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I don't care what she's saying (and I'm not a conspiracy theorist), there is definitely more to this story, as others have posited. The involvement of Ross is a flag immediately. I do feel sorry for her though. Imagine boasting that ET was your motivation to enter the film music industry... then getting a job on a Williams legacy project... and then having to pump out the most generic, bland, soul-less wallpaper paste ever.

Her answer about that makes no sense, though. She acts like these themes are in their "genesis" in between ROTS and ANH, but how? The themes were already present and developed by ROTS. By the time you get to this show chronologically, you've already heard Qui-Gon's theme in TPM; the Force theme in TPM, AOTC, ROTS; Leia's theme in ROTS; the Imperial March in AOTC, ROTS (with hints in Anakin's theme in TPM); the Mustafar theme in ROTS; the Order 66 music in ROTS. The Imperial March is even heard in both anthology films, Rogue One and Solo, and they both take place before ANH. Also, she talks about leading things to ANH, but the Imperial March isn't even in that movie... The point is, these themes don't need to be "seeded"; they already exist in the universe. Many of them are even referenced in the animated shows that chronologically take place before this show (TCW, Bad Batch). Why do they need to be treated in this show as though they've never existed before? I'd also like to point out that she remembered the name of ANH, but drew a blank when it came to ROTS. Between her, and the writer Joby Harold also seemingly not having watched ROTS before writing the show based on recent remarks of his, it is no wonder that there are so many problems. This show is arguably more of a follow-up to ROTS, than it is a prequel to ANH. Even the marketing clearly reflects this. There's no excuse for this.

An orchestrator takes sketches of a cue (often a piano score) and sets the music for the various instruments of the orchestra. Many times the choice of instruments is left up to the orchestrator’s preference, but in JW’s case, he uses his orchestrators more like copyists; he generally already has an idea of what instruments should play what music, and the orchestrators write it out for those instruments. It saves him a lot of time. Arranging is a lot freer than orchestrating; the arranger simply takes a tune/theme/piece and does what they want with it. They do their own orchestration, they can play around with the harmonies, they can add countermelodies, etc. Adapting (what Ross is doing in Kenobi) is similar to that, basically arranging but with a film element. Ross is taking JW’s Obi-Wan theme and adapting it to various scenes in the show, where it would fit. So, rather than JW picking every instance of when and where his Obi-Wan theme should show up, as he normally would as a film composer, instead Ross gets to choose. Think of it like this: Ross is a composer for the show, but the music he writes is primarily JW’s theme. However, he is free to orchestrate and arrange that theme as he pleases, and to use that theme where he wants to use it. That’s already a lot of work, but the thing is, recent episodes have revealed that he is going even beyond that: he is evidently being asked to write entire lengthy cues (lengthier than many of Holt’s, even), for scenes as important as the Obi-Wan/Vader duel. That is a big deal, as ordinarily the main composer for a show or film (in this case Natalie Holt) would obviously score such an important scene.

Is this guy on crack? Listen to what he says here...

@Manakin Skywalkerjust wanna say that I love your changing profile pictures. @Yavar Moradito get a like from you on one of my posts, wow do I consider that such a high honor. Love the work you and the team do on The Goldsmith Odyssey.

A lovely dark melancholy score to sink into on rainy evenings! Its single-mindedness really helps you appreciate all the little variations and differences JW puts into every cue once your brain clicks onto it, and the family theme, athematic cues and bigger renditions where JW can let loose are a welcome respite. A 100% new discovery that i do not regret buying in the slightest and will keep on discovering!

"Summer of '82 please!" Blade Runner, E.T., Conan the Barbarian, Poltergeist!

I take more issue with the crappy music than with presence of those themes

Finally got round to watching the first episode of the new series. Generally great, although if it's a semi-soft (oo-er... sorry) reboot, I'm not sure the tone and themes in it would be that appealing to a new viewer, interesting though they were. It would be a bit like having had the TNG episode Family as the first episode in the new series rather than the second half of The Best of Both Worlds (and Family was less of a downer than this episode of the Orville). The music by Kevin Kaska was superb, especially the sequence with the new fighter ship which turned the Adventures of Mutt into space cowboy rodeo music. The action writing elsewhere was dynamic and exciting, mixed upfront but the more sombre moments scored sensitively. Think I'll take a bit of time getting used to the new version of the main titles music, but nice to have something new to enjoy. Does anyone know if Bruce Broughton did the new version or if it was by one of the series composers? Looking forward to the soundtrack to this series immensely. I'm not at all sold on shows that have put out an album for every episode (I'm looking at you, Mandalorian season 1...) or absolutely hours of music (Star Trek: Prodigy... good though it is) but if the quality is maintained throughout this season, they could almost justify an album per episode, especially since each episode has a generous run time and will therefore likely have a decent amount of music, else I think the 2 disc highlights per season to date haven't missed anything crucial (I think!).

Absolutely, and all those terrific Tinker Bell scores - if only Disney thought to employ him on something a bit more high profile - while Christophe Beck's Frozen scores are pretty great, it's the kind of film McNeely should be up for. He really should have got the Obi-Wan gig... It is and one where he more clearly pulls away from being a JW imitator as was more prevalent in his earlier scores although on Young Indy, you could hardly blame him, but then Laurence Rosenthal never really did a full on JW pastiche in his scores for the show. That's the one (re the Million Ways love theme) ! I knew it was one of Horner's hymnal themes but couldn't quite remember which one. Couple more recent listens (if anyone is still reading...) The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies (Howard Shore) - despite being generally cynical/realist nature, I try to remain relatively positive when I contribute here, but man this was a bit of a slog to get through. I never actually got round to watching the film (the blu-ray boxed set is still shrink wrapped having bought it at our local HMV's closing down sale a few years ago) so maybe my appreciation would increase, but this one feels like one long action cue. There was a discussion elsewhere about how film music is ramped up to 11 in the epicness stakes and this almost feels like that, for like an hour. Sure, it's well written epic music, but it does get tiring by the end. I hope he has more interesting things to do on the upcoming TV show. The 10th Kingdom (Anne Dudley) - Fairly eclectic but decent TV miniseries score from 2000; a nice mix of epic and more intimate material. Congo (Jerry) - Got suckered into reading a clickbait article on Screen Rant (or similar) about how Congo wasn't as bad as you remembered but I do remember it being fairly bad, but if you had a bad movie that needed a decent score, Jerry was usually the man for it. His Spirit of Africa is a fine choral anthem (although I suspect these days, the sentiment in the lyrics might be deemed a bit patronising) although it doesn't feature much in the score generally which is more heavy a mix of action and melodrama. By coincidence I had added Jurassic Park (to mark the anniversary of it being released and to remind myself how much better it is than Michael Giacchino, as if I needed it, after JP was the score that got me into film music in the first place) to play after Congo and it reminded me that Congo was one of those many films where Jerry got lumbered with the pale imitation of a JW scored classic (Superman/Supergirl, Raiders/King Solomon's Mines etc.). OK it's not exactly an exactly a rip of Jurassic Park, but as another Crichton novel adaptation that was clearly meant to cash in on the success of JP, I would still lump it in that category.

Picked these from a local thrift store.

Kathleen Kennedy pointing a gun at her off-camera.

Actually, that is an image of Atlantis Challenger (good spotting @crumbs) as seen from the Space Station. The image is not from the movie. The marks are used to measure things in the image and are present in the original. That image shows something in the back of the payload bay of the orbiter, and in the film, the bay is empty. But, bizarrely, besides cropping the image, the artist actually flipped the direction of the craft (presumably to represent the sense of going back to earth as is the main drama of the 2nd half of the movie). You can see in the original image the clouds and coastline are the same, but the orbiter correctly points upwards in the process of docking.

An absolute joy of a score. It's also one of the surprising few that manages to capture most, if not all, of Newman's best qualities. The gorgeous slow ethereal piano-led There Was Snow and Simple Truths, backed with haunting pads and reverby flutes and violin... the jaunty plucky stuff of Angus, Pilgrim's Progress and Hereford Cross... and the soaring brass and strings of Montana, Rhythm Of The Horse and The Very Act Of Being.... all wrapped up in a beautiful Americana sensibility. It's genuinely some of the most 'epic' stuff Newman has written. I really really really hope that he revisits this style at some point in the future; it is very very lovely and moving. Gorgeous stuff. As I understand, this was a replacement to John Barry's score; whether or not it was a 'rush job', this is a small body of work that Newman should be extremely proud of.

^ I cannot listen to his voice without picturing this guy: "No, Beavis. Natalie's showing that she understands and gets Star Wars better than anyone to date, M-kay?" Your Fode and Beed one is a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. The previous headswap gave me the willies. The new one is hilarious.

The problem is I can't say it's been well done. I've heard no "seeds" of any kind so far. What does it mean to "seed"? Is she partially stating a few notes of a character theme? Is she using the same chords? Where are these "seeds" she's referring to? Am I deaf? Maybe she's so technically gifted, she hid them behind loads of musical grammar that few can decipher. I just don't know. We've had multiple episodes of major legacy characters on screen. We should've heard something obvious by now. If ep6 contains everything I wanted, I'd go with it. Better late than never, I said. However, it could've been super effective if she better prepared the audience for the full statement of the themes. I'm not a composer, so I can't comment on exactly how she could do that. It's her job to figure that out.

"My work is fucking epic!". (J. Williams, esq, 1984)

God Of War - Bear McCreary God, this is such a cool score!! The main theme and action music is terrific!! Peaks Pass, The Dragon & Magni And Modi are my favourites. The emotional moments are also great! Can't wait for the next one!

My favorite work of Babs.

The easiest, non-musical way to describe it is "big picture" vs. "fine tuning/smaller details" An arranger is someone who takes melodic material, themes, etc. and organises that material into a piece of music - for example, how William Ross took JW's Harry Potter themes, and created 'cues' to accompany The Chamber Of Secrets. The arranger doesn't write material, but has to make creative decisions about the structure and presentation of that material within a listenable piece of music. An orchestrator takes a piece of music that has already substantively been written and arranged, and works out the intricacies of how that piece will be played by an ensemble. Their job is to focus on the finer details, rather than the big picture.

SpaceCamp also failed because it wasn’t a good movie

Have a Great Symphonic Summer! E.T. (expanded) Jurassic Park (expanded) The Lion King (expanded) How To Train your Dragon (expanded)

William ross is an orchestrator in rogue one…

Holt has described her young Leia music as having seeds/elements of JW's Leia theme. But honestly, nothing about any of the music in the show has stood out enough for me to notice details like that. Until we get an official soundtrack release, I can only say the music has been underwhelming and I haven't noticed any musical seeds planted.

THE RED SHOES is, without a single shadow of a doubt, one of the greatest pieces of art, ever created for cinema.

Lennie is a fantastic composer!

The violin arrangements are better collectively, but Prayer for Peace wins for the best of the bunch.

Jazz is my most listened to genre, even moreso than film scores/classical. If you ever glance at the main Jazz thread it's obvious that I mostly listen to "classic" jazz from the 20s-50s, I'm left pretty cold once things get too artsy fartsy (that said, there's tons of great groovy jazz in the 60s). For me, jazz has to be rooted in the blues and the rhythm of black American music from the early 20th century or I'm not interested in it. All that Swedish or whatever ECM stuff just isn't for me. However, I do listen to plenty of contemporary jazz as well. I listen to all kinds, but for anyone curious I'd wanna spotlight a great scene in NYC of composers/conductors still pushing the big band form forward. Here are a few albums from the last few years that I absolutely adore: Alan Ferber teaches at NYU these days, he put out some great albums in the 2000s as a nonet before graduating up to full big band. Jigsaw, his most recent album from 2017 is legit one of my favorite albums of any genre of the past 10 years. Here's two albums by young east Asian women who came to America to study in conservatories like Berklee and became jazz composers in college. They both bring a classical sensibility to the form in an interesting way. Jihye Lee Miho Hazama I posted about a couple of years ago here because she included a really cool interesting arrangement of Williams' Olympic theme. Her own compositions are also great! Jared Schonig is an amazing drummer and composer. His Two Takes big band album was my favorite album of 2021. The groove is hot!

Just arrived! Only listened to SpaceCamp for now with @Holko, what a beautiful, gorgeous, magic score. As always, great assembly/editing/mastering by Mike Matessino, this sounds amazing. Can't wait to discover Presumed Innocent!

JW recorded an instrumental version of "If we were in love" with the Boston Pops. It's the only version you need. It's great without lyrics!

Add Miles, Bird, Coltrane, Hancock, Quincy, Sarah, Chick, Joe, Benny, Frank, Mingus, and Evans, to this list.

Especially since they unchained him

I posted a link to the video interview over on reddit: Already over a hundred comments, pretty much all bashing the score. 😳

@Andy, I owe you thanks for introducing me to Empire Jazz, a hitherto-unknown-to-me gem of an album. I've been playing this basically nonstop on YT since last night, when I first read your post. Why this isn't on CD yet (so I can add it to my JW collection) is a mystery. p.s. Huge respect to Ron Carter, who managed to get probably the greatest SW-themed album art that isn't part of SW canon on the front of his album.

The prologue's end logo music isn't in the film or album. Which is a bit of a shame, I like it.

Finishing the album. I don't know The Long Goodbye and maybe therefore didn't really like the piece. Han Solo and the Princess is... interesting, but the amount of vibrato Mutter brings to these pieces is just ridiculous. Marion's theme sounds quite promising (opening is magical), but I think I'd like these pieces a lot more if they had toned down the vibrato. Marion especially begs for normal playing.

For anyone interested, BBC Radio 3's THE SOUND OF CINEMA show has a Vangelis special. It is on Saturday 25th June, at 15:00hrs, BST.

It sounds like that, and the last chaptaer said additional music by

A few weeks ago I discovered this Avengers Campus: Welcome Recruits arrangement of the Avenger's theme(s) and I think it has become my favorite version. The music is upbeat, bombastic, has some nice flourishes, and gives me everything I want from the Avengers theme. John Paesano wrote this arrangement and I think he did an awesome job. I'm enjoying it even with its 11 minute run time. Somehow the music sustains the energy and doesn't bore me with all the repetition. https://youtu.be/zEx6fYhlusM

Such as? I really like IAN CARR'S NEUCEUS. The Dan is definitely pop, but with very strong jazz idioms.

That is true, William Ross wasn't involved in the other non-Williams Star Wars soundtracks, even the ones that had new Williams themes written for them There is certainly an extenuating circumstance present for Kenobi that wasn't there for the others

He's 40th today so what else to watch! E.T. Such a perfect picture, there's no words for it so here are a few of my favourite pics: The one with the tallest building

She talks here about using the pre-excisting themes. I'm sure people won't agree with the decision the filmmakers made about using them sparingly, but I do get where they're coming from storywise

Jazz lost its mass audience in the Fifties when it began to consciously cater to a " sophisticated" audience. It fetishized technique and alienated audiences who didn't care how fast the saxophonist could play. It stagnated into a form of music that was listened to, not danced to. It killed itself

I can’t figure out how to share Facebook post from my phone to here but this is on the Classic FM page.

In the age of digital it would be far easier to just do two releases - one as complete as the composer is comfy with, and another rearranged for optimal listening. Isham's the only compooser I know of who's tried it a few times.

People on the internet are too apologetic of multi million dollar productions with zero artist integrity that aim solely of making money out of a pre established brand

It's here. Karol

The best version? Laurie Johnson's, of course