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The work on the Deluxe Edition album and the full score book of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World has started! Nearly 2 hours of music will be released on 2 CDs, including 6 demos! Coming from Varese Sarabande Records & 5 Cat Studios Just like in the previous books, the Full Score Book will match the movie note by note! Coming from Omni Music Publishing & 5 Cat Studios

It's this forums destiny to always bring up the sequels. So let's dial it back or go to the star wars is better than everything thread (hint: it's not 😏, Indy is (see the Indiana Jones is better than everything thread for proof) (Kylo should have been the only villain in TROS and TLJ was actually awesome)

Yeah I agree on that much, for sure. But again JJ Abrams was responsible for leaving Rian Johnson with that situation — Han already dead before Luke appeared on screen, and Luke having somehow ignored everything that had been happening. The Last Jedi explained it in the only way that made sense. Unless someone wants to tell me a different way he should have used the prompt he was handed? I wish Johnson had been able to plan and write the whole sequel trilogy on his own. It would have been better. Abrams is good at setting things up and creating characters you care about. He’s not very good at planning a story. Yavar

Yep. I think the idea of Luke in exile is fascinating, especially if it was only for say, the first movie in a trilogy. But to have that be his whole story in the sequels? To include him in exactly zero adventures? To never show him on screen with Han, Leia and Chewie on the Falcon, not even for a quick scene that you can stick in the trailer? It's shortsighted at best.

A blue milk break, maybe.

Absolutely beautiful. Many try to imitate this style, but NO-ONE does it like Newman himself. He has arguably THE most unique and distinct compositional styles of anybody writing for films today. Incredible instrumental combinations and harmonic progressions which cut right to the heart, and all made to sound so natural and effortless. It takes a great composer to write an apparently simple piece - Anybody can spin out a whole bunch of notes, but knowing exactly where to leave them out and create space is another level of skill entirely.

Three Costume Dramas! Did you know Cleopatra was out of print? My booklet looks like it was handled by a gorilla’s fingers, but I got it at a good price. Wonder if this could be reissued with sonic improvements?

Guys, the books were never “canon”. “Book canon” maybe, in that they tried to build a continuity *between* the books so they didn’t contradict each other. But it was always the case that a new Star Wars film could come out and supersede the book(s). That didn’t remotely start with Disney. That started with The Empire Strikes back and continued through the prequels. (Yes, I’m still sore about Boba Fett’s stupid new backstory about being a clone of his “father” who was also the template for all the “clone troopers”, the obvious stormtrooper predecessors. Just bizarre.) Name me a single Star Wars film which ever cared about contradicting the Star Wars books written before it. Yavar

It's weird maybe, but I still don't trust The Armorer completely

I’m probably the biggest defender of the sequels, and yet I must agree with @A. A. Ron . I still enjoy them, but it’s heartbreaking that the Big Three didn’t get together.

A Knight's Tale (2001) Wildly entertaining flick that still holds up 20+ years later. An all-time favourite. Carter Burwell's score is merely serviceable, but let's face it, it's the rock classics that make the real score. Highly recommended.

Selfishly creating a new thread for this because I've never had a film director respond to a tweet before! I asked Mangold if the Dial would have a new theme in the film and he responded: He seems very willing to answer questions about JW's score – more than any other topic. That's a positive sign!

I absolutely love that Powell himself is making sure to release not only extended editions of his own scores, but the full book scores as well! It really shows he cares about his own work, and it's such a gift for us fans, because otherwise we would have to wait years or even decades to get these officially.

The point was not to be constrained by decades and decades of book continuity, much of which wasn’t great and all of which couldn’t be cared less about by the general public. With Ford and Hamill in their 70s, what EU books did you want them to adapt for the big screen? The Yuuzhan Vong stuff? Chewbacca’s death on Sernpidal when the moon crashes into the planet? Good grief. Fanboy expectations are often so unreasonable, and I say that as a fanboy. In the 1990s maybe they could have adapted the Thrawn trilogy. When they didn’t, that ship sailed. Just enjoy the books you like as a separate mental timeline. There was EU stuff that got outright contradicted by the terrible prequels too. And Alan Dean Foster’s 1978 book Splinter of the Mind’s Eye was an official Star Wars novel sequel which they felt free to completely ignore with The Empire Strikes Back. Disney Star Wars is nothing new in this regard. Why should the film series have to worry about aligning itself with books that only a small fragment of the Star Wars-watching public cares about or is even aware of? What next? All newly produced Star Trek on screen has to make sure it’s consistent with a half century of written Star Trek books and comics? Lol. Yavar

He, he. That one's pretty tasteful, I think. Any nudity firmly covered behind fonts.

Leia should have never, ever, been Luke's sister.

That too. I expected a star destroyer appearing and destroying the whole fleet

Did anyone else get a weird vibe with the drawn out scene of the Armorer piloting the small craft with the refugees and wounded back to the fleet? It felt like there was impending doom.

What there is is a use of sound libraries like Symphobia 2. I have been able to recognize a very famous violin cluster from that library

They just reused a S1 (or S2?) promotional still. He's even got the Darksaber here Plus his hair is more gray now, and he no longer has a moustache...

Wannberg...wannbee..wambee....wampee...wompi.....

agreed! Yavar

There could be dozens of reasons Luke is hanging out alone that aren't "He tried to kill his own nephew after he had an intrusive thought for a few seconds." The man who wrote that idiotic plot point and thought it was good is not someone I would trust with a trilogy in ANY franchise.

The issue for me isn't that Luke dies, it's everything leading up to the confrontation and death Thanks to the original canon I know what Luke post-ROTJ looked like, I know what he struggled with and what bad choices he made that lead to some pretty dire consequences. Despite that he was still a good person that tried to do his best and live up to the ideals of what he thinks a Jedi is, he didn't give up once because that's the kind of person he is. Luke does not give up on people, even when they are trying to kill him, if he believes there's even a glimmer of hope. He's an idealist and an incredibly loyal friend, especially under pressure, and he's also very humble. Honestly, all in all a really good role model. So for the Sequel Trilogy to go 'no, actually even all those years ago before now he betrayed everything he stood for' doesn't sit right with me. I can't reconcile that with being the same character, and that goes beyond a 'is it realistic for something like this to happen' into more of a 'why would you obliterate this character defined by these set of ideals instead of doing this with someone else'. It retroactively weakens the Original Trilogy too since so much of it is built on Luke's character and perseverance TLDR I love to see Luke struggling with things and facing the consequences of his actions, provided it doesn't blow apart the character he has been established to be. This was done expertly already in the original canon so as a result I look at the new canon with far more scrutiny because I know what the successful version of this looks like Addendum: The new canon has done this well once:

The imperial troopers were like mandalorian-stormtroopers. gideon was carrying a dark trooper exoskeleton or something like that. In the videogame dark forces the moff that builds the darktroopers is the final boss and he is inside of a huge darktrooper armor-mech, so i suppose the inspiration comes from there. the guy who talked about thrawn so much was his second in command in the old EU. He even became head of state of the imperial remnant and joined the new republic as a member. He was a good imperial. I dont know if his character will develop so much this time… with the evil first order in the works….

I would have prefered they let him live, at least to the last film. Not kill one of the big three in each film.

Had to ride on the coattails of custom cover art guru tintacle and take a stab at continuing one of the formats he created for the first 4 Indy films that's based on the Indy DVD sets and that I really love. You can view his wonderful work here over at @heidl's wonderful site, filled with other great custom artwork both he and tintacle worked on. Mine ended up becoming a bit busy and muddled in the end, but I couldn't afford to dedicate more time to it before heading to bed. Kudos to all the covers people have been posting. Really helps to get the excitement flowing.

https://www.starwars.com/news/swce-2023-return-of-the-jedi-40th-anniversary?cmp=smc|9460004956

Stumbled over it at a good price so I thought what the heck...

Great score, Cleopatra. The other two are really good too. Karol

Yes, those have been around for a couple of years now.

It's the hope that kills you. But Iger has said he wants to pivot back to physical media. OTOH if people get paid differently for the SE's than they do for the Originals... Then we will never see them.

I would rather a new bad guy March or motif. Maybe less motivic, but still hummable. Like the aggressive military March from Raiders when the Nazi Sub overtakes the Bantu Wind. That is just pulse pounding stuff right there.

DA DUM, DA DUM, DA DUM, DA DA, DUM. DUM.

Dammit, now that mystery's gonna bug me too!! I'm guessing Wompi is someone's nickname in the music department, Kenneth Wannberg perhaps? He was the music editor on TLW.

Okay its been a while and he never replied to THIS email, however I sent him another one today asking about Wompi's Wrench and what it stands for, because I think about that cue name often, and he just replied to me and, his response was intriguing:

@Jay and everyone else, I of course meant June 29th. Sorry.

I dunno, I can relate to wanting to die because of hard work.

I think there's some truth to that, but personally, I hated it because I found no way to connect to it emotionally. I guess other people did, but I find damn near everything in TLJ stupid and unrelateable and it's shocking because there are very few movies I have ever felt that way about.

Drop the predictions, just analyze the existing films.

Using hundreds of literal excerpts from the films, screenplays, and official canon volumes, such a book would prove and spoil the biggest elements of Star Wars... surprises that have yet to be revealed. My name would forever live in infamy.

Yoda does mention that he is sick.

It's all silly when you stop and think about it, and that's why I love it!

I mean... Yoda just dies, in the original trilogy. It makes even less sense because he hasn't just exerted himself in any particular way, like Luke did at the end of TLJ. In The Empire Strikes Back Yoda has clearly just been chillin' on Dagobah for decades...after living for centuries. He's still clearly spry (more spry than he lets on at first, even though he's not bouncing around like Sonic the Hedgehog like he was in AotC or RotS, set a few decades previously -- a small fraction of his total lifespan). So how come less than a year later he's on his deathbed randomly like the very evening Luke comes to visit him? It's because he decided to become one with the Force, I guess... but it's at least as silly of a death as Luke's, for a being whose lifespan is like 10x that of a human! And heck even in the original Star Wars, I'd say Obi-Wan Kenobi's death is "silly" too. He just stops fighting Vader, raises his lightsaber, and lets himself be cut in half (or vanishes and becomes one with the Force a split second beforehand?) He didn't need to stop fighting, in order to let the others get away. In fact he probably could have caused more distraction and helped the others if he had kept fighting Vader and tried to take out a few stormtroopers while he was at it! Why is that fine with fans, as a mystical moment of the old sage moving aside so his young protege can take his place in the story, but Luke doing essentially the same thing (but with more story justification) for Rey is somehow offensive to all that is Star Wars, for half of the fandom? Yavar

So the whole discussion here is if Star Wars is escapism or allegory?

One of Thomas Newman's most wonderful compositions:

Time I had a bit of cover fun.

The awful performance is what makes it Hogwarts.