Remco

Wrong. All these are great scores, not just 'for his age' or anything. Only the OST presentation is sub-par though, and so is the film mix (except for TLJ). I recently discovered Crystal Skull for myself, after years of believing the word of mouth that I read 15 years ago on the internet that 'Williams had lost it' or whatever. It is great too. Not every score can be a new Empire, but I think people like you simply raise the bar too astronomically high.

To the best of my knowledge, JW has never had an ‘additional music by…’ credit. William Ross is credited as ‘orchestrator’ which is kind of an odd description given JW doesn’t use orchestrators anymore (in the traditional sense). My best guess is that JW assigned certain spots to Ross where old music had to be adapted and Ross did exactly that. Same as with the sequel trilogy. Note: truly re-used music, not temp-track rewrites like the Tintin piece and Spyders. I’m sure JW did these himself. Not unlike Chamber of Secrets, but on a smaller scale.

Wow, it sounds gorgeous.

Battle of Hoth is also compromised of several smaller cues. Yes, TLJ opening was butchered in the movie, but are you seriously not hearing any dramatic arc in the OST track? I do agree that the ST seems to have smaller musical cells but damn some parts in TLJ, like this one, are an exception to that. Also Way of The Force/Scherzo for X-Wings (FYC version, in the movie!), just to name an example. Coherent arc that goes on for minutes, even in a JJ Abrams movie. It is possible.

Also that bit in the new featurette was like 100% Tintin. Whatever, it sounded great. I honestly prefer a new take on a distinct idea from another score rather than ‘meandering-along’ action music without much identity. And like others have said, the non-action moments will probably feature the more profound musical moments anyway.

I don't even want to watch this full review (he didn't watch any other indy film than Raiders) but screw what he says about the score. It's the typical thing an unmusical person who wants to hate the movie beforehand would say about the score. 'John Williams score is... whatever'. And then ranting about his Oscar nominations. Shut up, the Sequel Trilogy brought me 5 years of joy.

Not that he hasn't done set pieces in the last 10 years - look at the Speeder Chase, that ended up not being in the movie. I would actually be glad if he re-used it in Indy.

It seems to me that we’re talking about the amount of effort that was put in the score. In that case, copying note for note or reworking the same musical idea is actually quite a difference. Again to be clear - it does sound like that some parts are indeed copied.

Sorry, I was too quick to judge - that particular chord, indeed seems to be exactly the same.

Okay I checked out these spots and you’re absolutely right: it’s not note for note. Of course there is similarities in style, and in orchestration, but if this is the way we’re going to look at this score… come on guys.

Does somebody have timestamps for the parts that sounds like they're copied? I checked out the 2 mentioned cues and couldn't find copied material, just similarities in style.

Even Return of the Jedi had this. It happened in the prequels too. It’s reasonable to expect it happens here too. Btw, the full clip of this has been leaked of course and it seems that the music actually follows and fits the scene like a glove, unlike a lot of TFA and TROS. No reason to worry.

This is low? I can actually hear the music, while there's lots of SFX going on. This is really good I think.

How did this go with CoS? For Solo, I remember that Powell was announced first, the JW theme later, but Powell did say that this was always going to be the plan. It strikes me as odd to announce JW as the composer twice, only to refrain from it later. I guess that deep down JW wanted to compose the entire thing, just in case he’d get in a TROS situation he had a way to spread out the task if necessary.

I’m a bit surprised by this news. JW was always announced as the sole composer. So when Mangold tweeted ‘John had read the script and is ready to go’, he wasn’t actually supposed to write the entire score…?

It‘d be fine if it was, you know, about the piano in the orchestra. But the whole story around it is what makes it quite bizarre.

Wow, that is pointless.

I think it's nonsense. We're talking about 30 second snippets here in a *huge* score that by the way many moviegoers probably would never hear otherwise. Also, many concert versions have their foundation in the score, such as the second half of 'Rise of Skywalker'. Why not the other way around? I agree though that there is a little too much Force theme in TLJ, and in TROS as well, but that also wasn't helped by the tracking of even more Force theme (such as 'Peace and Purpose' from TLJ when Exegol blows up).

I thought it was glorious to hear the most beautiful part of Leia’s concert version in the film (so much so, that I didn’t even realize how controversial the scene itself was).

Aw come on, it still has energy. It's just a hair slower.

Is this for real?

Interesting. I guess that I just like the music so much that it never bothered me…

All I’m saying the score does what it needs to do for the intended audience. I have never heard anyone complain about overscoring except some movie buffs on the internet. And Columbus could’ve toned down the score in post-production, right? I assume he didn’t for a reason.

It’s interesting to read this from a guy like Rickman and I remember also Norman Lebrecht’s comment that it ‘completely failed to match a kids movie about wizards’ or something like that. Actually the kids that grew up with it all love the score and it’s a huge part of the nostalgia for these films. Williams knows all too well what to do for this kind of film…

What’s with Rian Johnson? He intended us to see the movie with music only, for which I’m quite thankful. The isolated score was never released, only pirated.