Will

I don't believe I've ever heard JW's original arrangement of the Sunday Night Football theme on NBC for at least the last five years (and possibly long before that). I do kinda like the rock arrangement, though:

oh also, Rialto Ripples

I've always loved this little whimsical, heroic riff right after Poe says "This thing really moves": Such groovy rhythm.

Something from War Horse.

I remember that our first significant TFA session footage (and in fact, several of our first significant clips of score, excluding the TV spot Jedi Steps bit) came from CBS, specifically on 60 Minutes.

This reminds me of the infamous thread a while back where a poster claimed Raiders March was essentially plagiarized from Calamity Jane's "Whip Crackaway."

Yeah, nobody these days of whom I'm aware writes action music similar to JW, unfortunately, although other composers (such as those Jay mentioned) occasionally succeed in making decent imitations.

Well, I stand corrected then. In any event, I was quite shocked to find out that the trailer composers had been given a chance to use JW's themes, which (to the best of my knowledge) had and has never happened before or since in any SW trailer.

Just three examples (excluding any from the end credits suite)... 7:10-7:55 here: 1:31-2:00 here: This whole cue:

Right, in the trailer: AFAIK no one here (including myself) even considered the possibility that could be a JW motif!

Scores: 1. The BFG 2. The Post 3. The Book Thief (VERY close behind #2, which largely gets there on the strength of the "Presses Roll" cue) Films: 1. The Post 2. The BFG 3. The Book Thief (I did not like this film at all; score was the only bright spot) My appreciation for The BFG score is of course well known around here. While I did put Book Thief last for score, it has some excellent moments, including this absolutely heart-breaking section:

I was waiting until I'd listened to the whole album a few times to offer my thoughts - here they are... This is an incredible album. I'll admit that on first (even second) listen I was a bit disappointed - Williams' quasi-concert piece style cadenzas, etc. in the arrangements were a bit less "accessible" (to me) than his full-orchestra film cues. Yet as I listened a few more times, I started to appreciate the album more and more, until I can now say I thoroughly enjoy it from start to finish. The frantic interplay between Mutter and the orchestra in "Donnybrook Fair" and "The Duel" is tremendous fun. "Sayuri's Theme," meanwhile, contains this lovely passage (until 2:50) which I'm fairly certain is new: Reminds me of Yoko Kanno's Onna Joshu Naotora, which was itself a score clearly influenced by JW. I also adore the extensions of "Hedwig's Theme" as compared to the cut single version, particularly this bit concluding on the triumphant, expectant chord: "Sabrina" is of course gorgeous, although seemingly the same arrangement as Perlman. I will say I vastly prefer the Mutter recording of the climactic lead-in to Perlman's, though! .... With respect to "Rey's Theme," I have probably already mentioned this, but the new arrangement really revitalized the piece for me (it had become a bit stale), particularly this passage (until 1:35): Superb contrapuntal writing - I like this version even better than the original TFA soundtrack one. "Night Journeys" and "Luke and Leia" really soar in their latter halves, but I also really like this quiet moment from the second of those two pieces: Additionally, "Nice to Be Around" was a piece I hadn't heard before, but it's just sublime, particularly this passage (until 2:10):

The section beginning here is awesome, probably the best moment in the score imho: That brass!

Holy frick that sounds really similar to Rose's theme!! Good catch. No, as @crumbs says, it was never confirmed but it's our best guess both for the reason he notes (the confirmed multiple revisions to Rey Meets BB-8) as well as, IIRC, because in the documentary the music played over a Jakku scene with BB-8 (not that that necessarily means anything, to be sure). That said, it's worth noting that not everyone is even convinced that cue is JW. I loved it from the first moment I heard it in the TFA bonus feature documentary and felt it must be JW (particularly given the sort of similarity to a passage from E.T. which I'm forgetting at the moment). @Fal J. M. Skywalker agreed, I believe. But @Datameister IIRC maintained he thought it sounded like some good stock music but not JW himself. (We do know that at least some of the TFA featurettes used stock music mixed in with JW's stuff.)

This this this!

"Donnybrook Fair" is excellent, though I'll admit I was quite disappointed that JW didn't do anything with the main love theme (not even a short statement). I feel like there could have been some cool counterpoint or something with the fast solo violin.

I dunno, maybe my generation is just way more #MeToo-paranoid than previous ones.

Yeah I think that's largely the case. JW's actual comments are just some light-hearted fun and appreciation.

Hope Lando at least washed them since then... I agree that it's a little weird (arguably even creepy), although that could just be because I'm super on-edge about the behavior of basically every male celebrity after the recent #MeToo revelations. In any event I am of course inclined to give JW the benefit of the doubt.

Can't wait for this! Only a few more hours to go.

Lovely!

That explains why it's so good! For those who don't remember, Lloyd was the composer of the first TLJ teaser score -- the one many here thought was JW himself.

Right, like we got what was apparently a trailer-ized version of "The Spark" for TLJ, although we had no idea until the film came out: In this trailer, the only thing I could maybe imagine being based on a new JW piece is this melody: Played more prominently here: Definitely based on the Force theme but not quite identical - theoretically possible that JW wrote a new "end of saga" theme based on the Force theme and that's what we're hearing here (in trailer-ized form). Who knows.

Well, I like the trailer. Disappointed no JW music but I do like the arrangements of his themes so I'll take it.