA which I saw 11 times but shur what can you do.

 

Rogue One was so low in comparison because I got sick around Xmas and my dog died Xmas day. I saw it for the final time just hours after Carrie died and decided I probably needed a little Star Wars break. 

 

I'm looking forward to seeing it when I comes out on BluRay though!

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So I came across this video on my YouTube feed:

 

Immediately I was struck by what appears to be unused or alternate Rogue One music interspersed with the footage of Vader slaughtering the Rebels. I'm not sure if its from a music library but it sounds very dramatic and very classic Star Wars with that Hollywood dramatic kind of feel. You'll notice that the cue restarts at certain points and so the short length adds further credibility to it being originally written for the Vader scene.

 

What does everybody think? Is this a piece that you've heard before or could this actually be from Rogue One. Either way I really like it and would love to hear the full thing.

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I started off with a pretty pessimistic attitude toward Giacchino's Rogue One, but it grew on me.  Honestly, I've hardly stopped listening since December, although I only listen to about half of the tracks on the album nowadays.  It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize the choral first half of "Hope" is Vader's theme. I really like the new Imperial theme (which probably should've been called Krennic's Theme to separate it from the Imperial March); Jyn's theme is short and sweet but too repetitive and the suite version is not great (ugh, those blaring trumpets...); the Guardian of the Whills suite is one of my favorites.  I'm particularly looking forward to the film's bluray release next week to listen to the full end credits again, although I seem to remember the original Williams material sounding less than decent.  Overall, I quite like it now.

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Watched the film again and liking the score more each time. This time around I picked up on some good unreleased stuff, namely an action version of the Whills theme (when Chirrut first kicks stormtrooper ass), and some more bits from the final battle (including another Rebel fanfare appearance, though it sounds like that could have been tracked).

 

Editing seems pretty minimal from what I can tell so far. I did notice a cut during the "Jedha City Ambush" scene, and I have a feeling some of "AT-ACT Assault" was rearranged because the "Battle of in the Snow" reference happens when K-2 is doing things unrelated to the AT-ACTs, which sort of negates the purpose of the reference. I'm sure there's plenty other things too I haven't noticed yet.

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I watched the film for a second time last night and was inspired to give another full listen to the score this afternoon. 

 

I noticed some really cool things! I'm not sure if others have noticed them but I can't remember it being mentioned in any case.

 

The main thing is that it seems to me that Dies Irae is used way more in this score than I'd thought. Obviously, as David W. Collins spoke about on Oxygen, Jyn's theme sounds like it's derived from that, but it seems to be used even more (I'd really only noticed the usage at the beginning of "The Master Switch" besides that). 

 

For example:

 

 

Somehow I feel like this is intentional, because it occurs right as Cassian is going over his plan in the ship on Eadu -- keeping secret the fact that he's planning to kill Galen (and Chirrut and Baze seem to sense this, and look at one another; we learn a scene later that Chirrut sees the Force move darkly around Cassian). Also, it's very interesting how the orchestration includes sort of church bell-like sounds.

 

And then perhaps the biggest example is this, which somehow I hadn't noticed!

 

 

I mean ... wow. It's right there, a long time at the beginning, as various Rebel leaders profess that the Alliance is dead and has no chance at victory, before Jyn's hopeful speech. Very interestingly, this is the first of at least two times in the film in which Dies Irae transitions to the Hope theme, the other being here in "The Master Switch - where, actually, we transition back to Dies Irae after the Hope theme statement (the context here is that we have Dies Irae and Jyn and Cassain climb for the plans and we see Krennic walking down the hallway towards them; then Hope theme as Jyn grabs the plans, and Dies Irae again as Krennic arrives and shoots at the them). This perhaps indicates that Giacchino viewed Dies Irae as a kind of fateful, pessimistic counterpart to his optimistic Hope theme. It could all be coincidental of course, you never know, but in any case it seems to be a major thing in this score. (Collins said in his podcast that he told Gia how much he liked the Dies Irae integration and apparently Gia just grinned, so take from that what you will.)

 

Much more likely to be coincidental, but still cool, is this Dvorak "New World Symphony" final movement main theme statement during the escape from Jedha:

 

 

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Glad to hear that some people are coming around on the score. It definitely feels like the most cohesive Giacchino score at least to me, although I will admit I'm not familiar with a lot of his work.

 

However, I would like to know what everybody thinks about the possible unreleased music I posted above because its been driving me crazy. It does sound like it could be apart of Rogue One but it also feels kind of classically dramatic like something that would be written from the same influences as John William's first Star Wars score.

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I wouldn't call it entirely unified either. There is some pure Giacchino, for better or worse, and there is some Giacchino doing Williams, for better or worse. I rather like the score because in its good moments it is quite fun (in the last act especially).

 

 

I really like this cue. Sadly, it's nowhere to be found on the OST.

 

Karol

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Yeah, I've been loving Project Stardust recently too

 

I've listened to Rogue One a lot recently too, and it has grown on me, though not to any great extent, so it's still a low 4* score for me. Although, there are some great moments sprinkled throughout, mainly skewed towards the final act.

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So how do people rate Rogue One's interpretation of Luke's Theme/End Credits?

 

I found it really jarring when I saw the film in cinemas, but on my third listen it's not that bad. I think Giacchino's harsh recording style just throws me right off, and it's a thoroughly awkward transition from the finale cue.

 

Not sure why they went to such lengths to avoid Main Title for the film's opening title (with awful results) yet happily used a carbon copy of ANH for the end credits. :sarcasm:

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