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I like Rose’s Theme. But there are several oddities about it:

 

  1. It (or something damned close) was composed and recorded for TFA.
     
  2. It appears to be a major-key variant of the Force Theme.
     
  3. I know it’s controversial, but IMO the TLJ concert suite makes for a very satisfactory piece. It marries Rose’s Theme to the Luke in Exile Theme. These are two characters who have nothing to do with each other in the film. And it’s named “The Rebellion is Reborn,” which has nothing to do with either Rose or with Luke’s exile, however, Luke is the one who utters those words which seem to have captured JW’s fancy.

 

I’m curious to hear your speculations about this.

 

The best idea I can come up with is that JW originally wrote it for Leia. We know there were a lot of Leia scenes cut from TFA, including the one where Maz hands her the lightsaber (it can be seen in TFA Teaser Trailer #2) and all of the TRoS footage with her (the scene in TRoS Teaser Trailer #1 with the Throne Room medallion - Throne Room of course contains a rendition of the Force Theme). Then, if JW still thought of it as Leia’s theme for some time into the composition of TLJ, the suite perhaps can be thought of (much more satisfactorily) as being about Luke and Leia.

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There are similarities to the intro of Rose's Theme in an unused alternate of Rey Meets BB8. To the best of my knowledge, the actual melody for Rose's Theme appears nowhere in TFA?

 

I think JW just fancied the intro and, seeing as JJ decided to go with a different version of that cue in TFA, he recycled it for Rose's Theme. It's really just a similarity in orchestration and progressions though, hardly an outright quotation.

 

I'm not sure about the notion that it's just the Force Theme in major. Could someone post a comparison of the two themes on sheet music? Some of the chord progressions are similar but I think it ends there.

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I doubt Williams would have seen the need for a new Leia theme. And less likely he wrote such a theme and then repurposed it for another character. I think it’s a case of the simplest explanation is the most likely: he wrote Rose’s Theme for Rose.

 

 

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3 hours ago, crumbs said:

I'm not sure about the notion that it's just the Force Theme in major. Could someone post a comparison of the two themes on sheet music? Some of the chord progressions are similar but I think it ends there.

 

rose-vs-force.png

3 hours ago, crumbs said:

There are similarities to the intro of Rose's Theme in an unused alternate of Rey Meets BB8. To the best of my knowledge, the actual melody for Rose's Theme appears nowhere in TFA?

 

How do you know it was an unused alternate of Rey Meets BB8?

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52 minutes ago, Chewy said:

What?

 

This is the cue.

 

 

Was it ever confirmed this music was intended for Rey meeting BB8, or is that speculation?

 

Lovely music, harmonically similar to Rose's motif though I wouldn't say it's necessarily the source for the new TLJ theme. The melody and chord progression is fairly stereotypical, at least at first. (Check out Patrick Williams' theme for Earth Day, conducted by JW, for another "model" -- right down to that #4/nat4 clash in the melody that irks me so..)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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10 minutes ago, Falstaft said:

Was it ever confirmed this music was intended for Rey meeting BB8, or is that speculation?

 

Probably speculation, based on the fact Williams said that scene was scored 5 or 6 times because they couldn't nail the tone (and even then, the final film tracks music from the ending into the scene). Plus, that cue doesn't really fit anywhere else in the film?

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2 hours ago, Falstaft said:

 

  

 

 

Holy frick that sounds really similar to Rose's theme!! Good catch. :)

 

2 hours ago, Falstaft said:

Was it ever confirmed this music was intended for Rey meeting BB8, or is that speculation?



 

No, as @crumbs says, it was never confirmed but it's our best guess both for the reason he notes (the confirmed multiple revisions to Rey Meets BB-8) as well as, IIRC, because in the documentary the music played over a Jakku scene with BB-8 (not that that necessarily means anything, to be sure). 

 

That said, it's worth noting that not everyone is even convinced that cue is JW. I loved it from the first moment I heard it in the TFA bonus feature documentary and felt it must be JW (particularly given the sort of similarity to a passage from E.T. which I'm forgetting at the moment). @Fal J. M. Skywalker agreed, I believe. But @Datameister IIRC maintained he thought it sounded like some good stock music but not JW himself. (We do know that at least some of the TFA featurettes used stock music mixed in with JW's stuff.) 

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2 hours ago, Falstaft said:

 

 

 

 

-- right down to that #4/nat4 clash in the melody that irks me so..)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That "clash"🤔😱is the whole point of that theme. Amazing theme. Wonderfully used in the Battle of the Crait

 

So much BS in this thread, kk again. You are boring. And Quint, but what else can you expectf from a brexiter. 

 

 

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2 hours ago, crumbs said:

 

Probably speculation, based on the fact Williams said that scene was scored 5 or 6 times because they couldn't nail the tone (and even then, the final film tracks music from the ending into the scene).

 

You don’t think it’s more likely to have been the other way around (tracked from ‘Rey Meets BB-8’ into the ending)?

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29 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

 

Yet you want to know every detail about Williams' early days!

 

Fair point. It's fascinating how we go after details in different areas. I've listened to THE LAST JEDI score probably 2-3 times, at most, and all I remember about "Rose's Theme" was that it sounded like a HARRY POTTER leftover. As Bilbo mentioned earlier, I thought this was about the glorious TITANIC theme when I clicked on it. :D

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@Will I think I'm now convinced that it's not stock music after all. IIRC a member here assured us that it was from the Rey and BB-8 scene but couldn't tell us how they knew.

 

There was some video that shows a bit of a sketch that looks like the film version, and based on Williams' indications, that does seem to have been written for the map scene at the end.

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1 hour ago, Thor said:

I've listened to THE LAST JEDI score probably 2-3 times, at most, and all I remember about "Rose's Theme" was that it sounded like a HARRY POTTER leftover.

 

I listened to the TLJ OST probably two dozen times when it first came out, and since then not at all; but I do keep “The Rebellion is Reborn” on a playlist of concert arrangements which I put on a lot.

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1 hour ago, Datameister said:

There was some video that shows a bit of a sketch that looks like the film version, and based on Williams' indications, that does seem to have been written for the map scene at the end.

 

Oh, could you point me to that video?

 

I did notice a bit of the sketch for ‘Kylo Ren Arrives at the Battle’ in the Episode VII bonus features, but haven’t ever seen this one.

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I'm genuinely curious hornist, is there anything that Williams has written that you don't think is brilliant or the unquestionable work of genius?

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I’ve never understood why some people seem to like “Swing Swing Swing” so much.  I love “Sing Sing Sing” and I hear no reason for Williams’ imitation to exist.  It’s not doing anything interesting with the source material IMO.

 

Oh wait should’ve posted that in the unpopular opinions thread.

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31 minutes ago, KK said:

I'm genuinely curious hornist, is there anything that Williams has written that you don't think is brilliant or the unquestionable work of genius?

 

He doesn’t like Dracula. The Lost World too I think.

 

Rose’s Theme is aight. Badass in The Fathiers.

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The film also has that awful music edit at the end of the Rey meets BB8 scene (to the very prequel-esque fanfare over the Star Destroyer), further evidence it was probably a late tracking decision JW didn't re-score. Would be great to hear JW's original intentions there, if that fanfare was the climax to his original cue.

 

Clearly he was happy with the tracking idea though, carrying it over to his OST (and appending it with a short little cue from later in the film, also BB8 related).

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There's no chance in hell Rose's Theme began as a new theme for Leia. Rose's Theme is ok. Simple, optimistic, childlike, and lacking any interesting development. I LOVE The Rebellion is Reborn and I think it is the best way to show off 2 separate themes that don't have enough to stand on their own. Thematically it is a hot mess, but musically, I love it.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 9/1/2019 at 1:12 AM, KK said:

I'm genuinely curious hornist, is there anything that Williams has written that you don't think is brilliant or the unquestionable work of genius?

 

On 9/1/2019 at 1:36 AM, mrbellamy said:

 

He doesn’t like Dracula. The Lost World too I think.

 

Rose’s Theme is aight. Badass in The Fathiers.

 

mrbellamy is briiliant!! 

 

I don't like America, dream goes on and the his very early(terrible sound etc) stuff. 

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