What changes would it take for you to not consider TLJ the worst of SW scores?

[Fabulin 3,510]

Tell me why it's considered underwhelming. I must be missing something.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

A shorter album.

[King Mark 3,626]

I'm really happy with it as is

 

 

[Bespin 8,480]

An expanded release.

[Joni Wiljami 1,206]

It is brilliant!! Change the bloody fans!! 

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

To me, it's just a collection of theme renditions connected by mostly uninteresting meandering filler music.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

26 minutes ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

To me, it's just a collection of theme renditions connected by mostly uninteresting meandering filler music.

 

People think that's "brilliant" for some reason. Must be brand loyalty.

[Datameister 2,037]

Ditch the temp track. That's the number one thing. There are sooooo many passages that simply quote previous films (or albums) verbatim, often with editorial choices from the temp track delivered with awkward literalness. There's a big difference between penning a new yet nostalgic rendition of Yoda's theme and...well, slamming the beginning and end of the concert suite together and calling it a day. Most of the individual instances of this are fine, but in aggregate they really hurt the score, especially the first time I saw the film. No other Star Wars score is like this.

 

The next thing is related - stop using the Force theme every 2 minutes, especially as an adagio horn solo over solemn strings. It's absolutely beautiful writing. Hearing it every other scene cheapens it.

 

Then we move on to the actual new material. I'm sorry, but I just do not like the wishy-washy underscore heard mostly in the Achoo (I've given up spelling the name) scenes. I also think there are a few too many instances of loud brass triads planing chromatically in the action music...it's a quintessentially Star Wars device, but it feels slightly overused here.

 

Things to keep: Canto Bight (glorious), Rose's theme (perfectly serviceable), the new theme for Luke in exile (sadly underused), a lot of the action music (great energy), The Spark (just wonderful from beginning to end), and the overall sound (not as dry and small as TFA - more Star Wars-y). There's probably more. I do like the score, in spite of its flaws. But boy, it would not get me excited for any hypothetical future Johnson/Williams collaborations.

[Tom 4,640]

It is a solid SW score, but I find that it lacks a spark (sorry) that the others all have.  The little motifs and such are as good as it gets. The action music is extremely good (Battle of Crait is fantastic).  Rose's theme is very good, though it could have benefited from a full concert version on its own merits (such as using the Fathiers rendition).  It lacks a theme of epic greatness, which all of the others have.  Well, maybe ROTS lacks one, but the last reel of music is just so good it makes up for it.  

 

I hate the movie so much that it clouds my judgment a bit on the music, and the weird end credits chop-job does not help matters at all.

[Arpy 4,145]

None of the options above. I simply feel as if the score is very sparse and lacks a strong narrative cohesiveness from start to finish. The Force Awakens was wrapped in Rey's Theme which went through many permutations from yearning and lonely - to fully fledged in the end i.e. a satisfying music journey. There isn't quite the same musical journey with The Last Jedi - on album or in the film, and perhaps it's the juggling act of the film dealing with the interplay between Rey and Luke, Luke and Kylo, Rey and Kylo, Finn and Rose - where I think we needed to see some musical growth - where's Finn's theme anyway? Kylo's material is given some thought, and only hints at a stronger theme to come but never quite reaches it.

 

Don't take this as a categorical hatred for the score, because I think it has some incredibly strong material and some nuggets of great Williams music, it was just a little disappointing. 

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I don't understand how even the Force theme became so by-the-numbers and uninteresting. I was listening to Episode III earlier and every instance of that theme is incredible from the militaristic opening to the rather haunting version heard when Vader is on the bridge. Something was definitely off with TLJ.

[Arpy 4,145]

Goodbye Old Friend and Arrival on Utapau feature some amazing Force Theme variations!

[Datameister 2,037]

27 minutes ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

I don't understand how even the Force theme became so by-the-numbers and uninteresting. I was listening to Episode III earlier and every instance of that theme is incredible from the militaristic opening to the rather haunting version heard when Vader is on the bridge. Something was definitely off with TLJ.

 

Yes. It's not like you can't have a score that uses the theme a lot...but offhand, I can't think of a single statement of it in TLJ that really does anything new with the theme. Not that it needs to be completely reinvented every time or anything, but ROTS provides some really great examples of taking it new directions. As do all the other films, really.

[mrbellamy 6,272]

This is the best one in TLJ

 

 

Not one of the all-timers but I like it

[Chen G. 3,944]

4 hours ago, Datameister said:

Ditch the temp track. That's the number one thing. There are sooooo many passages that simply quote previous films (or albums) verbatim, often with editorial choices from the temp track delivered with awkward literalness. There's a big difference between penning a new yet nostalgic rendition of Yoda's theme and...well, slamming the beginning and end of the concert suite together and calling it a day. Most of the individual instances of this are fine, but in aggregate they really hurt the score, especially the first time I saw the film. No other Star Wars score is like this.

 

The next thing is related - stop using the Force theme every 2 minutes, especially as an adagio horn solo over solemn strings. It's absolutely beautiful writing. Hearing it every other scene cheapens it.

 

Indeed, no other Star Wars score is like this, and by intent. Williams always prides himself on how little of the each score is reliant on older material. Not so with The Last Jedi.

 

Part of what makes it particularly egregious with regards to the Force theme is that, across all seven previous scores, it’s already been used many, many times. The Last Jedi very nearly killed it through over-exposure: it didn’t just lose its heft, it lost its meaning: It went from being the old Ben theme, to being The Force theme to being the “something-vaguely-impactful-is-happening-onscreen” theme.

[Montre 79]

These sound like decisions that were not made by JW himself, but rather the director or producers.

[mrbellamy 6,272]

It’ll honestly be pretty interesting to have two Abrams scores to compare to TLJ and make certain judgments about what really seems to distinguish 7/9 from 8, if anything. Or maybe ROS will have more in common with TLJ than TFA which would be interesting in itself. Also having it become clearer what separates each of the three, and what the commonalities are....not to mention just being able to start summing up the sequel music as a whole compared to the OT and prequels. The discussions will be gloriously obnoxious.

[Fabulin 3,510]

.

[Datameister 2,037]

1 hour ago, Montre said:

These sound like decisions that were not made by JW himself, but rather the director or producers.

 

Yes. As I recall, Rian Johnson said he gave JW a temp track made primarily of existing Star Wars music. The change of process and director produced some very noticeable changes in the approach to the score, IMO.

 

I'm guessing TROS will be more similar to TFA overall. I'm expecting a much smaller amount of new thematic material than that score, obviously, but I'm also expecting a return to Williams' usual approach.

[Fabulin 3,510]

.

[Trent B 337]

I guess I'm among the small group who thinks the score is just fine as is.

[Holko 9,499]

looks at the poll on top

 

Yep, you sure are the special snowflake!

[Fabulin 3,510]

.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

He means that the majority apparently consider it great as-is. But it's JWFan, what do you expect.

[Fabulin 3,510]

14 minutes ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

He means that the majority apparently consider it great as-is. But it's JWFan, what do you expect.

In another thread, which compared all Star Wars scores so far, TLJ was nearly universally considered the worst in the saga. There was quite a bit of variation in assessments of the comparative quality of TFA and prequel scores, but this one was firmly at the bottom. I argued against it, and was ridiculed.

 

In other threads people expressed disappointment that there was no First Order / Kylo Ren march, no new, unique theme for Snoke, etc. and compared it to the introduction of Rey's Theme & March of the Resistance in TFA. 

 

Reactions to The Spark, Canto Bight, Rebellion is Reborn, etc. were positive from what I've observed, but not as euphoric as towards other Star Wars themes.

 

My poll options are a bit tongue in cheek, duh, but they express what I observed so far were the arguments against the score.

 

Do people have amnesia?

[Chen G. 3,944]

The one thing I'm dreading with The Rise of Skywalker is the possible return of The Force Awakens' sound mix. The music was nigh inaudible.

 

Say what you will of the contents of the score, but least you could hear the music in The Last Jedi! If you can't hear the music, it makes little difference how good it is or isn't.

[Jurassic Shark 12,033]

A ten minute version of The Spark.

[bollemanneke 3,338]

I voted for Reylo because I loved that word, but honestly the only thing I want to change in TLJ is the entire movie.

[Gurkensalat 339]

All is fine except for the overuse of the force theme ("just use less force theme" was not a poll option)

 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

4 hours ago, Chen G. said:

The one thing I'm dreading with The Rise of Skywalker is the possible return of The Force Awakens' sound mix. The music was nigh inaudible.

 

Say what you will of the contents of the score, but least you could hear the music in The Last Jedi! If you can't hear the music, it makes little difference how good it is or isn't.

 

Eh?

[Jurassic Shark 12,033]

He seriously can't hear it?

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Probably hearing impaired from all the IDF gunfire?

[_deleted_ 203]

1 hour ago, Gurkensalat said:

overuse of the force theme

Rey's Theme alone is enough for all the "use-the-force" moments in the film. Even for those "Reylo" moments with Kylo. 

[crumbs 14,305]

3 hours ago, Chen G. said:

The one thing I'm dreading with The Rise of Skywalker is the possible return of The Force Awakens' sound mix. The music was nigh inaudible.

 

Say what you will of the contents of the score, but least you could hear the music in The Last Jedi! If you can't hear the music, it makes little difference how good it is or isn't.

 

I'm dreading this as well because sadly TFA and TLJ had a different group of sound mixers, and the TFA crew are the ones doing TROS.

 

From the interviews we got with the TLJ sound team, they were extremely supportive of JW's score (as was Rian) and they went out of their way to ensure it wasn't lost in the mix... something I definitely can't say for TFA. At least it wasn't as bad as Solo! But it was quickly clear TFA had a problem when even the silent introduction of Rey had the music track very low despite no SFX competing with it.

 

I'm just quietly hopeful JW did some internal politicking on the matter after TFA and someone senior like KK intervened. It would be awful if his final score was relegated to the back of the mix considering how SFX heavy the film looks. Imagine if the sound of crashing waves against metal overshadow some amazing heroic fanfares for Rey, like what the SFX guys tried to do with the Mustafar battle until Kenny intervened.

[Chen G. 3,944]

2 hours ago, Thekthithm said:

Probably hearing impaired from all the IDF gunfire?

 

We use earplugs for that.

[Edmilson 7,398]

To be honest, the only thing I think that could've been improved in TLJ's score is some of the most low key underscore.

 

The Last Jedi may not be Williams longest movie (which I think it's Schindler's List or Nixon), but it's probably his longest score, with 140 minutes of music on the film and 185 minutes recorded. And with that, some of the most low key music ended up suffering, since it's not as inspired as the rest. I've heard the isolated score a lot on this past 2 years, and there are moments (like Poe's rebellion against Holdo and Finn, Rose and DJ sneaking into Snoke's ship) that the music could've been more inspired.

 

I'm not saying there should be epic and bombastic music for all of the 140 minutes, however, almost two decades ago Williams more understated music used to be more compelling: Presenting the Pre-Cogs, Obi Wan investigating the clones in Kamino (I know this is controversial, but I like his suspense scoring there), Petrified Justin, The Writing on the Wall...
 

Also, if I were Rian Johnson, I would've told Williams to refrain a little from using his themes all the time. Like, on Revisiting Snoke, when he tells Kylo he could've been a new Vader, and then we hear the Imperial March... It's a little silly and obvious, and I think that cue would be better without the IM there, since, despite mentioning his name, Vader is not exactly the focus of the scene there, Kylo and Snoke are.

 

However, for me TLJ has too many high points that outweigh the low points. Firstly, there's better action writing. After Williams deliciously dark music from the mid-2000s (ROTS, WOTW and POA), I'm not exactly a fan of his action music since then - stuff like The Jungle Chase or The Pursuit of the Falcon has their moments, but I don't listen to that often. TLJ haven't reached his heights of the post-JP era, but is still a step on the right direction. The Battle of Crait is great, I love specially the swashbuckling performance of Rey's Theme as the Falcon arrives at the battle.
 

Also: the finale of Escape, as Rose's sister makes her sacrifice, Luke on the Island/Ahch-To theme (I loved its appearances everywhere), Rose's Theme, Canto Bight, The Fathiers, the melancholic yet warm (typical modern Williams) music as Rey abandons Luke on the island and then his chat with Yoda, Rey's Journey, New Alliance, Holdo's Sacrifice, Chrome Dome, and basically everything from the last 30 minutes of the movie... Much better stuff than 97% of the film music written for american movies that year. And the previous year. And the following.

[Datameister 2,037]

9 hours ago, Modest Expectations said:

Yoda's concert version is not even close to the type of tracking/editorial butchering that Lucas did in the prequels. It's a very mild example of a simple theme that Williams considers so good that even his version for Annne-Sophie Mutter features no reimagining. I wouldn't be surprised if Johnson didn't know about the concert version and it was a Williams suggestion.

 

Passages quoting previous films that were left in from the temp track are hard to judge when we don't precisely know the conversations between Williams and Johnson. I will take your word on the "editorial choices", and "awkward literalness"(have old recordings been re-used, or what?), that all final decisions were made by Johnson, none by Williams, and all were inferior to ideas Williams came up with for TLJ. Heavens forbid they were chosen by Johnson or (gasp!) Williams, because he couldn't one-up every single 10-second bridge or other idea that he once came up with.

 

 Too me it all sounds natural, coherent, and I think that whoever is responsible---Williams or Johnson---did a good job.

 

And a hypothetical another collaboration between Johnson and Williams would be my dream. Pity his trilogy is so far away (if it even happens)

 

You misunderstand me. I don't presume to know the story behind every scoring choice here, and my goal isn't to point fingers between the composer and the director. All we can really judge is the end result of their collaboration - and of course that's extremely subjective. Passages that sound natural and coherent to you may strike other listeners differently. That's the nature of music.

 

To clarify my position, though, a few things. Firstly, I'm talking about the film score as it was written and recorded; the fact that the OT and PT scores also suffered heavy editing is a non sequitur.

 

Secondly, the fact that Williams directly quotes past films' concert suites in major ways (Yoda's theme, Leia's theme for her flight to safety, Rey's theme for her following Luke) is really unusual. I can't think of another Williams score that does that. I can't help imagining someone sitting in a room, assembling the temp track, seeing an album track called "Princess Leia's Theme", and thinking, "Perfect, let's use that for her big moment!"

 

Thirdly, I wasn't trying to suggest that old recordings have been reused. When two pieces of recorded music are edited together, it can be hard to make the transition sound natural and musical. The benefit of completely re-recording such an "edit" is that you can sometimes write material that smooths out the transition. My position is that there are too many unnatural, unmusical transitions in the score that bear all the hallmarks of originating in an edited-together temp track from which Williams did not sufficiently stray - whoever's choice that was.

 

Side note: To be fair, I'm judging this score against the oeuvre of my favorite all-time composer, so I'm going to be harsh. I still like TLJ better than most of what's coming from other composers these days, and there are parts of it that I think are truly superb.

[Fabulin 3,510]

.

[Datameister 2,037]

1 hour ago, Modest Expectations said:

Could you give... 3 examples? I am curious of them.

 

Sure! I should have time later today, I think.

[Trent B 337]

8 hours ago, Chen G. said:

The one thing I'm dreading with The Rise of Skywalker is the possible return of The Force Awakens' sound mix. The music was nigh inaudible.

 

Say what you will of the contents of the score, but least you could hear the music in The Last Jedi! If you can't hear the music, it makes little difference how good it is or isn't.

 

You must have bad hearing. I can hear the score in TFA just fine.

I'm generally one of those who complains about how low Williams music is mixed in a Star Wars films. The Prequels were the worst offender for this for sure but as I said I think the mixing for TFA is just fine.

[crocodile 7,990]

I like the score as is and it flows very well in the complete form. The recording is quite good as well.

 

What I'd "change" is have two concert suites instead of one for those two themes. The Rebellion Is Reborn is an exceptionally awkward piece of music.

 

And I'd remove a statement or two of the Force theme...or three...or four... or five...or six. Like any iconic theme, it is at its best when used sparingly.

 

Karol

[Jurassic Shark 12,033]

I'd add ten statements of the Force theme, on banjo.

[Ii2 210]

Take a look at the poll votes!

Nothing needs to be changed!

[Quintus 5,399]

What a weird question.

[Fabulin 3,510]

.

[crocodile 7,990]

I'd say many consider Attack of the Clones the weakest SW score, no?

 

I'm not one of these people...

 

Karol

[Jurassic Shark 12,033]

Sith is by far the worst.

[crocodile 7,990]

1 minute ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Sith is by far the worst.

I used to think that. It doesn't have the thematic cohesion or personality that all the other scores have. At the same time, from the perspective of the complete score, it has the best flow. The underscore itself is the finest of the prequel trilogy. The way I usually see the prequel scores:

 

TPM has some stunning highlights and a lot of meandering aimless underscore.

AOTC has a lot of meandering underscore too but it feels more stylistically unified and the love theme (my favourite of the trilogy) offers a nice thematic backbone.

ROTS is the most consistently entertaining listen but has no clear thematic through-line.

 

Karol

[Jurassic Shark 12,033]

11 minutes ago, crocodile said:

the love theme (my favourite of the trilogy) 

 

 

11 minutes ago, crocodile said:

ROTS is the most consistently boring listen and has no clear thematic through-line.

 

Fixed!

[King Mark 3,626]

that's a pretty bad thread title BTW and borderline trolling

 

it's not a generalized opinon that this is the worse SW score  and basically only those who consider it the worse should be replying