Chen G.

Shore always spoke about his work as a grand opera. He spoke of the solo parts as "arias", etc... If it were something that could realistically be staged, I have little doubt he would have adapted it to an actual opera, a-la The Fly.

Another advantage of Star Wars is that it does not overplay any of its themes the way Empire Strikes Back does the Imperial March. I believe it appears over 35 times in a two-hour composition. That’s nuts. Taken as one entry? Yeah, they’re not homogenous enough for that. But taken as a single body of work? Certainly.

Again, to my mind its a "next time on Star Wars" kind of thing, which to my mind isn't the greatest thing since all the other themes in the suite are introduced in the underscore itself, so all Williams is left with is retreading re-retreading the Throne Room. But I couldn't agree with @Nick1066 more - he needs to utilize the end-credits (at least on album) to provide a satisfying cap to all the nonet.

Its got to be The Force theme. In Revenge of the Sith the credits function as a "next time, on Star Wars", although it does get a bit repetitive with the Throne Room.

YES! Either that, or add a new "Star Wars: A Musical Journey" disc to the soundtrack album. 😉

I think the Star Wars series as a whole is his magnum opus, and I think he himself acknowledges it. Its not a Shore/Wagner sized catalog, but its still upward of fifty recurring themes. Very impressive!

That's actually a neat idea! Now you're thinking like a dramatist!

Well, The Fellowship of the Ring had quite an open ending, followed by a more conclusive ending in The Two Towers, leading into Return of the King. Although its not a good comparison because its essentially one movie split three-ways, rather than three films made by different people, as is the case here. Really, the only thing I'm worried about regarding IX (outside of the inherent issues of a concluding chapter) is that Carrie Fisher's death would deny this episode of having a through-line to the original film, in the way that the previous two had.

Oh, sure. But I do think that in the case of The Last Jedi, specifically, much of his internal conflict is a charade for Rey. But I'll agree that its not all an act. Ultimatelty, there's ambiguity there.

I guess to truly get to the bottom of this would require a rewatch, which I am not planning to do in a long time. I can't put my finger on it, but something about that film just left me not wanting to rewatch it anymore, but I digress. When so much of the film is intent on doing just that - I'm not sure its such a reach. But I see your point. I guess we'll agree to disagree.

I'm talking strictly about The Last Jedi (as a jumping-off point to IX). In The Force Awakens - yes, he's very much conflicted, and its very interesting to watch. But in The Last Jedi its a facade, at least mostly. Like I said, he is conflicted about killing his mother in the early part of the film, but that's it. The rest is him fooling both Rey and Snoke. Still interesting to watch - but for a different reason. That's the real twist of the movie - not that Kylo kills Snoke, but that he was planning to kill him all along, and not to undo Snoke's deeds or out of spite, but simply in order to supplant him. There's a telling moment in the fight with the guards where Ren sees Rey in a tight spot, but doesn't help her - because he didn't kill Snoke to help her. Its just to take his place. Going forward, I guess one could make a big point out of the line about how "no one is ever really gone", but I believe just as important is that Luke acknowledges that he can't save Kylo, or that Leia admits that her son is gone.

HE'S NOT CONFLICTED! He's just fooling Rey. He was planning to kill Snoke and take his place from the first minutes of The Last Jedi.

He can. Its a charade. After killing his father, he is firmly on the side of darkness. He just wants to rule instead of Snoke (the two having a very abusive relationship) but needs someone to help him do away with the guards (and to put the blame on). The only real hesitation he has is killing his mother, and he seems to be over that soon enough, as well. Anyway, that there's one person in the galaxy that he is hestiant to kill doesn't make him much of a good guy...

It does reflect some Marxist motifs, yeah. As for dispensing of it, I dunno. There's a part of me that worries that a completely unhinged, uncontrolled, evil Kylo Ren might not be as compelling as he was up to this point. I think that moment already happened...just before he killed Han Solo. And than came along Rian Johnson and spent a whole movie getting us to think that Kylo is internally conflicted, where in fact he's just fooling Rey into helping him take down Snoke for his own agenda.

Yeah, but that he stripped away the mantle of Darth Vader didn't make him any less evil. His "killing the past" is a very dangerous and malicious world-view.

But this is a visual medium. Besides, its not so much that its offscreen, its that we don't have a connection to these kids as we do Han when he is murdered. And again, no one will have written Anakin's redemption had the murder of the younglings already been depicted onscreen. You can't seriously look at the first three films and claim that they are genuinely informed (from a dramatic standpoint) by the intricacies of the prequel trilogy. I'm not a meme guy, but this puts it succintly: Not to mention Kylo did kill Luke's students which probably weren't much older, either. They can be seen dead around the burning temple, although its not nearly as effective as the killing of the younglings in Episode III.

We're not talking about The Last Jedi. We're talking about Episode IX. Anakin didn't murder children until the prequel trilogy. I doubt, had he already been depicted as murdering children, that any filmmaker will have had him be redeemed. And, from a cinematic standpoint, killing children whom we don't know off-screen is not the same as killing a main character whom we do know (and very much care about) on-screen, much less when that character is the perpetrator's father. Besides, Kylo is not Anakin. What works for the latter won't work for the former. Kylo needs to die.

I think that, as much as The Force Awakens is based in the original Star Wars, the ending of the film goes its own way. In so doing, one of the things it achieves is to make you think Kylo is on the traejectory to salvation (at least eventually) only to than have him kill off his father (and one of, if not THE most beloved character of the series) on-screen. To my mind, there’s no coming back from that, from a storytelling perspective. Johnson saw that and ran with it in his film, toying with this idea of Kylo still being conflicted, only to eventually reveal it to be a facade with which he is leading Rey on, so that she can help him dispatch Snoke’s guards when he puts his assasination plot to action. I guess that’s why it didn’t register with me: so many of the surprises Johnson threw at me in The Last Jedi were things I wasn’t invested in: he teases Rey’s parents and I’m thinking “who cares?” He teases Kylo turning and I, knowing Johnson is a better dramatist than this, was certain he was never going to come through on that, because it’s a trite story choice. There’s no reason, after Han’s murder, to go tha route other than “well, that’s what happened in Return of the Jedi.” Kylo’s conflict between good and evil has been resolved in The Force Awakens, and he choose evil. Now, he needs to die. And done right, it will be one of the most cathartic moments of the series. Done wrong, or not done at all, however...

You get a "Like" purely for the courage to express this opinion!

Why? Its not just that its Hayden, its that there's no need to smack Kylo around. There's a need for him to die. If Kylo turns to the light, it would be the biggest cop-out in the history of blockbusters, which is really saying something. I said as much after "The Force Awakens", but its all the more true after "The Last Jedi". What can a villain do, that Kylo didn't perform or attempted, which would make him irredeemable? There's literally no narrative reason for him to be redeemed apart from "well, that's what happened in Return of the Jedi." Plus, there's too much satisfaction to be found in the death of a villain for the chance to be wasted.

The Lost World is overall a much better film than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, though.

Is it time to draw out the "I'm the only one with a none-Indo-European native language who's writing here" excuse?😉

Didn't Powell say that Williams spotted the film and wrote variations on his themes to be used in specific cues?

Heresy! There's nothing like that movie. And isn't it against the rules of the board to utter the film's holy name in vain anyway?😉

I wouldn't know about his orchestrational skills, but I would say that the proof is in the puddin', as it were. A lot (and I mean A LOT) has been said about the thematic material of the Middle Earth scores, but just as important is the thematic use of color and timbre. Each thematic family is associated not just with certain instruments from outside the orchestral palette (everything from tin whistle to gamelan), but also with certain timbres within the orchestra and orchestral arrangements. These colors can be used, in and of themselves, to suggest the thematic material without actually quoting it. Even if we take just the brass section, when its shrill trumpets at the top of their voice, you know you're listening to Goblin material. When its growling in the low register of the horns and trombones, you know its orc material. When stopped and muted brass feature prominently, you know you're hearing Mordor material. When its rich and teneberous, you know you're listening to Dwarvish material, etcetra. And this is transformed across every section of the orchestra and all the choirs. So, yeah, I would say the orchestrations are great, because they serve a narrative function, and do so very well. I thought about this recently, and I think The Lord of the Rings scores owe a great debt to those scores for bringing celtic music to the forefront of film music just as The Lord of the Rings was being made. I have no doubt that Shore would have gone the celtic route for the Hobbits anyway, but that it resonated with audiences as much as it did, really feeds into how fashionable celtic music became in film scores at the time.