Smaug The Iron

I love the 'marching band-esque' percussion for Here they Come, a welcome little sprinkle of change from Powell!
 
Flying with Chewie is sublime, Powell letting his hair down and just doing what he does!

I never thought I'd like a choir rendition of the Star Wars main title theme but John Powell made it work!

On the Here They Come with percussion - maybe I'm just young, or have no taste, or haven't listened to any RCP scores so I can't be tired of it, but I like it. It adds a different texture to it, a different flavour that makes it a bit more fresh instead of another straight-up rehash (I loved it in Battle of Crait, but this is way too close to it in time). This is not Episode IX, people, this is just a spinoff. I've no problem with it moving away from the Williams sound a bit here and there. It still does it enough that it feels like the same universe.

Great score, I love the new theme!
 
Cleary, "Here they come!" have become the official action cue of the Millenium Falcon... ok, I will get used to that!
 
One another thing is clear... Rey's the daughter of Han...
 
...or both have the same composer... it's one or the other! 

The thing I absolutely enjoy about this score is that it’s Powell’s voice through and through with no pretense to try and be a JW knock-off. And when that Golden Age sound comes into play during certain moments, it actually sounds authentic and organic and not pastiche. Ditto for the Star Wars quotes.  

I can't explain why but this score gives me a huge smile and I'm just on track 3

I love how the one track filled to the rim with classic music is titled "Reminiscence Therapy". That must be the most meta track title in history.

I love that big majestic Prince of Egypt-esque arrangement of Luke's theme.

Yes. Reminiscence Therapy

Just came here to say: HOLY SHIT @ Reminiscence Therapy. What a mindblowing, bonkers track, like a remix of the OT scores on steroids!
 
Absolutely mops the floor with Rogue One in 6 minutes flat! Who'd have Star Wars scores would sound vastly superior with layered orchestration and a mix that resembles a virtuosic orchestra in a symphony hall, rather than sounding submerged underwater! Williams and Powell work gloriously together and all the reinterpretations of Han's Theme threaded through the score are fantastic.
 
It's actually quite fun hearing Williams reinterpreted through the lens of modern writing by a composer who understands symphonic writing and clearly understands Williams' classical sensibilities. The orchestrations are absolutely top-notch, very worthy of a Williams Star Wars score IMO.

Well, I know what I'm doing this afternoon...
 

3CD/1BD: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D515631/
 
5LP: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D54LF9N/
 
Release date of Friday July 27th 2018

The movie was released today in France. I just saw it. I won't say anything else. NO SPOILER here.
About the music, the movie is mixed so loud on the sound effects that it's hard, very hard, to hear the music, except for few scenes. For example, scenes where the love theme, very Korngoldian, can be heard -- and the opening scene, with the probable first exposition of what John Williams wrote for "The Adventures of Han". I can't wait to be able to listen to the CD. I was waiting for more reprises from the material Williams wrote over the years but there are just smart quotes, at the right moments (I can't say more now).
 
I would say it's a more modern SW score, but still in the codes of the saga, musicaly speaking.
 
John Powell has done a superb job, tipping his hat to Williams' work, bringing his own signature in terrific ways (of the Force).
 
And yes, the movie is good!

Hi everyone,
 
I just attended an open rehearsal of tomorrow's Boston Pops concert (with the maestro himself conducting!). It's going to feature the world premiere of "The Adventures of Han," as well as Pops premieres of "Rebellion is Reborn" and the new "Han Solo & the Princess" arrangement.
 
I've got a lot to say about the new Solo piece, which I'm sure we'll all be poring over soon enough. But I thought I'd just share this much -- you're going to love it. It's complex, substantial, and memorable. There's some impossibly virtuosic trumpet writing in the middle that is especially impressive, very much in the vein of "Rey's Journey" from TLJ, only even more elaborate. In fact, the whole piece feels like a hybrid of straight-forward character themes (themes--yes, there's two) and action set-piece. I noticed some welcome shades of the ostinatos from "I Can Fly Anything" and the little recurring octatonic motif from "The Battle of Crait." 
 
If it's using this thematic material, I imagine Powell's score should be a real barn-burner!

Some of us love that movie

Ok, I saw Solo yesterday. I liked it very much, although I rate TFA, TLJ and RO a bit higher. At least for now. Music is great! Above all, John Williams rules in this film! His two Han Solo themes (or two parts of one theme, I don’t know) appear in many places, usually separately. One is more marching, although it is not a march - think about the very beginning of Rey's Theme on light steroids - and the other is very heroic - a bit in the mood of the Poe's theme. Older music also appears in different arrangements, especially in the second part of the movie. Of course, we hear
and
, but also  a bit of ...
.

However, there is a lot of Powell in this movie. And he put a lot of work and heart into it! The nostalgic dimension of one of the themes is not very far from his How to Train Your Dragon scores.  Another theme has a very romantic feel, reminds me of  Golden Age scores. And there is also a theme that sounds like a Avatar and Adiemus mixture, due to the vocalization, but it is much more wild, crazy. There are also some choirs. It's a pity that music, unlike in TLJ, loses a bit in battle scenes with sound effects, but in more intimate moments it sounds powerful. There's a lot going on here, it's hard to remember everything after watching a movie once. I can’t wait for the CD and look forward to seeing the movie again!
 

Obi only needs WAN theme!

It will happen -- just as soon as Disney hire Mike Matessino to do the job properly, because clearly whoever handled Empire on this release didn't even listen to their work.
 
I won't be spending another cent on existing Star Wars scores until he's involved in the release, because clearly he's the only producer capable of getting these releases right!

Ross didn't "write" anything for COS.  Everything you hear in COS is either brand new by JW, or JW's HP1 material (or, let's be honest: AOTC material in some cases) adapted by Ross.  Adapting in this case essentially means changing the tempo / trimming bars / seguing from one piece of one cue to another piece from another cue to conform to the exact HP2 picture edit instead of whatever the music originally fit to in HP1.  It's a JW score all the way through.

Ross was also the conductor, so would have been in charge of any podium changes, too, but that wouldn't include literally writing new music.  It would be adapting things if the musicians couldn't play a difficult section properly, or if it wasn't sounding like they though it would on paper, etc.  Ross played a large and important role in COS, but it isn't fair to say he wrote any of the score.

Saw the movie yesterday: incredible. One of my favorite CBMovies, that being said: score is crap. Like expected from Silvestri, the guy is such a bore. The music is just...kinda there. Doesn’t detract from the movie (good or bad), but does nothing to elevate it. God I wish they would get rid of him for Avengers 4 and get JNH. Hell, I’ll even take Giacchino. 

5 The Sith Spacecraft and The Droid Battle (2:37)

The Sith Spacecraft percussion sounds good, the brass too.  The transition into The Droid Battle is fine, and boy, what a rousing track this is, one of the best action cues of the score for sure.

There's more to a cohesive score than just thematic continuity. Williams' use of themes is only part of his storytelling process; the more important detail is the score's overall tone and the emotion it conveys. Williams' melodic writing has always been more focused on malleable themes explored through a range of orchestration rather than "thematic development". So if he feels like Luke's Exile theme has no place in the score once Rey abandons him, and he favours a different route for his triumphant moment of redemption (like deconstructing a related theme), I'm not going to argue! And given the results, how could anyone?
 
It's like arguing The Lost World is incohesive because the main theme barely appears in the score proper after the first few cues, but if you actually focus on the score itself you understand the musical storytelling taking place: a descent into primordial darkness and back again. Surely one of Williams' most engrossing scores and it has nothing to do with thematic development; in fact, the absence of thematic writing is one of the score's greatest strengths (especially in the wake of its highly tonal predecessor).
 
Sometimes I wonder if you're so hung up on forensically obsessing over each motif and theme that you fail to hear the music itself, disregarding the musical storytelling taking place.
 
 
That's true. I said it comes closest because that film/score doesn't find much cohesion until the entire Grievous subplot is resolved and we actually focus on the important stuff -- Anakin succumbing to the dark side, the creation of the Empire, and the last stand of the Jedi. As identified earlier, it's a score with plenty of highlights but its musical storytelling would be incoherent in C&C form until Anakin's Betrayal onwards (which is clearly where Williams' devoted his energy).
 
The less said about the final acts of TPM and AOTC, the better.

Beautifully put, Ludwig. My thoughts exactly, I'm just not as succinct with words!
 
Viewed holistically, TLJ is immensely cohesive, flowing seamlessly from one cue to the next with masterful ease. When you consider the sheer volume of themes, melodies and motifs Williams is juggling throughout, it makes this achievement all the more noteworthy.
 
You point out an interesting observation about TFA, and I'd level the same observation towards the prequels. On a cue-by-cue basis, the prequels might well be filled with greater individual highlights than TLJ, but viewed holistically from a storytelling and writing perspective? Only ROTS comes close to matching TLJ's cohesion.

Thanks, @TownerFan! This is an excellent exploration of the score. I think it's an especially important point that, as you say,
 
 
There's something about this score that truly lives and breathes as a continuous, coherent whole. Whereas the strengths of TFA's score lies especially in its new themes and the set pieces composed especially for them, the strengths of TLJ's score lies in its weaving together of the drama, as you say.
 
Put another way, if TFA is like a patchwork quilt whose individual patches tell rich and engrossing stories on their own, TLJ is like a composite picture that tells a rich and engrossing story when one stands back and sees a large-scale picture made up of countless smaller pictures.

Agreed, the incessant "character assassination" of TLJ, labelling it as nothing more than a temp-tracked rehash of previous scores, is both ignorant and false. If you bother to open your ears the score is clearly filled with hours of original music that has its own purpose, its own identity, its own intent and tells its own story. For my money it's the most concise writing Williams has had in any Star Wars score since ESB. Almost every other score, regardless of their multitude of unforgettable highlights, simply don't function as a cohesive package (in large part due to middling direction and uneven storytelling).
 
TFA probably comes closest, but with its level of understated restraint? It's too hard to judge Williams' original intent with that score, considering the volume of music we're missing (not to mention that he scored the film non-chronologically, which is highly unorthodox for Williams). Sure, we're missing music from TLJ as well, but probably only 30-40 minutes VS 60-70 with TFA.