Leaderboard

My spouse Edwin Wendler and I had a great time last night. We even met a poster from this board. At the post concert birthday dinner we talked to many and got several photos. Here are two of Daisy & Anne. John was 9 seats away to our left. The “Superman” match set to photos/video of JW was the highlife for us. “Dear Basketball” had me in tears as some of the voice over from Kobe talked about good-bye and other words which hit us harder since he’s no longer here. Also John’s beautiful score brought out more tears. Had Anne sign my 2CD Vienna concert CD. Edwin and her chatted in German for a moment. We sat right in front of Alan Silvestri and Thomas Newman and Mike post was next to us. Wow! A perfect evening!

Daisy Ridley made an appearance and sang John a sultry rendition of “Happy Birthday”

Review and photos from El País: Full Happy Birthday and Imperial March performance:

Only saw it used during ET and/or CE3K.

67 posts until the f word was mentioned, not bad

The Duel with Mutter and Ma was a back and forth between violin and cello, they made gestures towards each other throughout and at a couple points drew their bows at each other. It was pretty fun. Here they are after The Duel while the audience applauds. The crowd laughed at their sparring during the piece.

Anne-Sophie is gonna need some more cookies.

There was also a great video segment of directors who have worked with Williams describing what it was like and wishing him happy birthday. It included Spielberg, Ron Howard, Rob Marshall, Chris Columbus, Oliver Stone, George Lucas, and JJ Abrams. It appeared that Oliver Stone’s segment may have been cut short to only wishing John a happy birthday, and did not include him describing their collaboration.

JW lowkey only pulled up because daisy Ridley was going to be there

Love the happiness and energy in Williams' expressions.

“Nedry’s Jeep here! I got Nedry’s Jeep here!! See, no one cares…”

Promise me you won't call the insane asylum if I tell you that one of the chapters of the book lists the 1187 appearances of the motif, with timecode in the films and albums, and also a description of the scenes and orchestrations.

The Superman March was played over a fantastic montage of stills and clips of Williams, some of which I’ve never seen. I hope someone got that, it was great. After Throne Room, all of the guests returned to the stage together to applaud Johnny. The orchestra started playing Happy Birthday and the entire concert hall sang to him. Then gold streamers and confetti shot out from the balconies. Deneve then handed Williams the baton and motioned him towards the podium. Williams conducted The Imperial March, the only encore.

When Luke is viewing Leia’s message, Threepio asks if he knows to whom she’s referring. Luke says he doesn’t know anyone named Obi-Wan, but knows “Old Ben” who lives nearby in the Dune Sea but is sort of a hermit. Then at dinner, Luke tells Owen about the message and says, “I wonder if he means Old Ben?” And also Luke recognizes him immediately after the Tusken attack. “Ben? Ben Kenobi? Boy am I glad to see you!” it is implied that Luke at least knows of him. It can be inferred that they may have met. Them meeting on this show doesn’t contradict canon. in fact, the Radio Drama (which was at one time considered canonical) has Luke recounting to Threepio a time when Ben saved him and his friend Windy after getting injured and lost in Beggars Canyon (A children’s Golden Book was published years later, adapting this tale!). Obi later tells Luke he had intended to give Luke his father’s lightsaber at that time, but Owen got pissed and ordered him to never come back. Man, the Radio Dramas were damn good. Brian Daley really got the characters and tone very early on.

Apparently black-female antagonist = woke nowadays? Idk. Whenever someone says the word 'woke' unironically I just assume they didn't graduate high school.

Rey's Theme is still one of my favorite Williams themes ever

As usual just after the appearance of the Willow page on the Intrada website, I will publish a review of this new edition on James Horner Film Music.

Poor Bill Ross has been done dirty. Everyone on Twitter is attributing his music to Holt 😭

Track 15: Indy's Noble End

Just to point out that this is not a Washington Post story; it’s from the Associated Press, syndicated on the Post’s website. Here’s the original: https://apnews.com/article/john-williams-indiana-jones-star-wars-music-af541b3979fd6c0ea624bb200c322f42 Agree that Singapore and Lisbon are mistakes on AP’s part and refer to tribute concerts without JW’s participation. Looks like this is the SG concert and this is the Lisbon one.

This is not a 90 year old man. This is an ageless and timeless wizard!

Bring back Joe Kraemer.

Tons. They're in 13 parts, about 20 minutes each, so more than double the amount of time to tell the story of the film. The beginning of the film narrative with the Star Destroyer and Blockade Runner doesn't even come until halfway through the third episode. 1st Episode: ALL Luke on Tatooine with Biggs and his friends and Owen and Beru 2nd Episode: ALL Leia on Alderaan with her father (He wasn't named Bail at this point) and their connections to the Empire. Leia even has a diplomatic interaction with Vader, and there's a slimy Imperial Officer who wants to marry Leia to have a stronger link between the Empire and Alderaan. A fun mini adventure with the Droids outside the Cantina An AWESOME Han Solo by Perry King (Who originally auditioned for the role in the film)... a totally different take - VERY intense and fun. You get the Jabba scene at Mos Eisley, but with another bounty hunter instead of Jabba. Lots of detail on the Force instruction aboard the Falcon and lightsaber training. An embarrassing extended mind probe torture of Leia by Vader - Leia's moaning is very over the top, and could be completely misunderstood by your neighbors if you have thin walls. More time on Yavin with Luke trying to convince Han to stay and fight. A subplot of Admiral Motti brown nosing Tarkin to try to secure more power for them both, ultimately convincing Tarkin not to evacuate the Death Star. An epilogue of Luke and Han sharing stories of what happened after the battle of Yavin, before they get their awards. (They really do a great job of building their friendship throughout the series). This was also the first time at home listeners could hear the entire score in a different context. It was glorious. They had access to everything, as well as all of the sound effects libraries. A first rate production. Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels are in them. Billy Dee Williams joins for the Empire one. Empire's adaptation was shorter, only 10 Episodes. Jedi is the weakest, and was done much later with I think 6 Episodes, and some questionable voice talent.

Daisy set Anne-Sophie into perspective. Girls...

In their defense, they did tell him to hurry up and let them through so as to not cause a disruption and offend John Williams.

That seems like an exaggeration... not even these two themes? I think they're ridiculously catchy: Christophe Beck? Bear McCreary? Austin Wintory? Carlos Rafael Rivera? Hell...Hesham Nazih? And maybe you only consider big Hollywood things to be "major opportunities" but if not, may I recommend Panu Aaltio? Yavar

New Indiana Jones music by John Williams exists on paper now. Always an exciting time.

I very strongly feel that Ludwig's music in general does not sound like cookie cutter RCP. Using synthetic sounds does not automatically = RCP. He has his own voice and approach that sounds nothing like Balfe & co.

Something tells me Kathleen Kennedy wasn´t as hands on with Kenobi as she normally is with Star Wars projects (what with Mando, Ahsoka, Andor in production etc) and so she let Chow just get on with it. Then, maybe, she came to have a look at what was going on, heard the score, went "What the f*** is this?", panicked, called JW, JW goes, "Yeah, no thanks, I´ll give you a theme, but that´s it", then they get Bill Ross involved to adapt the theme and write additional music. What a mess.

This sums up my thoughts on Obi-Wan Kenobi's music. I won't rehash too much of what's already been said, but I was overall disappointed in the music. I really enjoyed Ludwig's Mando music, and Shirley's work with Ludwig's themes in BoBF...I don't really have a problem with deviating from the 'star warsy sound' necessarily. As others have mentioned, because this is such an extension of the prequels, it didn't feel 'right' to not hear certain themes during certain key moments...and I really don't think Natalie's comments on needing to 'seed' the themes makes sense since we chronologically already have Vader's, Leia's and the force theme from before this series takes place. I'm not saying every theme that could show up, should show up... but at least some key moments should have had themes. Examples: -bit of Luke's theme when we first see him -force theme for at least that one moment where Ben uses the force for the first time in a while to catch Leia -Leia's theme could play in a number of spots -Vader's theme for at the very least his first appearance in the show, and would make sense in a number of other scenes I don't mind Qui-Gon's theme not appearing. Battle of the Heroe's quote could have been cool, but would be fine for me for their duel to have other music, although I didn't really like their duel music in the finale (I should listen again though, only watched it once). I did like some of Natalie's music...the things that come to mind were in that planet in Episode 2, and the midwest-United-States-looking-planet in Episode 3. I was not a fan of her Inquisitor theme(?) that plays when Reva arrives at the Fortress Inquisitorious. I really enjoy Williams' new theme, but I do think it's overused in the series. I enjoyed a lot of William Ross's work for the most part and I really hope this shows those who make decisions that Ross should really be considered for a Star Wars project in the future, and certainly if we do get 'Obi-Wan - Season 2: Ben gets a house', then I hope they give it to Ross completely.

Also needs mentioning: The Olympic Fanfare and Theme was a killer performance. The brass from the Marine Corps band (I think it was…?) joined the orchestra and they absolutely nailed it. Anyone get a picture of that?

What does that have to do with him attending Williams' birthday concert?

In terms of completely unreleased scores that I dearly wish I could listen to whenever I want, the biggest for me is: Geoffrey Burgon's scores for the BBC Narnia series. I won't pretend this is essential film/television music that everyone should want, but these cues are so ingrained in me for so many years. I wants it!

Hommage to Artie Kane The Conductor (1929-2022) James Newton Howard - Snow Falling on Cedars OST Marc Shaiman - The First Wives Club OST Danny Elfman - Mission: Impossible OST John Williams - Jurassic Park OST (co-conducted with John Williams)

Silvestri should've done a speech about his favourite John Williams score: Back to the Future.

And the difference is painfully obvious most of the time. Not only the basics of orchestral writing but the mastering/recording sounds completely different as well. It became pretty obvious after episode 4 that we were dealing with two totally separate scoring approaches, practically competing with each other from scene to scene.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CfL3OATuScW/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= Alan Silvestri was a guest. Lol

The Radio Drama actually explains it. Threepio most definitely knows who she is. Leia and Captain Antilles are aboard the Tantive IV (first place it was ever named, and not pronounced like you might think) and about to intercept the Death Star plans. They are programming the droids to go outside the ship to fake making repairs as an alibi for being in a restricted system. The droids are further programmed to protect the identity of Leia being aboard at all costs “that includes lying and self destructing” So yeah, it’s suggested that Threepio was following Antilles’ override programming and lying to Luke. Listen at the 1 hour 1 minute mark

Daughter (*1963) and Grand daughter (*1992). No competition, they can coexist.

That's a Bill Ross cue. Ross' music sounds like Star Wars. Holt's...does not.

This evening must be hell on JW's modesty !

Did anyone else notice the couple who arrived after the second piece and made JW stand up so they could slink past him to their seats?

Now I wish there was a cringe react

Lovely first half. John is sitting across the room and one row ahead of me. Nothing too unique to report yet. Mutter didn’t speak at all, surprisingly. Spielberg came out before the two Indy pieces with a lovely speech about his friendship with Williams. Vanessa Bryant had a video message greeting played before Dear Basketball. I heard the orchestra practicing some bars of the Imperial March before the concert began. Hoping that’ll be an encore that Williams conducts!

That's what she....oh, nevermind.

Premiere Releases Dracula: Dead and Loving it (Mann) Batman and Robin (Goldenthal) The Bounty (Vangelis) Troy (Yared) Expansions 1492: Conquest of Paradise (Vangelis) Dune (Toto and Brian Eno) Brainstorm (Horner) Sphere (Goldenthal) Interview with the Vampire (Goldenthal) Twin Peaks - The whole thing Re-issues The Burbs (Goldsmith) Re-recordings Spartacus (North) The Ten Commandments (Bernstein) The Killers (Rózsa) Captain Blood (Korngold)

Obi-wan at the start of the series was burdened by the tremendous guilt of killing his friend and apprentice, spent his life begging for help from his master, and then through the events of the series found a level of peace. To me, that’s the character arc that led to Qui-Gon’s appearance