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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!

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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.

Ask our favourite score butcher!

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.

I love Mel Brooks, but Spaceballs is a Star Wars parody made by someone who didn't really get Star Wars.

Where have I done that? Oh fuck off now.

Count me in! I've been rooting for Göransson the whole time, baby!

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.

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 SE looks better.

The Rock is a classic. Top notch entertainment.

I saw MIDWAY yesterday. I really liked it. It's not his best (it's lacking his finely tuned narrative acts, for example), but the lovely excess and the audiovisual, "cinematic celebration" were both very trademark. Characters are waferthin, of course, but they always have been in his movies. That's not what he's about. This was never supposed to be another DUNKIRK or whatever, for those who expected that. The film went straight into my 33rd place (out of 130 2019 movies seen so far).

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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!”

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.

I really like this new trend of releasing music every week for every new episode. For example, a season of a TV show with 8 - 10 episodes, considering 30 minutes of music per episode, we have 240 - 300 minutes of score per season (4h to 5h). So, considering an 70 - 90 minutes OST album, you still will have about 3h of unreleased music. But, with small score releases every episode (even if it's just 15 - 25 minutes of music), the amount of unreleased score for the whole season decreases. And this is not just mathemathics: one small release per episode allows the music fans analyze more carefully the work the composer has done on each episode, wheter it's an interesting performance of a theme, a bigger orchestra, unusual instruments for the introduction of a character, etc. Of course, if they want to, by the end of every season they can release a more traditional album with the musical highlights. But still, this is a very interesting thing that I hope it will become more common.

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

It’s my little secret. I’ll tell you after the movie’s out.

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.

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.

https://lalalandrecords.com/terminator-dark-fate-limited-edition/ https://lalalandrecords.com/dveselu-putenis-blizzard-of-souls/

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

Of course not.

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:

I answered all the questions. I hope the movie does not feel as exhausting.

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

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-