Remco

They tried for years, apparently. When Williams wasn't interested, they helped establish the Philharmoniker connection instead. And we should be thankful for that, because we got two excellent concerts with great acoustics and a solid programme instead of an bombastic light show with amplified sound and butchered medleys.

You look at a scene like The Spark. You can see it was clearly shot and edited expecting the music to carry it. It's one those scenes a composer must be thrilled to work with. There is absolutely nothing of the sort in TROS. It's a nearly impossible film to score properly. A complete score will do it justice, I'm sure

I hate ranking things. The Phantom Menace is a great score on its own terms. No need to rank it or compare it to any other

Absolutely right. And I think Escape is excellent, that moment and others within that sequence are such good cinema, but I know people here complain about the edits made to that cue in the film. But it's nothing like what JJ did, and the music still shines, even if things have been shuffled.

looks at Sail Barge Assault, TPM last third, AotC, RotS
...yeah, Rian may be the odd one out after all. (JJ is still the worst offender by far)

It's staggering how effective the music is for that film. Outside a few cues in the dying minutes, nothing in TROS comes close to these heights:
 
 
I just can't relate to people who single out the TLJ score as weak or uninspired. What film were they watching? Because Rian and his sound team clearly adored the score Williams wrote and temped the film to give the music the maximum impact.

Rian clearly understood (and respected) that the music needs to take centre stage for key dramatic sequences in Star Wars, something JJ completely disregarded outside the obligatory musical closing sequence (Jedi Steps and A New Home).
 
The key difference is that JJ didn't construct his sequences around music; he conformed the music to his vision (with a hacksaw when necessary). That is not how Star Wars music is meant to function in these films and is a disservice to Williams' music. Contrast that to the big musical moments in TLJ where the entire sequence is crafted around the score, like all the examples you mentioned (plus Paige's death, another powerful musical moment that JJ and his sound team would have drowned in obnoxious sound effects).
 
The music never has the chance to breathe in JJ's films, let alone take centre stage, among all the shouting and noise.

I’ll never forget watching TLJ for the first time in cinema and hearing that well-mixed wall-to-wall  score wash over me. An experience I’ll probably never have again with a brand new JW score. TFA and TROS were disappointing in comparison, even though in a way they’re compositionally maybe more interesting.
 
The more about TROS gets revealed, the more disappointed in the movie I get.

I’ll never forget watching TLJ for the first time in cinema and hearing that well-mixed wall-to-wall  score wash over me. An experience I’ll probably never have again with a brand new JW score. TFA and TROS were disappointing in comparison, even though in a way they’re compositionally maybe more interesting.
 
The more about TROS gets revealed, the more disappointed in the movie I get.

I’ll never forget watching TLJ for the first time in cinema and hearing that well-mixed wall-to-wall  score wash over me. An experience I’ll probably never have again with a brand new JW score. TFA and TROS were disappointing in comparison, even though in a way they’re compositionally maybe more interesting.
 
The more about TROS gets revealed, the more disappointed in the movie I get.

The account was taken down unfortunately, either the footage or music was flagged.

I’ll never forget watching TLJ for the first time in cinema and hearing that well-mixed wall-to-wall  score wash over me. An experience I’ll probably never have again with a brand new JW score. TFA and TROS were disappointing in comparison, even though in a way they’re compositionally maybe more interesting.
 
The more about TROS gets revealed, the more disappointed in the movie I get.

Agree that Rian is a much better filmmaker. But I will say for JJ that his movies are very entertaining (if somewhat hollow), and very over the top, which probably helped them elicit bombastic, engaging material from Williams.
 
I daresay JW also went a bit above and beyond with his music for TROS, writing new themes even when they weren't "necessary". We didn't need a trio theme, "evil" theme, victory theme, etc but we got them anyway, and they were really good. So he may have been channeling some this-is-my-last-Star-War feels, doing more than was called for, as he so often does.

I really feel sorry for Williams. For all the praise he gets from JJ in the behind the scenes footage, the director really has absolute disregard for musical flow and allowing the music to soar in key scenes. I hope he never works with him ever again

Le Sacre, which is really just a collage of Slavic folk tunes and rhythms played by a big orchestra.
 
On the subject of plagiarism in general, I've come to realise that the more distinctive a composer tries to make their music (specifically melodically), the more likely it will actually get accused of plagiarism, because a distinctive piece of music will be similar to only a few other pieces...but there will be a few, and those few will get picked up. For example, the first five notes of the Star Wars theme bear little resemblance to most other melodies in music, so when somebody stumbles upon something like Kings Row, it is a bit like uncovering gold dust, because of how rare it is for another melody to match the first five notes of Star Wars. Yet when a composer like Hans Zimmer uses the vi - I - V - II chord progression, nobody calls it plagiarism, because so many other pieces have used it as well (this is not a dis of HZ by the way). So ultimately, all these accusations of plagiarism are really just an assault on distinctiveness, and hence individuality. Just my two pennies!

Sorry man, but it’d be better if you’d stop wishing Williams to be put in that ‘category’. That will never happen because he’s a totally unique figure in musical history. And he’s widely respected for that. And yes, his debut with the VP is MAJOR recognition of that, it doesn’t have to be praised by Norman Lebrecht or some other snob in order to legitimize the greatness of these two concerts. I think @KK put it wonderfully.

Yes, Rian clearly wanted to set the trilogy on a path of no-redemption for Kylo, because it was way too obvious to redeem that character (once again, another story element just ripped bleeding out of the original trilogy). I don't know how anyone can defend JJ's story decisions in this one. Credit for making TFA a competent soft reboot but the warning signs were there for how derivative his storytelling was.
 
Enter TROS. His lack of originality as a writer is so blatant that he literally resurrects the final boss of the original trilogy and gives him the same role in his final film, then simultaneously regurgitates the same redemption storyline given to Vader in the same film. Utterly pathetic, not earned in the slightest.

I'm really not. I just take beef with the editors of TROS of all movies (an incomprehensible mess, easily the worst edited Star Wars film and probably the worst Star Wars film outside AOTC) publicly bagging out Johnson's film.
 
Just totally disrespectful. I'm glad Rian and his team are above such classless comments.

They could be jealous that Rian had a fucking clue what he was doing and executed it with the least amount of production problems of any movie of the Disney era. During which KK or someone could very well have stepped in if it clashed so much with the overall vision (which never existed) or if it threw out TFA (which it didn't at all), but everyone was fine with it until the Internet was dumb as shit about it.

No, they are completely wrong. Someone should tap these dimwits on the shoulder and inform them that it was JJ Abrams who saddled Rian Johnson with the thankless task of justifying why fan-favourite hero Luke Skywalker isolated himself and abandoned his family, while also having to find something new to do with Palpatine Snoke that wasn't just a retread of ROTJ.
 
It was JJ who released little more than a soft reboot which forced Rian into that corner, with few options except continue the transparent remake of the OT or head in a fresh direction, extracting inspiration from JJ's predictable formula like blood from a stone (and almost everything Rian did was a significant improvement on what JJ established).
 
Says a lot about the type of people JJ must surround himself with. Clearly his core crew had zero ambition for this trilogy; how dare Rian have the audacity to not follow their plan for a lazy retread of the original trilogy, with JJ's "new" characters just filling the archetype of an established character from four decades prior.

Laughably embarrassing comments from the editors of TROS, slamming Rian Johnson's vastly superior Last Jedi and defend JJ's dumpster fire third movie, probably one of the most nonsensical, poorly edited pieces of shit released by a major Hollywood studio. These two morons couldn't edit a grade 6 paper on Catcher in the Rye, considering the nonsensical mess that is 'The Rise of Skywalker,' probably the crowning achievement of their career as editors.
 
 

 

I remember the surround sound pumping out tie fighter noises and explosions in the background that obstructed nearly every moment of the score.
 
The sound team dropped every inane sound they could just so they could make the score inaudible and for no other reason.

Here here. I think it is profoundly stupid to give a shit about what critics say anyway, since when has a critic EVER been correct about a composer being worth while? They cling to whatever is the "sophisticated" and "elite" ideology of the day, mainly because they have no palette at all for anything, and they're usually very bitter people who found out late in life that they have no talent for music and do anything they can to act like they're "in the club". But most importantly, this is the digital age where we can basically find (almost) whatever we want online. So why does anyone give a f*** (are we allowed to swear on here?) about what some goon says? Listen for yourself and make your own damn decision.
 
And yes, JW's appearance with the VP was probably not mentioned outside of his fan base because the people who won't write about it are the same pinheads that think it's a good idea to cover the last three Mozart symphonies that have been recorded 10000000000000000000000000 times and how they found some dudes interpretation of Beethoven's 6th to be distasteful, but naturally does not explain the reasoning behind that conclusion. Besides reading an article on tooth drilling equipment, I can't think of anything less boring than a critic's (of any kind) review of something.
 
And it is true, Williams is a musician that has never existed, nor accomplished so much in one career. The people who mention the oscars are the ones who are cheap people who only care about that, so why are you even reading/ watching that? Regardless of any film accomplishment, he has written pieces (at request) for Anne-Sophie Mutter, Yo-yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Lang Lang, Gil Shaham, and that's just a small percentage. He's written a concerto for nearly every instrument and numerous orchestral works, with the musicians who premiere/ record them having nothing but praise for the mastery of the writing. In the orchestral world, he is currently the most performed composer on earth AND is one of the most accomplished composers in the world just for his concert music alone.
 
So...... with just that, is there seriously anyone who would be , I shall use the word, dumb enough to question his merit? Seems to me they're people who feel too uncomfortable and insecure making decisions for themselves and require others to tell them how to think and/or people with a grudge against him for whatever reason and just s*** talk for spite.
 
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I think whatever critic who has said he doesn't modulate is deaf. He is the king of modulation.