The Last Jedi THE LAST JEDI - Score as heard in the movie thread - SPOILERS ALLOWED

[Nick Parker 3,040]

Oh, so you'll write that off as coincidence, but still insist on the whole Battle of Heroes thing?

[Brundlefly 2,385]

This instance here does not offer any opportunity to bash the score.

[King Mark 3,631]

2 hours ago, Nick Parker said:

Oh, so you'll write that off as coincidence, but still insist on the whole Battle of Heroes thing?

 I don't really hear the Battle of the  Heroes thing

 

the worse rippoff was in TFA with the Talk of Podracing copy. nothing as bad in TLJ

 

 

[Chen G. 3,949]

7 hours ago, Nick Parker said:

Oh, so you'll write that off as coincidence, but still insist on the whole Battle of Heroes thing?

 

It’s a coincidence, too. You think Williams was trying to quote Battle of the Heroes? For what?

 

And I’m not using either to critique the score. It’s the sort of thing that tends to happen in these sorts of long pieces.

[pete 907]

On 3/16/2018 at 8:37 AM, Manakin Skywalker said:

I went through all of the documentaries yesterday. Not one of them contains even a single cue from this film, or any other SW film. It's all original music. 

 

Composer Christopher Gordon on Facebook last week:

 

“Finally made it into the Star Wars universe! It was exciting to conduct Antony Partos’s wonderful score for this documentary about the making of Star Wars: The Last Jedi!”

 

Refering to:

 

 

[Pieter Boelen 740]

On 23/03/2018 at 1:22 PM, pete said:

Composer Christopher Gordon on Facebook last week:

 

“Finally made it into the Star Wars universe! It was exciting to conduct Antony Partos’s wonderful score for this documentary about the making of Star Wars: The Last Jedi!”

Awesome! Now sign him up to write the music for some of those new movies!!!

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

He has fallen low!

[Pieter Boelen 740]

1 hour ago, Stefancos said:

He has fallen low!

Or... He got a foot between the door at Lucasfilm, eventually leading to bigger and better things!

[Will 2,215]

Just belatedly saw the above news that the docs have no Williams alternates. Really stinks!  TFA's BR was an utter goldmine - it was like I totally rediscovered the score. 

[Holko 9,526]

These just have bland pieces of nothing over pointless slow-motion cutaways that could have been replaced by much more substance. Oh well, the Collection's edition will have much more, won't it?  

[The Illustrious Jerry 3,356]

There was a behind the scenes video that came out in October and I fancied the music. I think that might have been part of this doc and therefore part of this guys compositions. I'll give him a shot for one of these however many trilogies are coming up,

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

On 3/22/2018 at 9:34 PM, King Mark said:

 I don't really hear the Battle of the  Heroes thing

 

the worse rippoff was in TFA with the Talk of Podracing copy. nothing as bad in TLJ

 

I still think that was unintentional. It's so brief, it's like one of those things he just unwittingly did similarly.

 

The direct quote of The Emperor in TLJ was bad. It's also brief but I found it very annoying that Palpatine's theme was associated with Shnoke.

[King Mark 3,631]

well it was a bad idea but musically it a great rendition of the Emperor's Theme

[artguy360 1,843]

Does a clean version of Lesson Three exist anywhere?

[King Mark 3,631]

if it's music exclusive to the deleted scenes no

[aviazn 273]

Coincidence or not, the connection is there! Just because Williams didn't intend for it to happen doesn't stop it from deepening the links between the scores. I think of it like the connection between Rey's theme and the Force theme, which Williams seems to have realized only after he wrote it.

 

Here's another one along the same vein: Whether intended or not, the desperation/Holdo theme is a variation of The Jedi Steps. You can hear a stripped-down version of the Jedi Steps melody as counterpoint in the low strings at 1:59 of Holdo's Resolve.

[Chen G. 3,949]

I’m a big proponent of authorial intent as far as classifying leitmotives and connections between them is concerned.

 

I parallel recurring musical gestures to words and sentences in a screenplay: you can have repeated words or even whole sentences that are so generic that you can’t refer to them as callbacks.

 

I’ve written Hebrew translations of all six Middle Earth films and I’ve lost count of the number of times lines like “run!”, “come on!” or “No, it is not” are uttered. Is there a deliberate callback there? Hell no. Is every time the word “lightsaber” uttered in Star Wars a callback? 

 

Rey’s connection to The Force was, I believe, pointed out by Williams several times, so there’s your authorial intent. It’s also clear from the way he often plays one after the other or in playing them in counterpoint. His end-credits suites are also great ways to declare authorial intent, because he often runs through the various leitmotives of the score, and the connections often present themselves therein:

[crumbs 14,316]

My only surprise with TLJ's score (other than there not really being a "Rey and Luke" theme) is that he didn't expand upon that idea of Rey's and the Force Theme being interpolated in counterpoint. That introduction right at the end of TFA's credits seemed like deliberate foreshadowing, but it's not really explored at all? A bit of a missed opportunity perhaps.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Howard Shore foreshadows. Williams doesn't really.

[Chen G. 3,949]

Exactly. He doesn’t approach these serialized scores as parts of a greater whole, but as interconected, but separate, pieces.

 

Otherwise, we’d have an embyronic form of Across the Stars in The Phantom Menace, which we obviously don’t have. And that’s in the prequels where Williams at least had an inkling as to the traejectory of the trilogy, at least in rudimentary terms, which he didn’t have (and couldn’t have) in either the first or the current trilogy.

[The Illustrious Jerry 3,356]

On 3/25/2018 at 7:05 PM, Philippe Roaché said:

 

I still think that was unintentional. It's so brief, it's like one of those things he just unwittingly did similarly.

 

The direct quote of The Emperor in TLJ was bad. It's also brief but I found it very annoying that Palpatine's theme was associated with Shnoke.

I think the use of Battle of the Heroes in TLJ is quite appropriate at this point. If I recall correctly it occurs in the movie when Paige just grabs that controller. I think that the sense of that is heroic enough that it can be said that this adaptation was more like a Sacrifice of the Heros. However, this would make a lot more sense if this was a constant during heroic moments. I think it's too close though for JW to have not noticed. 

 

Something I noticed about the extended score is the cue Admiral Holdo sounds just like Lord of the Rings around 30 seconds in.

Am I right?

[Balahkay 627]

So far, the ST has been consistent in regards to thematic material.  What major TFA themes has Williams abandoned?  Finn/action theme/motif?

[Pellaeon 593]

3 hours ago, crumbs said:

(other than there not really being a "Rey and Luke" theme)

 

Wouldn’t it be The Jedi Steps from TFA? When I hear that melody played first by the cello and then repeated an octave higher by the silver flute I think Luke and Rey (Rey being a female clone of Luke both in-story and dramatically—in TFA, of course, not in TLJ). Compare the parallel harmony at the beginning of “Luke and Leia”.

[aviazn 273]

7 hours ago, Chen G. said:

I’m a big proponent of authorial intent as far as classifying leitmotives and connections between them is concerned.

Sure, that's totally legit. But all great art has internal connections that emerge beyond what the author consciously intended. These connections I'm not so much interested in as leitmotives—with some sort of intended narrative function or signal to the audience—than I am as recurring sequences in the genetic material generated in the compositional process.

 

I'm not saying the appearance of a stripped-down version of the Jedi Steps in Holdo's Resolve is meant to be a leitmotivic connection—I'm just saying that a stripped-down version of the Jedi Steps melody appears in Holdo's Resolve. And that at Holdo's big moment when the Resistance escapes, Williams chooses to harmonize the desperation theme for the first time in the same way as the Jedi Steps. Whether it's a coincidence in terms of leitmotif and narrative, it's not coincidence in terms of the compositional mindset in which he's approached the ST. These intervals and chords were clearly on his mind, and that's part of how he writes music that we all recognize as Star Wars-ian. To me, it's not just the equivalent of writing dialogue like "Run!" or "lightsaber" repeatedly, it's more like the equivalent of adopting a narrative voice. If it were just gestures that could be copied and imitated, we wouldn't need Williams to write Star Wars scores.

 

Quote

Rey’s connection to The Force was, I believe, pointed out by Williams several times, so there’s your authorial intent. It’s also clear from the way he often plays one after the other or in playing them in counterpoint. His end-credits suites are also great ways to declare authorial intent, because he often runs through the various leitmotives of the score, and the connections often present themselves therein:

Williams said he didn't actually come up with the idea of counterpointing them until he actually wrote the TFA end credits suite. The line between intent and coincidence isn't always so clear…

Quote

Rey’s theme shares a chordal relationship with the Force theme, and Williams counterpoints the two during the end credits.

“The idea of bringing them together at the end came together at the end. I don’t think I ever played them actually simultaneously until then.”

 

[Manakin Skywalker 4,892]

1 hour ago, someonefun124 said:

So far, the ST has been consistent in regards to thematic material.  What major TFA themes has Williams abandoned?  Finn/action theme/motif?

The thing you mentioned I believe is actually a motif for BB-8; it appears a few times in TLJ actually, exclusively with scenes that involve BB-8.

[Balahkay 627]

2 hours ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

The thing you mentioned I believe is actually a motif for BB-8; it appears a few times in TLJ actually, exclusively with scenes that involve BB-8.

 

This?

 

[Taikomochi 1,136]

There is a similar rhythm for BB-8 heard in "Escape" in TLJ as the motif from "Follow Me" and "The Falcon."  I'm not convinced it is the same, but they are similar.

[Manakin Skywalker 4,892]

4 hours ago, someonefun124 said:

 

This?

 

Yes, although it's much more mellow in "Escape".

[Chewy 2,391]

Isn't this Finn motif?!

[Manakin Skywalker 4,892]

22 minutes ago, Chewy said:

Isn't this Finn motif?!

I never understood why people associated it with Finn. It's clearly more associated with BB-8 than anyone else.

[Chen G. 3,949]

It’s just an action ostinato. It doesn’t represent either character.

 

And I don’t recall it appearing in The Last Jedi. It’s most likely some of the new action material sounds close to it.

[Manakin Skywalker 4,892]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

It’s just an action ostinato. It doesn’t represent either character.

 

And I don’t recall it appearing in The Last Jedi. It’s most likely some of the new action material sounds close to it.

Some of the same chords do play in TLJ, however it's not as noticeable.

[Balahkay 627]

I think people are associating it with Finn because Williams said Finn had a theme?  I don't recall.  I see it more as an action motif regardless. 

 

I believe I heard something similar when BB-8 is trying to fix Poe's X-wing but not exactly the same.

[Chen G. 3,949]

While I am in favor of using authorial intent to decipher the composer’s leitmotivic construction, it’s important not to get sucked into every fleeting comment the composer makes, often quite some time removed from the time in which he composed the piece in question. Williams had previous fleeting remarks about thematic material for the Battle of Hoth, Luke’s speeder, a secondary theme for Luke, etcetra...

 

I believe that he didn’t mention a motif for Finn during the release of The Force Awakens, but he did make a fleeting mention of one regarding The Last Jedi, even though the action (or pursuit) ostinato in question isn’t really in that score.

[Taikomochi 1,136]

I believe the source of the Finn’s theme comment was from John Boyega who attended a scoring session for TFA and came out saying he had a theme. Presumably, Williams would have had to have told him that at the session, but that’s second hand, of course.

[crumbs 14,316]

Maybe Williams considers March of the Resistance partly Finn's Theme? 

[Manakin Skywalker 4,892]

Maybe he thought that John Boyega was Daisy Ridley.

[Muad'Dib 1,802]

I think that originally Finn had a theme but with the re-writes it ended up being unused.

 

No basis at all for this thought, just a made-up theory.

[crumbs 14,316]

There's unreleased variations on that action motif too. 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I really like the buildy uppy music bit where Luke walks out and faces those big Empire monster walker thingies.

[Chen G. 3,949]

Oh yeah, that’s very nice.

[John 2,032]

It's basically a heroic version of the Imperial March. Awesome piece.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

30 minutes ago, John said:

It's basically a heroic version of the Imperial March. Awesome piece.

 

Yeah I thought I was the only one thinking that.

[Holko 9,526]

Oh boy, here we go again...

Might as well go all the way down the rabbithole, did you notice the Battle of the Heroes quote?

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

No.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

No.

[Manakin Skywalker 4,892]

I don't think it was really a "quote". They probably used a small piece of BotH as a temp track, and JW just took inspiration from that. That's the most obvious conclusion.

[Chen G. 3,949]

Indeed.

 

I feel like this film was tracked with a lot of Revenge of the Sith. Before the choir kicks in when Finn is about to sacrifice himself, the strings are straight out of the immolation scene.

[crumbs 14,316]

Kylo's march into the Crait bunker was surely tracked with The Arena.

 

 

And that spectacular ending to The Last Jedi feels like it was temped with the big Mustafar fanfare that ends the second act of ROTS.

 

 

 

No exact timestamps but I think a lot of the opening battle with BB8's antics was tracked with R2D2's material in ROTS' opening space battle.

 

No complaints from me though! ROTS is easily my favourite of the three prequel scores and I'm so glad JW revisited this dark, edgier style of writing before the series was done (especially with JJ returning for IX, which will probably be far lighter in tone than the dramatic gut-punch that TLJ was). He hasn't written in this vein since 2005, when he did 3 of his 'darkest' scores to date (WOTW, Munich and ROTS) in the one year!

 

Depending on my mood, I love saccharine/cute/patriotic Williams as much as the next guy (War Horse, Lincoln, BFG, Tintin, Book Thief) but TLJ is a welcome divergence at his age.

[Chen G. 3,949]

1 hour ago, crumbs said:

the dramatic gut-punch that TLJ was

 

Did we watch the same movie?

 

And I'm not sure IX would be as light as you think it would.