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"Space Battalions" by James Brett used in Star Wars promotional videos


aj_vader

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I wonder if this might be a rejected trailer cue for TLJ or TROS. I could potentially see it being Williams, though - the audio quality is so terrible it's hard to tell. But on the other hand it does sound a bit trailer-y. 

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5 hours ago, Will said:

I wonder if this might be a rejected trailer cue for TLJ or TROS. I could potentially see it being Williams, though - the audio quality is so terrible it's hard to tell. But on the other hand it does sound a bit trailer-y. 

Yes, it's the Leia's theme progression featured in the TROS teaser trailer (and reprised in the final trailer, in a slightly different form).

 

 

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This all feels pretty suspicious...first they use completely new music one week, then rearrangements the next, instead of just using music or arrangements of music tied to those respective movies each week.

 

It's definitely a major-mode interpretation that has new instrumentation and is actually blended with the Leia progression from the trailers, with a hint of her motif played as an echo before Jedi Steps transitions right into it full-on.

 

This stuff may not be right from the score but I definitely think there are musical ideas present that we'll listen back on in a couple of months and see some clear connections. What they do for subsequent weeks' videos should be interesting to hear!

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On 10/27/2019 at 3:51 PM, Jay said:

 

I almost forgot all about that video. Personally I kind of prefer that alternate take of "The Falcon" from TFA.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I clip the audio and run it through some filters in ProTools.

 

I do like this music, whatever it turns out to be! If nothing else it's fun to follow each week to pass the time. 

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I think the most glaring reason I think this march isn’t Williams is the fact that it sounds so much like him.... circa 1999 and TPM. His style has changed dramatically then, and he just doesn’t write this kind of music anymore.

 

March of the Resistance is the closest he’s gotten to that kind of dramatic march in recent years but even then the orchestration and structure has more of a clean and tidy baroque/classical feel to it. The bells and whistles of the early 2000s Williams (dense percussion, wild woodwinds, swirling string passages) just aren’t his thing anymore.

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hmmm Galaxy's Edge

4 hours ago, Docteur Qui said:

I think the most glaring reason I think this march isn’t Williams is the fact that it sounds so much like him.... 

Williams is perfectly capable of reverting to a  previous era style of writing

 

In the first video we have a version of the theme that seemed from a concert version

In this one we get the theme within an action space battle cue

I still think this is part of Wiliams score

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I don't think it's him either, but I still want to know where it's from so I can listen to it without Anthony Daniels talking over it.

 

EDIT: On a side note, I'm not sure if others have noticed (but wouldn't be surprised), the main "theme" throughout this piece is extremely close to the Nazi motif from TLC. In fact, if you line both pieces up, they match almost exactly, other than a couple key and speed changes.

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18 hours ago, crumbs said:

 

Likewise I don't think it's an issue for him to revert to a certain style if the director asks. Even between scores the action music style between TFA and TLJ is radically different, and he wrote them 12 months apart. TLJ sounds like something he could have written at the same time as ROTS. 

 

Completely disagree, TLJ sounds nothing like ROTS in my opinion, it's very much a continuation of the leaner sound he established in TFA.

 

I'm not saying he's not capable of recapturing his previous styles, I'm saying that he's chosen not to for Star Wars. The march in that video is clearly modelled after the Droid material from TPM. It's too much of an emulation to be his new music. Could be a Gordy Haab for all we know, but I'll bet the farm it's not JW.

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55 minutes ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

I doubt it's in-house stuff. They likely bought it from a stock music company, as they usually do for these adverts.

 

Then again, the second video was obviously either JW or in-house/specially commissioned, since it used a new variation of "Jedi Steps." My best guess on that one was rejected trailer cue by the guy who did the TROS trailer. 

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9 hours ago, Docteur Qui said:

 

Completely disagree, TLJ sounds nothing like ROTS in my opinion, it's very much a continuation of the leaner sound he established in TFA.

 

Don’t confuse the sound of the recording with Williams’ writing. 

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I have to disagree @Docteur Qui. All those trademark Star Wars flourishes (especially in the flutes and piccolos) that were stripped out of his writing in TFA were back in TLJ, especially in action cues like Escape and Battle of Crait. Whereas the action material in TFA is a bit more rhythmic and unfocused, with streamlined orchestration.

 

Arguably the different recording style hides some of those details but even the difference in editing between JJ and RJ gave Williams a larger palette to write more developed, sprawling ideas (especially having a greater chance to present long-form thematic and motivic ideas, something he rarely got to explore in TFA).

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@Remco It's definitely a factor. The dry recording is way too heavy on the brass. I picked up lots of details in the LTP (even with the film's sound effects) that are completely inaudible on the OST, so it's pretty amazing what a different mix could do for that score.

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7 minutes ago, Modest Expectations said:

TFA is an educational example how, from the writing, editing, recording, and mixing perspectives---to diminish the potent effects music can have in a Star Wars film.

 

I liked your original statement better, why did you water it down? You were spot on.

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5 hours ago, crumbs said:

So this is interesting. That same company who just seemingly premiered our first taste of music from TROS, features the same music used in the Anthony Daniels videos in another video (the ending, anyway). It sounds like the way JW would end a concert suite in this style. See here at 0:21:

 

Which begs the question, if two separate companies are using this same piece of "library music" (and one of these companies used actual score from TROS in another commercial), does that mean Disney supplied this music to various companies for marketing purposes? And if so, could that mean this is an electronic re-arrangement of something JW recorded for TROS, just like synth re-arrangements of The Spark being used for various products associated with TLJ?

 

Great catch!

 

I really do think these are altered bits and pieces of actual TROS material. I think even the Leia harmonic progression idea stems from the score as well, I can definitely see him using it to form new material for this film with all things considered based on JJ's comments about her role and now very numerous different ways and versions of it we've heard. It's easy for me to be skeptical, but I think it's about the time things start coming together from enough different sources to make some educated assumptions. Hopefully even more clues will come out since they just started their tv spots yesterday as well!

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I'm now also starting to think this is actually Williams. It's weird - some of the instruments (winds) sound like actual orchestra but why did they have to layer it with synths...?

 

By the way, the chord progression is really a little too similar to the Nazi theme from TLC :-)

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What are these Anthony Daniels videos introducing?  Is a certain channel in the UK playing one episode per week leading up to episode 9?

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I wasn't convinced before but I'm starting to be convinced now. all of these musical snippets from these videos and the other commercial, especially the brass, have that distinctive sequel trilogy sound - and the fact that we hear that same thing in a different transformation highly suggests its actually a film cue.

at this point I really hope all of this is Williams, these musical snippets are incredibly fun and I really like this much darker sound, which is tonally consistent with all the other supposed Williams music as well.

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