Cerebral Cortex

Very happy birthday wishes coming your way, @Dixon Hill & @Incanus. Hope you both have/had great days.

Fantastic find, Crumbs. Lovely catch on your part.

Great job, Crumbs. These are both awesome but that first one is especially gorgeous. Love it.

In fact, if you look really closely, you can make out 52 different objects all around the room representative of each of the films he has received Academy Award nominations for.

Perhaps the energy of the piece isn't the right word in which to describe it. Density, orchestral complexity, etc. When I commented on how stunned I was that an 87-year-old gentleman could write a piece with such energy, it was a commentary not on his physical stamina but on his mental prowess. We have all surely encountered many individuals in their late-80s who have succumbed to a state of severe mental decline that is only natural and to be expected when living to such advanced years. They struggle to string sentences together, have difficulty recalling thoughts, aren't always the best with coming up with new ideas, etc. To write a sprightly piece with this kind of energy and clarity does not, as you say, take immense physical stamina (though I can imagine writing all those notes by hand would be quite taxing). However, it does take a mind capable of deftly formulating and creating new (musical) ideas, while also recalling old ones, and then stringing them together in a way that is logical and coherent. And that is not a mind I normally associate with someone of Williams's age having. Of course, exercising the mind is the best way to prevent one from ever suffering from mental decline in the first place. Once someone retires, you will sometimes begin to observe pretty drastic mental decline in them almost immediately just because of a lack of brain usage. One could argue that Williams with his particular line of work and with him never really ever having been retired puts him in a position atypical to most individuals his age, blah, blah, blah. That he has always continued to use his brain so how could he suffer mental decline, blah, blah, blah. That still makes the achievement of a piece like this no less impressive and it is to the credit of Williams that he has chosen to continue to exercise his brain in challenging new ways such that he is still able to deliver stellar works like this one. And, I mean, have you heard the guy talk? He's 88 and has the mind of a man a third his age. He's truly inspirational in that regard. So, when I marvel that someone of Williams's age is able to provide a piece of this energy, that's more of less my train of thought. Sorry for the poor word choice. I aim to please.

Whatever it is, it's not worthy of further attention.

I'm glad we're cool with Solo though, bro. That shit is fire.

Yes! Was coming here to say just this about this track. By the time you get to that part at 1:54 and Williams is going, if you'll pardon my crudeness, full "balls to the wall," you can't help but just sit back and wonder where all this manic energy is coming from when it was largely absent from the first two ST films. I'm largely of the mind that Williams saw some of Powell's sketches for Solo pre-recording and insisted Powell slip him some of whatever he was having before he started writing Episode IX. It's really the only thing that makes sense. Williams was 87. There is literally no reason he should be able to write this way. That was something that I never really appreciated until listening through the full Last Jedi soundtrack and I got to the music that plays during Holdo's peptalk to the Resistance: Especially with just how much the Force theme was used in that score, I was conditioned to be expecting a slow Force theme statement starting at 0:35, but then at 0:40 to 0:47 it changes directions and then I start to think "Oh man, he's playing the tail end of Leia's theme! How cool is that! He's combining both the Force theme and Leia's theme to musically punctuate the Resistance carrying on this fight without Leia!" and then I felt like an idiot when I realized that the entire section I had heard had actually just been March of the Resistance slowed down. I quite enjoy the overall re-purposing of the Rebel Fanfare in the ST as a theme for the Millennium Falcon, and, as it's really the last ship from that old bygone Rebellion era we see flying around for most of those films, it makes sense to me.

@crumbs Yes, exactly! Was thinking the exact same thing. And him saying that the Force theme was originally exclusively Obi-Wan's theme in ANH and that it later became the Force theme isn't really entirely correct, right? My understanding was that Williams interchangeably wrote "Force theme" and "Obi-Wan's theme" on the sheet music for ANH, which makes sense because Obi-Wan is almost exclusively our entire window in that film into learning about the Force. As such, Obi-Wan and the Force are almost interchangeable entities both musically and within the film itself, I feel, so that's always been a nonissue to me.

Watched the video after being recommended it on YouTube (always a mistake) and then came here to share my thoughts before finding (as I should have known) that you all had already torn this apart and summarized my feelings more succinctly than I myself could. More than anything, I walk away from this video reminded of my appreciation for JWFan, for without it, I would be forced to try and make the stranger next to me on the bus my outlet for sharing my grievances about a Star Wars soundtrack video on YouTube. Coming here is much more preferable. Edit: On further reflection, this video feels equivalent to a school presentation where you wait until the very last minute to start working on it and so you do a bunch of research super quickly before giving your presentation. To make up for your lack of thorough research, you confidently assert all your points in an effort to come across like you did in fact do thorough research, but most of your points are founded on a lack of complete understanding. Because the people you are giving your presentation to largely don't know enough about your niche subject to engage with (or care about) the subject matter of your presentation, they largely assume you are correct and you end up getting a good grade regardless. Edit2: I like how he talks about the wrongful re-contextualization of Luke's theme while showing a clip of the scene where Obi-Wan dies and Williams plays Leia's theme.

True, but the seemingly more densely arranged pieces and how much more mileage Kiner gets out of the orchestra this go-around really makes me think they were able to take things to the next level with what they could do. Poor wording on my part.

This latest episode they aired is easily one of the best the show has ever done. It's insane how far the animation has come. They finally gave Kiner an adequate music budget to utilize an entire orchestra and the music is some of his best work, I feel. Everyone seems to have brought their A-game.

The track kills me because it manages to perfectly encapsulate the feel for us closing the page on Rey's story, on this trilogy, and on the saga all simultaenously, something that the film fails to come even close to doing for me. There's something delicious about noting the contrast musically between the bombast that introduced and brought us into this exciting new world and the solemn orchestra that plays us out of it. There is a measured thoughtfulness in how Williams doles out the emotional weight in this piece as it builds that makes me think there had to have been some introspective reflection along those lines when he crafted it. Then again, how could there not? I just wish that the film had been able to achieve the necessary narrative satisfaction to fully take advantage of the full power of the piece. Not trying to be overly negative towards the film here. Musically, as the curtain closed, Williams played us out perfectly.

When working out, I prefer the Williams tracks that have a more explosive and rhythmic nature to them to get the blood pumping:

It doesn't help that 2016 also saw us getting scores like Doctor Strange and Star Trek Beyond from Giacchino, both of which I find to be far superior.