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THE LAST JEDI - OST Album MUSIC Discussion (No Movie Spoilers)


Jay

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6 hours ago, Docteur Qui said:

 

I wouldn't be surprised if JW ends Episode IX with The Throne Room. 

 

In a stirring, harmonically rich coda that brings waves of closure and nostalgia.

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If ever there was an episode that shouldn’t be entirely new, it’s the last one. You want it to be the culmination of all of the episodes that have come before it.

 

But now with no Han, Leia or Luke (at least, not physically) it’s off to a rocky start.

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I was surprised he didn't say "The Emperor" as everybody called him in the OT.

 

Even moreso considering Darth Sidious just felt like a false identity, back in TPM when George was acting like maaaaaaybe they weren't the same person.

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  • 3 weeks later...

@publicist Did you order TLJ with Amazon.de? If yes, is it the original cover or the ugly German cover, found in several stores, which says "Die letzten Jedi"? I would really like to have the original english ambiguous cover.

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I'll buy that new Star Wars 8 release for my collection (got all the others including Rogue One) even though I almost never buy vinyls, especially in case of soundtracks.

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6 minutes ago, Margo Channing said:

Anyone else seen that big Harry Potter LP boxset? Fuck who'd buy that?

 

Little off topic there haha, but isn’t it only 1-5 anyway?

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I need to pick up this one, and TFA. It's times like this that I wish they had some nice Struzan-type artwork on the cover.

 

Speaking of which, I'd buy an LP release of HPSS in a heartbeat... if I didn't also have to buy HPGOF to get it  >_<

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 4/8/2018 at 2:11 AM, John said:

It also appears in "The Battle of Crait". I'm leaning towards it being a new heroic/Resistance motif... or maybe even a new motif for Poe?

 

It's just a recurring motif JW used in action sequences, it doesn't really have any attachment. No characters are explicitly shown on-screen whenever it's heard, just big guns and spaceships.

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Reflecting on this score a bit, it's quite novel how the big new concert piece is a mash up of two thematic ideas from the score. I think it's a first for SW and pretty rare for JW in general.

 

On the other hand, it's pretty disappointing that TLJ didn't yield several big new themes with their own concert arrangements. ESB gave us the Imperial March, Yoda's Theme, and Han and the Princess. 

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It only has three new leitmotives overall, compared to twice as many in Empire Strikes Back, so its only natural.

 

I actually like that the concert piece meshes the two themes together. Its like one concise presentation of the entire score.

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Compared to the bounty of new themes/motifs JW wrote for TFA, I have to think TLJ as a film just didn't present many opportunities for new musical ideas. Rose's Theme makes sense as a new character theme but it is kind of telling that the other major new theme, Luke's Island Life, only appears in the first 3rd of the film and never again until the end credits. 

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29 minutes ago, artguy360 said:

it is kind of telling that the other major new theme, Luke's Island Life, only appears in the first 3rd of the film and never again until the end credits. 

 

Is it?! I gotta give the isolated score a listen. If its true, its a crying shame!

 

The Rebel Desperation motif is also kind of setpiece oriented. I think there's a kind of embryonic form of it embedded into the earlier action material, but the definitive form of the leitmotif doesn't really materialize until the false third act, and than devolves back into the embryonic form for the actual third act.

 

Even Rose's theme, while it is certainly well-fleshed out, doesn't define the entire film in the way that, say, Rey's theme defines The Force Awakens.

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3 hours ago, crumbs said:

Newsflash, people. John Williams doesn't need to be writing variations on leitmotifs to be writing excellent Star Wars music. The Last Jedi is filled with cue after cue of superb non-thematic writing that's just as affecting as his thematic writing. The closest comparison is probably Revenge of the Sith, similarly filled with lots of memorable cues with no regard for existing leitmotif.

 

I do find enjoyment in the structure of Williams Star Wars scores, and I do think of them as leitmotivic pieces. But than, I'm a strong believer in leitmotivic scores in general. As you say, to each his own.

 

I don't think the comparison to Revenge of the Sith is apt. That score had plenty of leitmotives, and they were spread throughout quite nicely. While Battle of the Heroes appears late in the game, to my mind the theme that defines the score is the lament for Anakin. Yes, it doesn't materialize until the midpoint, but its constructed such that it grows out of the B-phrase of "Across the Stars", which is quoted a couple of times in the first half, so it carries the associative power of that theme with it, and is - to my mind - one of the most moving themes Williams has ever written for the series.

 

Also, the grievous material is very dominant in the first half of the score and is, I believe, infrequently applied to Anakin in the later half. There are also recurring brass fanfares for Mustafar, if I recall correctly, and two pieces of music that return after a single statement in The Phantom Menace: The Curoscant fanfare, and the Funeral theme. They're only themes once they are restated, and that's what happens here. While the latter is also late to appear in the picture, it is forshadowed quite early down the line: Anakin's Betrayal has a snippet of it.

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Has anyone commented on the version of the Rey’s Theme bell chords at the very end of TLJ’s Finale? It sounds like a different key or a new harmony or something compared to TFA, but I lack the musical erudition to assign any significance to it. Is it just a neat variation, or does this connect to anything else in the score?

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It’s just the introduction figure to her theme proper. It occurs two or more times in the score, I believe: once before she starts training with her lightsaber, the other as the Falcon flies across the Crait landscape.

 

It has no narrative meaning on its own. It’s part of the unabridged theme, and can be used on its own as a shorthand for the entire piece. Has Williams ever even indicated that he wrote more than one theme for Rey? It just isn't how he works, typically.

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11 hours ago, igger6 said:

Has anyone commented on the version of the Rey’s Theme bell chords at the very end of TLJ’s Finale? It sounds like a different key or a new harmony or something compared to TFA, but I lack the musical erudition to assign any significance to it. Is it just a neat variation, or does this connect to anything else in the score?

 

Like Chen G. said, it's just a part of her theme. But you're exactly right that the harmony is different in this statement, which lends it that slightly more hopeful sound.

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To me it sounds intentionally unresolved, like that rendition of Rey's theme is leaning forward a bit, telling us that her story is still unfinished. That's how it sounds to me anyways.

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Was listening to The Lost World and I couldn’t help noticing similarities between the theme at around 2.28 and 3.05 in Visitor in San Diego and the new brass fanfare theme for The Resistance. Actually there are many parts of cue that remind me of the opening escape cue from TLJ and a lot of the other action material with regards to the orchestrations and lines of writing (2.42-2.50, 3.31-4.04, 4.22-4.38, 5.30-5.55)

 

 

I’m so glad JW returned to this writing style for TLJ.

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  • 5 months later...

I broke my streak of not really listening to soundtracks to listen to this OST this morning.

 

Anyone else prefer the album edit of “The Last Jedi” to the iso score rip I know we all have?  I don’t mean the badass Rey’s theme when the Falcon is searching but in terms of what happens after where the OST track starts.  Cutting back to the Leia and the gang finding a way out music kills the drama for me.

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We have too many choices for the last two Star Wars, personnaly, I don't listen them too much, I never know which version to listen.

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5 minutes ago, Bespin said:

We have too many choices for the last two Star Wars, personnaly, I don't listen them too much, I never know which version to listen.

 

Just listen to the OST.  That’s still my main way to revisit this score.

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2 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

 

Just listen to the OST.  That’s still my main way to revisit this score.

 

We have to stick to the @Thor way, I know. 🙄

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I listen to highlights from the iso score every now and then, but my POV is that I have years and years (I don’t plan on dying soon!) to live with this score and there’s no rush.  Stick with Johnny’s presentation, the movie’s not even a year old.

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I don't mind a lot of JW's OST edits for TLJ. There's actually a shitload of microedits in almost every track (which you only start noticing once editing the OST with the iso) but once you get used to some of the expanded tracks it's very hard to go back (The Last Jedi being a great example, because of that gorgeous rendition of Rey's Theme).

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1 hour ago, crumbs said:

The Last Jedi being a great example, because of that gorgeous rendition of Rey's Theme).

 

Yeah I know that technically counts.  I did specifically say in terms of what comes after the OST track starts

 

I haven’t actually listened to the iso track in months.... hope I’m not misremembering....

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5 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

So you don’t prefer the album edit of “The Las Jedi.”  Anyone agree with me?

 

In general, Williams' surgeries for these last two albums have been absolutely ace. If there's the album vs complete score version of the same track, I choose the OST counterpart every time.

5 hours ago, crumbs said:

I think the best listening experience of TLJ's score is the OST + about 25 minutes of highlights from the isolated score.

 

Sounds like a winning recipe to me! I'm hoping that when these scores get released complete someday, they'll have a more album style presentation rather than an assembly line of complete cues, 'cause damn this score has a lot of mood killers that Williams expertly snipped out for the OST.

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21 minutes ago, Nick Parker said:

 

In general, Williams' surgeries for these last two albums have been absolutely ace. If there's the album vs complete score version of the same track, I choose the OST counterpart every time.

 

I agree much of the time. There are some cues that can only be fully reconstructed if you have both the OST and the FYC that I like best in complete form however. "I Can Fly Anything" being a prime example.

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Otherwise agreed with Nick, but I recall finding the edit on "The Ways of the Force" to be unfortunate. 

I don't remember what it was though, something like Rey's theme being replaced with the force theme? 

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On ‎10‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 9:06 AM, Bespin said:

We have too many choices for the last two Star Wars, personnaly, I don't listen them too much, I never know which version to listen.

I can hardly pick a score to listen to let alone what version. I have an OST, FYC, Chrono Edit. I wish Disney would release some CR's just for my listening ease.

 

My biggest problem is the Main Titles. I cannot for the life of me find the opening track I want- one with the Main Title and complete Escape film version.

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