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THE ADVENTURES OF HAN - 2018 John Williams theme for Solo: A Star Wars Story


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2 minutes ago, Knight of Ren said:

Should I listen to the whole album before the movie or it's better to listen to the score first in the movie and then alone?

That's a personal preference no one can make for you

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What I mean is, is it well represented in the album or it's better in the movie? For TFA and TLJ I watched the movie first and the albums were kind of a disappointment because of some of the missing music, especially with TLJ, but i did the same with Rogue One and it was more the other way around, so I don't know...

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You'd have to go ask that question over in the spoiler thread for the film, since barely anyone on this site have even seen the film yet, and the ones that have would be in that thread.


This is a thread just for Williams Adventures of Han track.  Thanks!

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Mine won't be delivered until after I see the movie, but at least for Star Wars, historically, I wait until after the movie (well, for NEW Star Wars).  Not even listening to samples, etc.

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If it helps your decision, the score is apparently very poorly mixed in the film (almost inaudible at times). So, listening in advance may aid your ability to recognize the new themes when seeing the film.

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I think I love The Adventures of Han more than the entire TLJ score! It feels like such a throwback to some of the swashbuckling action of something like Hook and has strains of the heroism of SW!

 

And I haven't even heard Powell's stuff yet!

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4 minutes ago, Arpy said:

And I haven't even heard Powell's stuff yet!

 

Believe me, it delivers! Williams' new theme(s) are all over the score with both tender and soaring action mode renditions. Many of them more impressive than Williams' own arrangement here.

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2 minutes ago, crumbs said:

 

Believe me, it delivers! Williams' new theme(s) are all over the score with both tender and soaring action mode renditions. Many of them more impressive than Williams' own arrangement here. 

Oh.. YES!!! 

Best themes' arrangement in a long time IMO

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Impressive.....most impressive! A fab swashbuckler of a theme to accompany a great character & the Maestro is 86!WoW:)

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It is a great piece.  I think it is his best heroic piece in decades (NB, I did not say his best piece in decades). 

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Nice adventure piece from JW. It'll take more than a few listens for it to grow on me, but the true test is how Powell is gonna use it in the rest of the score.

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4 minutes ago, p0llux said:

Nice adventure piece from JW. It'll take more than a few listens for it to grow on me, but the true test is how Powell is gonna use it in the rest of the score.

Well

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Ok, so, the track is quite good.

The thing for me is this:

The inevitability of the themes Williams has spoken of in the past, seems in all these latest scores  - to me - as forced and struggled.

But as many would step in to say, the man is 86 years old.

It's miraculous he can still write like this.

I just expressed my opinion as if the name and age didn't come in the middle.

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Just gave the track a first listen... very nice! A wonderfully exuberant and lighthearted romp. I can definitely hear bits and pieces of "The Battle of Crait" throughout the piece.

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41 minutes ago, filmmusic said:

Ok, so, the track is quite good.

The thing for me is this:

The inevitability of the themes Williams has spoken of in the past, seems in all these latest scores  - to me - as forced and struggled.

But as many would step in to say, the man is 86 years old.

It's miraculous he can still write like this.

I just expressed my opinion as if the name and age didn't come in the middle.

Neither of the themes feel forced to me.  However, I do think the overall arrangement has less cohesiveness than do the classic Williams's pieces. 

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Forced? Come on...

Would The Adventures Of Han theme(s) match the recently released A Life In Music? Probably not. There are only classics on that CD – themes that will probably be part of pop culture in a hundred years. Would TAOH match the second part of ALIM CD? I think it would.  It’s written with great class and mastery. If someone had told me 20 years ago that I would still hear such a class from Maestro as TAOH in 2018, It would be difficult for me to believe it..

I get the impression that JW becomes younger and younger every year :) I'm overjoyed!

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Thanks to that rulebreaker, I could listen to this 3 hours early, and wow. It's pretty damn great!

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2 hours ago, Tom said:

Neither of the themes feel forced to me.  However, I do think the overall arrangement has less cohesiveness than do the classic Williams's pieces. 

well, it sounded much more cohesive to me than Rebellion is Reborn.

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I think both of those are among his least cohesive "concert arrangements" in his career

 

Other concert arrangements like Rey's Theme, March of the Resistance, Snowy's Theme, etc are much more in line with how Williams usually does things

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It actually kind of reminds me of some of Shore's theme presentations for the Hobbit, where a lot of passages end up in the score (with alterations of course)

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While I do like this new theme, to be perfectly honest I do find it a little...normal. I don't want to say generic, but the melody itself is a bit standard. I was hoping for an extension of existing material slightly associated with Han, like perhaps Han and Leia or Asteroid Field etc, much like the incredible Luke and Leia theme being a direct extension of Luke's theme and Leia's theme. This new Han's theme doesn't sound to me like anything Han-like. Just a standard heroic melody. The B phrase is slightly more interesting though. 

 

I am looking forward to hearing the score itself, and especially what Powell did with it, considering he has an entire score to shape it and change it, as he said it was in basically every track.

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5 minutes ago, leeallen01 said:

While I do like this new theme, to be perfectly honest I do find it a little...normal. I don't want to say generic, but the melody itself is a bit standard. I was hoping for an extension of existing material slightly associated with Han, like perhaps Han and Leia or Asteroid Field etc, much like the incredible Luke and Leia theme being a direct extension of Luke's theme and Leia's theme. This new Han's theme doesn't sound to me like anything Han-like. Just a standard heroic melody. The B phrase is slightly more interesting though. 

 

I am looking forward to hearing the score itself, and especially what Powell did with it, considering he has an entire score to shape it and change it, as he said it was in basically every track.

Well, Solo is kind of a standard heroic film, from what I've heard.  Williams's approach was probably the right one.  With that said, I think the theme has a great deal of character. 

Its name brand Williams.

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7 minutes ago, leeallen01 said:

 I was hoping for an extension of existing material slightly associated with Han

Well, the A phrase contains an inversion of Luke's theme, which was used for Han in the Rebel base in ESB...

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And the piratelike sound of the A phrase recalls Lando's quip: "would you get going ya pirate!?"
 




;)

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11 minutes ago, leeallen01 said:

While I do like this new theme, to be perfectly honest I do find it a little...normal. I don't want to say generic, but the melody itself is a bit standard. I was hoping for an extension of existing material slightly associated with Han, like perhaps Han and Leia or Asteroid Field etc, much like the incredible Luke and Leia theme being a direct extension of Luke's theme and Leia's theme. This new Han's theme doesn't sound to me like anything Han-like. Just a standard heroic melody. The B phrase is slightly more interesting though. 

 

I am looking forward to hearing the score itself, and especially what Powell did with it, considering he has an entire score to shape it and change it, as he said it was in basically every track.

 

It's funny - that is how I feel about Alden Ehrenreich. He's perfectly fine as a generic roguish action hero but I don't get the sense he is actually playing Han Solo because he doesn't have that extra bit of magic that made Ford's performance so indelible.  

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Just saw the movie. Not great. Not bad, either, but too many cringy moments to be good.

 

The music is good, though. I like the love theme, but the best bits are the quotes from the OT. It really hits you how good that music fits those movies - it is impossible to ever replicate. Nostalgia’s a factor, but what’re you gonna do.

 

Not a big fan of the Solo theme. It fits Han, I guess... It is piraty, as a lot have commented. But it sounds like a diluted version of Zimmer’s pirate theme, and that’s a long way from Star Wars.

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I think the classic Williams orchestration elevates the melody itself. I think my sort of timid reaction to it is not completely because of not being impressed, but mostly I guess because I haven't heard the actual piece, just the low quality concert recording. Also this is a strange thing to hear a Williams concert piece of a theme that he doesn't use himself throughout a film in shaping it countless ways, instead he gave it to Powell to do that.

 

Normally we hear the many ways Williams uses his themes, and then we can enjoy the grand statement of it in a concert piece. Here we just get the grand statement, and none of the storytelling that Williams does with his themes.

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On the last page, people were comparing the theme to BTTF, I was thinking more Video Game theme concert arrangement.

Kind of like Brawl's main screen:
 

 

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25 minutes ago, Steve McQueen said:

Well, Solo is kind of a standard heroic film, from what I've heard.  Williams's approach was probably the right one.  With that said, I think the theme has a great deal of character. 

Its name brand Williams.

I have not seen the film, but, yes, the theme is for the "flyboy" quality to Han.  Plus, the sense I get from the trailers is that he is more an optimist here than in AHN. 

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Just now, Tom said:

I have not seen the film, but, yes, the theme is for the "flyboy" quality to Han.  Plus, the sense I get from the trailers is that he is more an optimist here than in AHN. 

A Hew Nope?

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My first reaction to music tends to change for better or worse over time, but my initial thoughts are that Poe's theme (which is the closest type of theme to this in the Star Wars universe) is far better.

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I honestly didn't really notice or mind that it wasn't Williams himself utilizing the theme through these tracks. Just off one listen it sounded great and organic every time and Powell paid a lot of attention to it.

 

One thing I wanted to mention, that kinda whirling Shostakovichian/Battle of Craitish section in the middle is really fun in "Reminiscence Therapy," I love that Powell threw that in there. That whole track really summed the fun of this score for me, I was never into the idea of anybody collaborating with JW for Star Wars but he and Powell made great dance partners! When I was listening I got this funny image of the two of them in their top hats and tails, shim sham shimmying away.

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