tUfnTIEfighter

Welp, so far I'm a little torn.
 
I'd say people are right about the mistakes made during the concert, and while many of them are IMO not crucial, it's really a shame that they weren't able to fix the Star Wars Main theme, you cannot not hear that.
 
However it hasn't hampered my enjoyment of the concert too much. In addition, some of the pieces seem very well performed to me ("The imperial march" has hardly sounded better, same goes for "Luke & Leia").
 
It's not the dumpster fire some on here make it out to be, and some beloved concert recordings here share similar flaws if we're being honest. But neither is it great or the 'definitive edition' that many have hoped for.
 
If i had to guess what went wrong: JW having seen better days conducting, the VPO not being too invested in his music, perhaps a lack of rehearsals and sub-par editing. How the star wars mistake made it onto the CD is beyond me.

bandwidth considerations at the start of the HDTV era.
 
Back then, it was either that or 720p, and those formats remained the standard for many HD channels to this day.
 
which may explain why this recording is the way it is. It was edited and finalized for television, and people just slapped that version onto the blu ray

Welp, so far I'm a little torn.
 
I'd say people are right about the mistakes made during the concert, and while many of them are IMO not crucial, it's really a shame that they weren't able to fix the Star Wars Main theme, you cannot not hear that.
 
However it hasn't hampered my enjoyment of the concert too much. In addition, some of the pieces seem very well performed to me ("The imperial march" has hardly sounded better, same goes for "Luke & Leia").
 
It's not the dumpster fire some on here make it out to be, and some beloved concert recordings here share similar flaws if we're being honest. But neither is it great or the 'definitive edition' that many have hoped for.
 
If i had to guess what went wrong: JW having seen better days conducting, the VPO not being too invested in his music, perhaps a lack of rehearsals and sub-par editing. How the star wars mistake made it onto the CD is beyond me.

Went to the midnight premiere yesterday, here's my 2 cents on the movie:
 
It was probably the worst Star Wars movie. Here's why:

1. The important stuff is underdeveloped
The important stuff is the Luke/Kylo/Rey/Snoke stuff, no matter how much the survival of the resistance is at stake in this movie. The movie should have focused on that, but it chose to switch between three plot lines.
It seems the writers weren't confident that they could pull off a movie centered around what the force is and jedi training, and they decided to interrupt this whenever they could fit in an action sequence, no matter how pointless it is (Why the fuck is no one telling Poe about the real escape plan once he's starting the mutiny?! Was the horse stuff on Canto necessary AT ALL?!).
 
As a consequence, we see little of Rey and Luke training, we don't get to know why Luke was feeling the dark side in Kylo, we get no new insights into the force other than that it enables galactic video calling, we don't see Snoke being an actual badass and we really don't know much abotu Kylo's inner conflict. Basically, character motivations and capabilities are severely underdeveloped. Whatever then happens between them is neither deeply emotional nor particularly satisfying.
 
 
2. The bullshit is everywhere
By bullshit i mean stuff that doesn't fit the Star Wars universe or was introduced to 
sell toys (the porgs had funny moments, but were wayyyy overused) attract viewers from different markets around the world (asian character, BB-8 totally nuts) promote gender equality by stuffing female characters in EVERYWHERE (it was a bit much imo. Imagine how much better canto been would've been as a Poe&Finn buddy adventure instead of that cringey lovestory) open up opportunities for countless sequels (*cough* ending) Sure, Disney wants to milk the living shit out of Star Wars, but they're doing this at the expense of the movies. This will bite them in the ass in the long term.
 
Also, some things that were introduced could be problematic in the long run. Was Laura Dern the first one to come up with the hyperspace kamikaze attack? Who will still build big ships after that move? And those force projections will be here to stay, too, and create many situations where people will rightfully ask "why did she not do the force projection thing to solve X and Y?"
 
 
3. A lot of jokes were off
For christ's sake, who came up with the "Leia and her hair" line when meeting with Luke?! That's stuff that maybe Han Solo could've pulled off, but it was never something for Leia to say, especially not when seeing Luke for the first time in an eternity. It was also oddly self-referential to the weird hair styles of the old trilogy, and these jokes are hard to get right. The movie in general felt like it didn't take itself seriously enough at times, with the whole marvel "it's all fun and games even if the world blows up" attitude.
 
 
4. It's way too long
First Star Wars movie in which i frequently looked at my watch. Let's not get me started on Canto Bin.
 
The spaceship chase was boring as hell, and after what felt like hours they went into a cave with basically no way out. Smart move btw. Sure, they tried hard to make us care about the survival of the resistance, but did anyone really?
 
 
5. Should've killed Leia
Carrie Fisher passing away was probably a big hit for the future plans, but they actually had an easy way out in this movie: Have Leia die on the bridge of that ship at the beginning, after Kylo's hesitation. WHAT BETTER WAY TO SPARK KYLO's CONFLICT COULD THERE BE? He didn't want to kill her, but someone else did. In the presence of Snoke, Kylo would've had to hide his emotions even after seeing his mother being killed in front of his eyes and feeling it through the force. A perfect setup for his conflict, and one more reason for him to later say "Let the past die". But hey, let's let her fly through space, that's cool.
 
 
 
All in all I'm afraid that Star Wars has completely turned into another mindless franchise pushing out feel-good movies with little emotional depth and lots of self-referential humor. Not excited in the slightest for Episode 9
 

I never said "George Lucas raped my childhood."  With this movie, i can firmly say that "Rian Johnson raped my childhood."

Went to the midnight premiere yesterday, here's my 2 cents on the movie:
 
It was probably the worst Star Wars movie. Here's why:

1. The important stuff is underdeveloped
The important stuff is the Luke/Kylo/Rey/Snoke stuff, no matter how much the survival of the resistance is at stake in this movie. The movie should have focused on that, but it chose to switch between three plot lines.
It seems the writers weren't confident that they could pull off a movie centered around what the force is and jedi training, and they decided to interrupt this whenever they could fit in an action sequence, no matter how pointless it is (Why the fuck is no one telling Poe about the real escape plan once he's starting the mutiny?! Was the horse stuff on Canto necessary AT ALL?!).
 
As a consequence, we see little of Rey and Luke training, we don't get to know why Luke was feeling the dark side in Kylo, we get no new insights into the force other than that it enables galactic video calling, we don't see Snoke being an actual badass and we really don't know much abotu Kylo's inner conflict. Basically, character motivations and capabilities are severely underdeveloped. Whatever then happens between them is neither deeply emotional nor particularly satisfying.
 
 
2. The bullshit is everywhere
By bullshit i mean stuff that doesn't fit the Star Wars universe or was introduced to 
sell toys (the porgs had funny moments, but were wayyyy overused) attract viewers from different markets around the world (asian character, BB-8 totally nuts) promote gender equality by stuffing female characters in EVERYWHERE (it was a bit much imo. Imagine how much better canto been would've been as a Poe&Finn buddy adventure instead of that cringey lovestory) open up opportunities for countless sequels (*cough* ending) Sure, Disney wants to milk the living shit out of Star Wars, but they're doing this at the expense of the movies. This will bite them in the ass in the long term.
 
Also, some things that were introduced could be problematic in the long run. Was Laura Dern the first one to come up with the hyperspace kamikaze attack? Who will still build big ships after that move? And those force projections will be here to stay, too, and create many situations where people will rightfully ask "why did she not do the force projection thing to solve X and Y?"
 
 
3. A lot of jokes were off
For christ's sake, who came up with the "Leia and her hair" line when meeting with Luke?! That's stuff that maybe Han Solo could've pulled off, but it was never something for Leia to say, especially not when seeing Luke for the first time in an eternity. It was also oddly self-referential to the weird hair styles of the old trilogy, and these jokes are hard to get right. The movie in general felt like it didn't take itself seriously enough at times, with the whole marvel "it's all fun and games even if the world blows up" attitude.
 
 
4. It's way too long
First Star Wars movie in which i frequently looked at my watch. Let's not get me started on Canto Bin.
 
The spaceship chase was boring as hell, and after what felt like hours they went into a cave with basically no way out. Smart move btw. Sure, they tried hard to make us care about the survival of the resistance, but did anyone really?
 
 
5. Should've killed Leia
Carrie Fisher passing away was probably a big hit for the future plans, but they actually had an easy way out in this movie: Have Leia die on the bridge of that ship at the beginning, after Kylo's hesitation. WHAT BETTER WAY TO SPARK KYLO's CONFLICT COULD THERE BE? He didn't want to kill her, but someone else did. In the presence of Snoke, Kylo would've had to hide his emotions even after seeing his mother being killed in front of his eyes and feeling it through the force. A perfect setup for his conflict, and one more reason for him to later say "Let the past die". But hey, let's let her fly through space, that's cool.
 
 
 
All in all I'm afraid that Star Wars has completely turned into another mindless franchise pushing out feel-good movies with little emotional depth and lots of self-referential humor. Not excited in the slightest for Episode 9
 

Review roundup 
 
The San Francisco Chronicle has 2 mentions of the music in their mostly negative review, stating:
 
 
The Miami Herald:
 
 
Cinemalogue writes:
 
 
Philly.com has this to say:
 
 
Reelview
 
 
The Star
 
 
Chicago Sun times deducted a few points, among other reasons for the score:
 
All in all, the score isn't mentioned too much in either positive or negative reviews. Maybe a third of the reviews I read mentioned it, meaning it probably does its job without being great

Just saw the movie and decided it's time to reactivate my JWfan contributions after a few years, though i couldn't get into my old TIEfighter account ;-)
 
Now, concerning the movie: I'd give it a 5/10. It's not terrible, but definitely not great either. Weird CG characters, poor pacing (especially at the beginning and the end), less than convincing characters and nonsensical story developments are the main flaws.
 
As for the music: It's not bad, but it is NOWHERE close to even the worst Star Wars score our Johnny has done.
 
And don't get me wrong, I'm primarily a Star Wars fanboy and I'd love to rest easy knowing that our galaxy far, far away will rest in a competent composer's hand once John Williams won't be able to score those movies anymore, but Giacchino isn't the man for the job. I'm 100% sure about that now.
 
His score mostly works and never sticks out inappropriately, except for the emotional moments which sound slightly cheesy and forced (the moments themselves are cheesy to, so there's that). But it just isn't a John Williams score and lacks certain qualities (esp. Memorable themes), and when you know the Star Wars formula by heart, you realize when something's not quite the same.
 
Looking forward to more reviews :-) good to be back here