Henry Buck

That idea gels with just about every score except for The Empire Strikes Back. The Rebel Fanfare doesn't coincide with any scenes or shots of the Falcon. And there are the cameos of the theme in TPM and RotS, if you want to count them.

Loved the film and the soundtrack, but I agree wholeheartedly that the Force theme is a dead horse. I was highly annoyed to hear the music for the last ten seconds of the film - that's three films in a row that have ended with nearly identical variations on the Force theme (though I do enjoy TFA's expansion of this musical moment). And with so much to work with - the "Jedi Steps" theme, Luke's new theme, Luke's old theme, etc. - there's no excuse for such an overreliance on the Force theme. I'll throw another opinion out: There's too much music. Kylo Ren's scene in the elevator didn't need to be scored with that brassy blowout (adapted straight from the TFA end credits). Sometimes silence is the best music. I loved the moments in TFA where Williams' score was dialed out, like Rey's introduction and Hux's speech. Not because the music was bad, but because it would have gotten in the way.

Electronic music is not a monolithic art that one either understands or doesn't. Williams has incorporated synthesizers and electronic instruments into many of his scores, so it's safe to say he's not totally ignorant of the electronic side of music. I think it's also safe to say that Williams doesn't have Hans Zimmer's fluency in modern digital audio production. There are some things he knows and there are some things he doesn't know. Yeah, he wrote Heartbeeps almost forty years ago. That doesn't mean he's fully equipped to write the kind of electronic music that's in vogue right now.

No, it's condescending either way.

Thanks, skyy! I really needed that condescending answer to a rhetorical question I asked seven years ago.

Yeah, I kind of fell out of the editing loop around 2009, so while I have saved documents somewhere (on some external hard drive in storage, I think), they wouldn't be optimal. Others have done up to date work, though.

ughhhhhhhhhhhh

Yeah, the big downside with the 2CD release is just the sound quality. There were some hiccups in the production process that made some of the tracks, particularly in the latter half of the score, come out sounding very compressed and degraded. The source material is still in good shape - I believe that was proved by the remastering of one track for the "Musical Journey" CD in 2005 - but the production of the set garbled it. That said, if you're dealing with the roar of a car or plane engine, you might not notice much of a difference.

Hi! Well, I think there are several who could swoop in with more comprehensive answers, but in the meantime: It's about 95% complete. The 2CD release doesn't include the two source pieces that were replaced in the Special Edition: "Lapti Nek" and "Ewok Celebration" (of which there are three, I think, versions, two of which were included on the 4CD Arista Records Anthology set). It's also missing an alternate version of "Leia Breaks the News," which is included on the Arista set. There are then a couple pieces which have never been released, and the recordings are believed to have been destroyed. These include the concert suite "Jabba the Hutt," another source cue from Jabba's Palace, and a six-second insert recorded for the Battle of Endor. But part of the "Jabba the Hutt" concert suite is edited into the track "Han Solo Returns" on the OST. Or on the Arista set, maybe.

There's somebody who's afraid here, but it's not Disney execs or "SJWs."

One motif that I haven't seen any discussion of is the film's treatment of technology. It's faithful to the technical imagination of the 1970s, which seems quaint now in many ways. (Why didn't Leia just immediately upload the Death Star plans to Rebel Alliance servers all across the galaxy? Why did Obi-Wan have to physically shut down the tractor beam instead of hacking the Death Star's wi-fi network and doing it remotely?) The clunkiness of the 1970s is constantly throwing obstacles in the heroes' path. Bodhi can't get in touch with the Rebel Fleet because the communication cable isn't long enough. Jyn and Cassian have to alert the Fleet to open a special channel because the schematics are too large to be sent through normal means. I think it was totally self aware. And I loved that the Master Switch is a big, goofy lever.

Loved it. New favorite bad movie. It was the cinematic equivalent of a raucous college party. Self-destructive and regrettable, but fun in the moment. Worth it alone for Vader's final scene. Minority opinion: I concur with Quint about Tarkin. I'm not bothered by the ethical implications of this Frankenstein monster. I just thought it was really cool to see a classic villain again. For what it's worth, I thought Stephen Stanton did a better impression of Peter Cushing on Clone Wars/Rebels, but I understand that they wanted to go with the same person for both the motion capture and the voice.

Love it!

Will, great job on the restoration. It's interesting to see how this was meant to be scored. About the music, though: in my opinion, that cue absolutely trashes that scene. Thank God it was cut. I think Williams is as strong a composer as ever, but I've felt many of his recent films have suffered from an excess of music. He's either forgotten how effective silence can be, or else his directors have just asked for too much music in spotting. It's hard to explain why I find this Hux music so grating, but it makes me feel like I'm watching the prequels. It turns the scene into B-movie material. The melodrama is totally unjustified and ridiculous. Some of my favorite moments of TFA are the ones without music: Rey's introduction, Finn's discovery of the crashed TIE Fighter, Han and Kylo's confrontation. Does anybody really believe that Han and Kylo's scene needed more elegiac, weepy strings right from the get-go? But I do love the alternate cue for Han's death! In that case, I feel Abrams played it too safe in a moment where all-out melodrama was appropriate.