DominicCobb

Avatar >>> Titanic 

I don't have any particular desire to see JW return to the choral battle music of the prequels. Duel of the Fates was a great unexpected surprise, and while it has some creative uses in the score, it isn't really a great narrative theme. It's just music for one particular sequence, mostly. Battle of the Heroes just sounds like George Lucas wanted more of the same but with a bit more reverence. As a stand alone piece of thematic music, I find it pretty unremarkable. 
 
I hope JW continues with themes that are used across the score instead of set piece themes as the big new music of the SW scores. Both Rey's Theme and Across the Stars are more interesting to me than DotF and BotH. 

There'd be very little reason to show JW the film with the temp score if it's 95% SW music (and 100% JW music).
 
In that case, the temp score is more likely to just be a placeholder that helps Rian, the editors, producers, and whoever get a sense of what the film will feel like when it's completely scored, rather than as a guideline for JW as to what the score should sound like (like for the original SW).

In general, I think Abrams showed more restraint and economy in his staging of TFA than I realized he was capable of or very interested in. Cynically one could say he was just ripping off the Star Wars aesthetic with some Spielberg templates thrown in, but whatever, I could feel a positive effect on his filmmaking. It didn't read to me as a totally superficial influence. The shot selection felt more deliberate to me than his other films, the cuts less frequent and arbitrary. He went for a static camera more often, wider compositions, longer shot durations, came up with some nice  "one-ers" that weren't designed to draw attention to themselves but simply cover the scene in the most legible way, taking advantage of camera movement and positioning of actors to shift perspective instead of constant editing. These aren't just dumb technical things but contributed to atmosphere and removed a lot of the nervous energy that I usually associate with Abrams, giving the film a nice clean look and a confident, easygoing rhythm. He engaged me more in his storytelling.
 
Even the simplest display of technique like how the first scene inside the First Order Destroyer after the Jakku village attack is covered in exactly two shots: the first starts in a wide shot of the docking bay, follows a flying transport across until an already landed transport fills the foreground, Poe steps into camera forming a new close-up composition and is marched away just as Finn enters frame. Second shot is an obvious divide in the scene, Finn in the transport and we stay in close through the entire duration as he talks to Phasma behind him, putting a strong visual emphasis on his character intro. All you need! Clear choices in visualization....so many movies would have covered that little 60 second sequence in like 10-15 shots cutting from different angles for no discernible reason and it just dilutes the experience. It's like, reading, a sen,tence with, too man,y co,mmas,.

I'm gonna shout my defense of The Force Awakens out into the abyss, not that it matters.
 
There's plot, and then there's story.  The "plot" is the laundry list of things that happens, and yes it intentionally mirrors Star Wars.  That's just the bones.  Everything that hangs from those bones - i.e. the "story," the character arcs - is fresh, at least for Star Wars.  Rey has spent her whole life abandoned and waiting.  Finn has spent his whole life as a machine of the First Order, following commands.  No name, no friends.  In the end, Rey gains a close friend and a family - one that doesn't abandon her, but comes to save her.  Finn is treated like a human being for the first time in his life - by Poe, by Rey, by Han and Chewie - and gets some sense of control over his lifetime oppressors.  That's the story of The Force Awakens to me, and in that sense the Starkiller Base doesn't really matter.  In that way, it mirrors the theme that eventually formed around the completed Star Wars trilogy - friendship and love can overtake the darkness.
 
In the same way that in Star Wars, the machinations of the Empire and the Death Star aren't the story.  That's plot framework.  It's about a lonely young man living his ideals despite impossible odds, a young woman who loses everything she knows but fighting back, and a selfish rogue who learns to care for something bigger than himself.

I think it sounds like it's own thing, different than the OT and PT but still definitely SW. A great score.

I just finished watching TFA again (first time since Carrie Fisher's passing).  
 
The more I watch it, the more I love it.
 
This is really the sequel any fan would expect. A very great movie.
 
And the music... 
 
I'm ready for Episode 8!

Having listened to it, who knows. The celeste is different than the classic ESB one, which you'd figure a trailer house would use (like for TFA).
 
The Rey's theme/Force theme pairing is a lot more interesting than maybe anything I've heard a trailer music house do (though I admit I don't pay much attention). We should note too that the portion of Rey's theme being intertwined is a different section altogether than in the TFA end credit suite, so it's not as if they just copied that.
 
One thing that makes me skeptical that it's Williams is wouldn't they tell us? Weren't they really excited to say that the first TFA teaser had JW music when it first came out?

Having listened to it, who knows. The celeste is different than the classic ESB one, which you'd figure a trailer house would use (like for TFA).
 
The Rey's theme/Force theme pairing is a lot more interesting than maybe anything I've heard a trailer music house do (though I admit I don't pay much attention). We should note too that the portion of Rey's theme being intertwined is a different section altogether than in the TFA end credit suite, so it's not as if they just copied that.
 
One thing that makes me skeptical that it's Williams is wouldn't they tell us? Weren't they really excited to say that the first TFA teaser had JW music when it first came out?

Will brought my attention to one such isolation in this thread: 
 

Isolated music courtesy of @Manakin Skywalker:
 
 

I trying not to watch the trailer but I'd be very interested to hear the music isolated, if or when something like that ever becomes available (I know they did it with at least one of the TFA trailers). Whether or not it's even Williams, it sounds like an interesting composition from what you guys are saying.

No thanks.

God not this debate again.  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

0:00 to 0:08, tk.19
0:08 to 0:43, tk.18
0:43 to 1:31, tk.20
1:31 to 1:43, tk.18
1:43 to end, tk.20

Okay, you're going to have to believe me when I tell you this, because it absolutely happened...
 
It's kind of a long story but suffice to say I just met, in person, Rian Johnson (yes, THAT Rian Johnson), and I just had to ask him what it's like working with John Williams. I wish I could remember his exact words, but something to the effect of it's been incredible, and also something about how when the orchestra plays the cues for the first time every applauds him when they finish. He said it's amazing that John's in eighties and still sharp as a tack. I also believe the words genius and surreal were used (or something like that).
 
Basically he's loving the experience (and I'm sure we'll hear him say as much soon enough when people start interviewing him).

Yes, very cool and very real (and I know, very hard to believe, for myself included!). I initially wasn't going to ask him anything at all (obviously there's so much he can't say and so much I wouldn't even want to know until I saw the film anyway), but I had to just ask something about the experience of it all, and I knew that for me getting to work with JW would be the most absolutely insane aspect of it all and probably the most rewarding thing as a Star Wars fan (in my opinion). So yeah, it was awesome just to get a sense from him what it was like, he just seemed really honestly enthused about it (he wasn't just blandly saying that JW is great or whatever, his eyes really lit up when I mentioned the name) and about working on the film in general. 

Okay, you're going to have to believe me when I tell you this, because it absolutely happened...
 
It's kind of a long story but suffice to say I just met, in person, Rian Johnson (yes, THAT Rian Johnson), and I just had to ask him what it's like working with John Williams. I wish I could remember his exact words, but something to the effect of it's been incredible, and also something about how when the orchestra plays the cues for the first time every applauds him when they finish. He said it's amazing that John's in eighties and still sharp as a tack. I also believe the words genius and surreal were used (or something like that).
 
Basically he's loving the experience (and I'm sure we'll hear him say as much soon enough when people start interviewing him).

Okay, you're going to have to believe me when I tell you this, because it absolutely happened...
 
It's kind of a long story but suffice to say I just met, in person, Rian Johnson (yes, THAT Rian Johnson), and I just had to ask him what it's like working with John Williams. I wish I could remember his exact words, but something to the effect of it's been incredible, and also something about how when the orchestra plays the cues for the first time every applauds him when they finish. He said it's amazing that John's in eighties and still sharp as a tack. I also believe the words genius and surreal were used (or something like that).
 
Basically he's loving the experience (and I'm sure we'll hear him say as much soon enough when people start interviewing him).

Okay, you're going to have to believe me when I tell you this, because it absolutely happened...
 
It's kind of a long story but suffice to say I just met, in person, Rian Johnson (yes, THAT Rian Johnson), and I just had to ask him what it's like working with John Williams. I wish I could remember his exact words, but something to the effect of it's been incredible, and also something about how when the orchestra plays the cues for the first time every applauds him when they finish. He said it's amazing that John's in eighties and still sharp as a tack. I also believe the words genius and surreal were used (or something like that).
 
Basically he's loving the experience (and I'm sure we'll hear him say as much soon enough when people start interviewing him).

Yes, very cool and very real (and I know, very hard to believe, for myself included!). I initially wasn't going to ask him anything at all (obviously there's so much he can't say and so much I wouldn't even want to know until I saw the film anyway), but I had to just ask something about the experience of it all, and I knew that for me getting to work with JW would be the most absolutely insane aspect of it all and probably the most rewarding thing as a Star Wars fan (in my opinion). So yeah, it was awesome just to get a sense from him what it was like, he just seemed really honestly enthused about it (he wasn't just blandly saying that JW is great or whatever, his eyes really lit up when I mentioned the name) and about working on the film in general. 

Okay, you're going to have to believe me when I tell you this, because it absolutely happened...
 
It's kind of a long story but suffice to say I just met, in person, Rian Johnson (yes, THAT Rian Johnson), and I just had to ask him what it's like working with John Williams. I wish I could remember his exact words, but something to the effect of it's been incredible, and also something about how when the orchestra plays the cues for the first time every applauds him when they finish. He said it's amazing that John's in eighties and still sharp as a tack. I also believe the words genius and surreal were used (or something like that).
 
Basically he's loving the experience (and I'm sure we'll hear him say as much soon enough when people start interviewing him).

Okay, you're going to have to believe me when I tell you this, because it absolutely happened...
 
It's kind of a long story but suffice to say I just met, in person, Rian Johnson (yes, THAT Rian Johnson), and I just had to ask him what it's like working with John Williams. I wish I could remember his exact words, but something to the effect of it's been incredible, and also something about how when the orchestra plays the cues for the first time every applauds him when they finish. He said it's amazing that John's in eighties and still sharp as a tack. I also believe the words genius and surreal were used (or something like that).
 
Basically he's loving the experience (and I'm sure we'll hear him say as much soon enough when people start interviewing him).

Okay, you're going to have to believe me when I tell you this, because it absolutely happened...
 
It's kind of a long story but suffice to say I just met, in person, Rian Johnson (yes, THAT Rian Johnson), and I just had to ask him what it's like working with John Williams. I wish I could remember his exact words, but something to the effect of it's been incredible, and also something about how when the orchestra plays the cues for the first time every applauds him when they finish. He said it's amazing that John's in eighties and still sharp as a tack. I also believe the words genius and surreal were used (or something like that).
 
Basically he's loving the experience (and I'm sure we'll hear him say as much soon enough when people start interviewing him).