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At the end of The Post I tried to start three cheers for John Williams but nobody else in the theater would do it with me for some reason.

I can tell I'm going to appreciate the scope of this being a little smaller. I really enjoyed seeing such a traditional, small-scale shoot-out in a Star War! That sequence and then the transition to them travelling is the musical highlight of the episode too (at least in terms of underscoring, not counting the end credits). Really nice stuff. And I love that little alien dude with his "I have spoken" catchphrase.

Revenge of the Sith by John Williams As close as we'll ever get to a Williams opera.

Leaing up to this, I had basically no hype or major interest, knew I'd give it a try anyway but none of the trailers and stuff really tickled me. After this episode, I was mildly curious to see how it continues, where they're taking it. After listening to the mini-OST about 5 times: Hell yeah, bring it on! More of this, now!

Disney will transfer JW's consciousness to an artificial body, so he will be able to continue scoring Star Wars movies for the whole eternity!

The Rock - hugely enjoyable slam-bang actioner, from a time before Michael Bay's overblown directorial style had worn thin and before Nic Cage would just agree to be in any old crap. Also features Mr Connery in a sort of 'pensioner Bond' part and Ed Harris as a disillusioned military veteran who's the 'big bad'.

The music may work well within the show but listening to the soundtrack for episode 1 right now, I see no reason to ever listen to this again on its own. It is just not compelling or musically interesting enough to hold my attention in the way that all JW SW music and other non-JW SW music does. So far, I rank this far below Rogue One and even further below Solo.

The score was absolutely DREADFUL..... I thought scenes dragged because of it and the lack of any feel of Star Wars in it was heartbreaking. I do not want him to sound like Williams or imitate Williams but there was a harmonic language set up that was pretty much a character as much as any alien or actor or scenery. Everything together becomes Star Wars. This had nothing to do with it. Zero..... Even when he tried to go orchestral it sounded like pop, not even orchestral. I don't have a problem with going more modern or even having scenes with just electronic beats and sounds, but you still have to have a Star Wars feel to the score.... I kept checking my watch because he was making scenes drag for me. I'm happy you guys like it, but I was seriously gutted.

I've been checking them out thanks to a friend. Anyways they look good in my opinion even AOTC. Although not happy with that extra Greedo bit. Also I am still not happy they left the shit editing for AOTC when Dooku escapes. It changes right after he says to Yoda "This is just the beginning!". They changed it for the blu-ray release and of course kept it with the 4k version. It's sloppy editing and just ruins the sequence. I have no idea why the hell they edited that to begin with. If you don't believe me just compare the two sequences with the DVD and Blu-Ray versions of the film if you have the old DVD version.

There’s a lengthy sequence in this movie where DeNiro’s character gets sort of a lifetime achievement/appreciation gala thing that is about as confidently directed, written, acted, edited a piece of filmmaking as I’ve seen. The fact that it’s centered around three long private conversations with Pacino/Pesci, then Pesci/DeNiro, and finally DeNiro/Pacino, plus Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker doing their thing using the music and dancing of the event and its speech-making as interludes....it just screamed instant classic movie scene to me. Aesthetically, dramatically, emotionally, it earns that. Somewhere in the middle of it I started to feel really excited and moved that I was watching something of that caliber in a brand new movie in a movie theater in 2019. The movie as a whole struck me as imperfect but with the vitality of what I would reasonably call essential cinema. I don’t say that lightly...it just feels like a movie that won’t be ignored in the legacies of Scorsese, DeNiro, Pacino, and therefore frankly in the history of Hollywood and American crime movies. I don’t think that’s hyperbole, Scorsese mentioned he was looking for something to enrich and enlighten what he’d done with DeNiro in the 70s-90s and it’s a triumph to that end. They’re not playing the hits. I was worried it’d feel stale but it’s totally alive, surprisingly hilarious and enjoyable, but also the most internal film they’ve made together. In some ways it plays like a damning critique of mob movies and their fetishization in the culture.

Continuation of the series... @Pellaeon found a hi-res version of Roger Kastel's "Style A" poster for Empire, and it works quite nicely actually. The same with Kazuhiko Sano's "Style B" for Jedi, I used the half sheet version and extended the sides, I also had to remove an awful watermark right across the center of the poster And added The Rise of Skywalker, though I had to move some characters on the poster:

Who is the Gungan who will risk his life for his brother Gungan? Binks. Can you dig it? Who's the Gungan who won't cop out, when there's danger all about? J. Binks. You're damn right!

.

Very interesting that this premiere episode is only 38 minutes long. My bet is that there's going to be considerable variation in episode lengths. Something that's only getting more common the further we go into the streaming age.

Finally listened to The Mandalorian episode 1 score for the first time in full. Lots of fun! When I imagine a space Western, I imagine a very eclectic menagerie of different cultures at play, and the music delivers that in spades. The bass recorder theme is surprisingly versatile, musically, receiving more naked renditions, as well as more groovy variations where its inherent rhythm is more pronounced and obvious. Overall the music definitely feels more isolated and cold, which I'm sure is perfect for the subject matter. I really admire the spirit that pervades it: as a kid, one of my favorite things about Star Wars was the vast worlds you were transported to, while still maintaining a grounding in our own world. Williams wrote music that achieved that balance--the exotic and the familiar--and so far Goransson has done so as well. A great inheritance of musical philosophy, if you will.

2019 in a nutshell.

They should have combined the LP printing with the front cover and superimposed purple pom-pom ASM on top of a Death Star/John Williams' bald head hybrid.

Where have I done that? Oh fuck off now.

Sometimes it has to happen if the OST assembly is going to be finished and a product ready to buy to coincide with the film's release. Particularly for scores that need a lot of editing and arranging to make a 'listening experience'.

I saw the recording dates per cue for ANH, AOTC and ROTS, but I don't remember seeing one for the Potter movies. I know that the first two were recorded between late August and early September (during the 9/11, JW was in London for the final recordings of PS) and PoA was recorded in March.

Agree to disagree. The director or whoever made the movie in this case George Lucas has EVERY right to make changes to his movies. While we fans disagree with most of the changes in the end it's still Lucas' right to do that. You can argue about it until you're blue in the face but in the end it's HIS decision not ours. As Gruesome said if you want the originals completely untouched get the VHS versions or get the 2 disc set of the OT that was released a few years ago that had the unaltered versions in non anamorphic widescreen. Quit pissing on those (like myself) who actually like the CG enhancements for Star Wars (ANH).

The other one, it's available on VHS, if anybody wants it.

I feel sorry for you for feeling sorry for someone for not appreciating meh CG slapped randomly over Oscar-winning special effects in a classic masterpiece being the only legally available version! I personally don't believe the director or anyone should have the right for revisionalism this rampant and badly done, but I wouldn't give 2 shits about it if something pretty much 100% like the objectively miles better 4K77 would be available to purchase separately or in a multidisc set.

The SEs also have better CGI than the originals.

The final point always is, there's nothing wrong with liking the changes made to Star Wars. There's also nothing wrong with preferring the way it was originally released. Both should be legally available.

The SE looks better.

The Rock is a classic. Top notch entertainment.

Yeah, it's fine in The Rock when his career was still in its relative infancy. But by the time we get to the Transformers flicks the 'EVERYTHING LOUDER THAN EVERYTHING ELSE, ALL THE TIME!!!' thing is just wearying.

That would be quite an irresponsible decision.

As long as they keep making Star Wars trailers, John Williams will always be...a Star Wars composer Variety: “Even at 175 years old and dead, John Williams continues to write amazing Star Wars music, as evidenced by the trailer for Episode XXI. Note how he mashed up Rey’s Theme with The Imperial March! Those classic Star Wars synth BWOMPs! Amazing!”

Also, isn't it easier to just re-order a product than asking the pressing plants to repress discs with different contents? I'll never understand why people look at frequencies either...

Exactly, and they would risk getting hundreds of claims about replacements from the nerds who's already got the set.

Di$ney+ takes no big risks to musically offend their Netflix-educated audience. Apart from a main motif that amusingly recalls Bill Conti's 'Gonna Fly Now' what we get here is mostly solid sound design with only one or two cues with a recognizable narrative ('You Are A Mandalorian', 'The Mandalorian'). Now it's only 25 minutes long so there might me something better in store, so let's wait and hear it.

There's some nice lore with the Mandalorians throughout Clone Wars and Rebels @Disco Stuwhich also makes Filoni's involvement fitting. Given the shows timeline it would be nice to see one of the Rebels character - a Mandalorian too - given a cameo.

Do you think Williams is going to give us a 10 minute version of Crimebuster?

Mike explained it, it wasn't a lossy source in regards to PoA.

Aren't the cutoffs of this sort basically inaudible to humans? If the problem were more prominent, such as like the lossy first issue of Thomas Bergersen's American Dream, which was a huge screw-up, then for a £100 box it would be unacceptable, but for something that we can't even hear it's easily let go.

Incredible work as usual, my man. Thanks for sharing with the community.

I agree with you there about the importance of ranking nuance. Though I wonder if they might've believed asking for ranks would give too much societal pressure, ie. "What? you think x composer is better than Bach and Beethoven?" so the composer being polled would just put these two 1st as to not cause embarassment or overthink it, having this fake/societal fear of being viewed incompetent. Even better would be to make their ranks unknown/anonymous to the public, so they might stay true to their personal rankings. Non-rank didn't seem to make the list more true/interesting anyway, it still yields popular composers in the top: Bach, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Mozart. Many of us have a tendency to want to put the popular go-to choices higher than our own favorites, to sound "objective." I'm openly honest about my praise of Borodin and John Williams over other composers. That's why I'm on this forum, because music is subjective and based in evolutionary biology. If we wanted Beethoven's opinion on the best composer, he wouldn't say "Beethoven," so why would Williams do the same; it's up to every individual to decide their favorites. Hopefully others think a similar way about their favorites, making ranking preferable in gaining a better overall census. Even within John Williams, we can't all agree on the best pieces.

You know there's bound to be die-hard SW nutters out there who MUST study these official 4K releases asap!

I love that Lucas has one final troll for the fanboys. Beautiful.

I love this starting at 0:36. That is just really cool. Finally we get a jaw harp in a Star Wars score! EDIT: I posted my first listen thoughts here:

The original trilogy and prequel trilogy now also have the 20th Century Fox logo and fanfare restored on the Disney+ versions.

The major Norwegian CD store that's left, platekompaniet.no. Now the special discount has ended, so the price has increased to $44 + shipping. Still much cheaper than elsewhere, though. And their packaging is much sturdier than Amazon's! https://www.platekompaniet.no/cd/john-williams-conductor/

Ahh, from the Zimmer PR & self-promotion toolkit.

It is one of his more prominently mixed scores in recent times but I think that is what Spielberg was going for - an oldfashioned feel with loudly mixed music. And hey, it's all good when the music is this good. It's also rare that you actually get to listen to the score in the cinema. I actually saw both this and Tintin twice in the cinema just to listen to the score again in context.

In Jeff's latest episode of "The Baton", I joined him as a co-host to discuss one of JW's most underrated scores, The Fury https://thebatonpodcast.podbean.com/e/episode-48-the-fury/ It was lovely to be a guest of Jeff's show, he's very dedicated to this thorough job. I look forward to join him in other episodes in the future!

If you are ever looking for some one to join you on your Raiders, Temple of Doom or Last Crusade episodes, hit me up! -Erik-

Aww, don't encourage them! Say what you want, but Ross instilled a level of liveliness and enthusiasm in COS that Stone really lacks.