Red

I've gone back and forth on this, but Last Crusade might be my favorite Indy score. 

I've gone back and forth on this, but Last Crusade might be my favorite Indy score. 

I love the B-theme to this piece, though it only appears a scant few times. 

I love the B-theme to this piece, though it only appears a scant few times. 

I think "boring Oscar bait" is kind of a lazy criticism for Lincoln which I still think is a really sharp movie. Old school in all the right ways and one of the best screenplays and ensembles he's gotten his hands on IMO, especially since Schindler's List. 
 
War Horse is pretty trite and a lot of it is just fucking stupid, but it had some clever visual stuff going on now and again. I loved the No Man's Land run and the sunset finale, great moments in a not very good film.
 
I liked Bridge of Spies fine but it's pretty forgettable and the very last "Homecoming" sequence made the wrong impression with me. Poor ending after that excellent bridge scene.

 
Yeah, how dare they enjoy a movie. They should only have morose, cynical disdain for everything.

Empire Strikes Back
Temple of Doom
Born on the Fourth of July
 
I usually prefer end titles that are not mostly comprised of other cues edited together, as good as those kind of suites can be. 

Really looking forward to this, as well as the rest of the features. 

I've never thought that franchise filmmaking and artistic freedom are necessarily mutually exclusive. They're just not exercised in tandem that often. But there are exceptions. Empire adheres to certain paradigms set up by the original film but it is different in a lot of ways. I can't say for certain that it's an Irvin Kershner film because I'm not as familiar with his overall body of work but it clearly is not a film directed by George Lucas or Richard Marquand. And that extends to The Force Awakens as well. It was authentically Star Wars but it was also very much a JJ Abrams movie, with a lot of his strengths and some of his weaknesses. So I think Rian Johnson will be able to maintain his artistic voice within the industry behemoth that is Star Wars and that makes me very excited, especially since he's also writing it. Disney/Lucasfilm is giving a lot of creative power to Johnson. It feels similar to me to when WB got Christopher Nolan to revitalize Batman as he was another young auteur on the rise.

 
Yeah, I hope and expect there to be a lot of extensive making of stuff on the blu-rey. 

 
Peter Jackson doesn't have ownership over wide shots of mountains. 

1:57 to 2:11
 
 
So wistful and bittersweet. It's moments like this that speaks to what being a child is so profoundly to me. It essentially is childhood coded in music. 
 

Agree 100%. 
 
As I mentioned during the The March of the Resistance thread, this moment really stood out to me. That shot of the X-Wings from afar on the water as The Resistance cue starts bubbling in the background, the revolving shot of Han Solo as he exclaims that it's the Resistance, and then finally the cut back to the X-Wings as we see them flying on the big screen for the first time in over 32 years while perfectly coinciding with the explosion of the Resistance march was such an intense singular moment of enjoyment, both visually and aurally. Scenes like that is why I go to the movies in the first place.  

 
A lot of the comments he's made in recent years are just mind boggling. He often comes off as a petulant child.

Lucas is an incredibly complicated and fascinating individual. There is virtually no one else in the movie business like him; the kind of person who, arguably more than any other single person, has shaped the ways movies are made in the modern age and yet has a reputation for being a hack. I'm not sure he was ever a truly talented writer and director. His earliest films are good but the success of Star Wars was in a lot of ways due to the collaborative way in which it was made. But it was Lucas' vision and it cannot be understated how great that vision was. He's one of the best idea men the industry has ever had; the lesson in his later downfall is that even creators with the best ideas need vetting and shaping from other talented minds. There can't be the kind of ego that refuses to listen to anyone outside one's own mind, no matter how much of an auteur the creator is.

Lucas is an incredibly complicated and fascinating individual. There is virtually no one else in the movie business like him; the kind of person who, arguably more than any other single person, has shaped the ways movies are made in the modern age and yet has a reputation for being a hack. I'm not sure he was ever a truly talented writer and director. His earliest films are good but the success of Star Wars was in a lot of ways due to the collaborative way in which it was made. But it was Lucas' vision and it cannot be understated how great that vision was. He's one of the best idea men the industry has ever had; the lesson in his later downfall is that even creators with the best ideas need vetting and shaping from other talented minds. There can't be the kind of ego that refuses to listen to anyone outside one's own mind, no matter how much of an auteur the creator is.

Lucas is an incredibly complicated and fascinating individual. There is virtually no one else in the movie business like him; the kind of person who, arguably more than any other single person, has shaped the ways movies are made in the modern age and yet has a reputation for being a hack. I'm not sure he was ever a truly talented writer and director. His earliest films are good but the success of Star Wars was in a lot of ways due to the collaborative way in which it was made. But it was Lucas' vision and it cannot be understated how great that vision was. He's one of the best idea men the industry has ever had; the lesson in his later downfall is that even creators with the best ideas need vetting and shaping from other talented minds. There can't be the kind of ego that refuses to listen to anyone outside one's own mind, no matter how much of an auteur the creator is.

Lucas is an incredibly complicated and fascinating individual. There is virtually no one else in the movie business like him; the kind of person who, arguably more than any other single person, has shaped the ways movies are made in the modern age and yet has a reputation for being a hack. I'm not sure he was ever a truly talented writer and director. His earliest films are good but the success of Star Wars was in a lot of ways due to the collaborative way in which it was made. But it was Lucas' vision and it cannot be understated how great that vision was. He's one of the best idea men the industry has ever had; the lesson in his later downfall is that even creators with the best ideas need vetting and shaping from other talented minds. There can't be the kind of ego that refuses to listen to anyone outside one's own mind, no matter how much of an auteur the creator is.

Lucas is an incredibly complicated and fascinating individual. There is virtually no one else in the movie business like him; the kind of person who, arguably more than any other single person, has shaped the ways movies are made in the modern age and yet has a reputation for being a hack. I'm not sure he was ever a truly talented writer and director. His earliest films are good but the success of Star Wars was in a lot of ways due to the collaborative way in which it was made. But it was Lucas' vision and it cannot be understated how great that vision was. He's one of the best idea men the industry has ever had; the lesson in his later downfall is that even creators with the best ideas need vetting and shaping from other talented minds. There can't be the kind of ego that refuses to listen to anyone outside one's own mind, no matter how much of an auteur the creator is.

Lucas is an incredibly complicated and fascinating individual. There is virtually no one else in the movie business like him; the kind of person who, arguably more than any other single person, has shaped the ways movies are made in the modern age and yet has a reputation for being a hack. I'm not sure he was ever a truly talented writer and director. His earliest films are good but the success of Star Wars was in a lot of ways due to the collaborative way in which it was made. But it was Lucas' vision and it cannot be understated how great that vision was. He's one of the best idea men the industry has ever had; the lesson in his later downfall is that even creators with the best ideas need vetting and shaping from other talented minds. There can't be the kind of ego that refuses to listen to anyone outside one's own mind, no matter how much of an auteur the creator is.

This was a strong year for film scores, looking at that lineup. Any year with Williams and Morricone is an exceptional one indeed.

I just wanted to say thanks for this breakdown. It helped a lot when I acquired the FYC release. 

"Funeral Pyre for a Jedi"
 
The statements in "The Battle of Yavin", specifically when the X-Wings first dive into their attack run and then when Luke hears Obi-Wan's call to "use the force". Gets me every time.
 
The opening to "The Rebel Fleet". I think one of the only times the theme has been developed beyond what it normally is.
 
I remember several years ago there was a forum-wide poll to determine our collective favorite John Williams theme and the Force theme won it. I still stand by that.

The Resistance theme is one of my favorite elements of the new score. And story wise I think it's really interesting that this time around the (ostensible) good guys have their own march. Traditionally in Star Wars the bad guys get the marches, be it the Trade Federation or the Empire. The good factions get the shorter motifs but here it is the other way around. It's a salient reflection of the the way the galactic powers are setup in the films. 

The Resistance theme is one of my favorite elements of the new score. And story wise I think it's really interesting that this time around the (ostensible) good guys have their own march. Traditionally in Star Wars the bad guys get the marches, be it the Trade Federation or the Empire. The good factions get the shorter motifs but here it is the other way around. It's a salient reflection of the the way the galactic powers are setup in the films.