Chen G.

A meant drama in the sense of a character-driven drama: Its just an action scene. Its part of the "James Bond opening" of the film. That's a great opening shot, too! I've talked about how the opening shot of The Last Jedi breaks the Star Wars mould by not cutting to the fleet but pushing down to it, instead. But, it should be said, George Lucas did a similar thing with this opening: where most Star Wars films would cut from that to something else, Lucas holds this and forms a nice long take (of sorts, because it is just CGI, at the end of the day) at the top of his film: about 1:15 seconds worth. Nope, I'm sorry. You cannot love so much as a single shot of Attack of the Clones! Its forbidden!

It’s a very engrossing opening shot: you instantly know who the bad guys and good guys are. But I think we need to distinguish between appreciating a shot, and loving one. It’s not like there’s some high drama going on in that shot....

Given that this film does have major deaths, what’s the tone of it, for the most part? Is it hyper-serious, or is it still very much a comedic experience with moments of gravitas?

I wouldn't worry. If there's something Abrams knows how to do well, its humor. The Force Awakens is quite funny, actually.

A lot of the tracks also work very well as "suites". Concerning Hobbits, The Black Rider, etc...

The original releases are amazing in their own right. An absolute essential.

Its really comparing apples with oranges. One is a Science Fiction series, the other is a Fantasy series in a Science-Fiction setting.

You've got The Avengers (or Marvel, for that matter) all wrong. If you look at it as an action-comedy (at least, the existing entries) than its a freaking work of art.

I also love just about every shot of The Lonely Mountain in The Desolation of Smaug. Not for the Mountain itself, necessarily, but for the juxtaposition: Be it the Dwarves looking up at it with awe, or Bard turning around to it. The juxtaposition, moreso than the expressions of the actors in those scenes, conveys the necessary emotion, be it longing or a sense of revelation. This subjective shot of Gandalf, as well: And, for the sheer love of the extreme (or rather, macro) close-up:

@crumbs that's an interesting take on The Last Jedi, particularly the last act. I have to say, I still prefer Star Wars scores (and in fact film scores in general) to take the thematic/leitmotivic route. As for it being the best third act of the series since Return of the Jedi, I dunno. I really like, musically, the latter half of Revenge of the Sith. But “Battle of the Heroes” is but the name of a theme which is strictly about the duel of Obi Wan and Anakin. That the name mentions Heroes is just a piece of artistic flair. Thematically, its linked to such pieces as Across the Stars and Duel of the Fates to denote the tragedy of the two combatants being forced to fight each other.

I'm always misremembering which is which, but there's Kylo Ren's fanfare, which is his main theme. And the other theme, which Williams described as "ruminative" (I think) is the one introduced as he's praying to Vader's mask. The arpeggio I would say is but the introduction figure to that theme. If it appears on its own, its as a shorthand to the entire theme. The "conflicted" theme has kind of lost that meaning once Kylo kills Han, and is than used interchangably with the Fanfare, often leading into it. But, per Williams words, I would say it is a separate theme. Although through the first act of The Last Jedi it does represent, if not his conflict, than certainly his angst.

At the end, it all revolves around issues of terminology and organization, which obviously differs between people. Oh well...

Williams has written "musical setpieces" in the past. Whether they're based on ostinati or melody. But, unless they transform into or out of existing themes (which they don't), you can’t really consider them part of the thematic architecture of the piece. They're just vignettes.

How can it be a theme (in the leitmotivic sense, at least) if its self-contained within one setpiece of the film?

Appearantly it is. Israeli people can be raucous in certain places, but the theater is not one of them.

Who wants to see a movie with a loud crowd? other than laughing at the occasional joke, I'd very much appreciate silence in the theater. I'll wait a week or so to see it, much like I did with The Last Jedi. Let the nerd-to-square-meter ratio go down a bit, first.

That's magnificent. I'd also like to have The Valley of Imladris. Besides being a beautiful piece of music, its also part of the thematic architecture of the score: you hear it in the underscore first as Elrond rides into Rivendell. But since we don't have the diegetic variation on the album, in listening to it, it comes across as a one-off melody rather than a recurring theme, even though it really is.

It matters when, in watching the series, it feels contrived. It doesn't feel like genuine payoff because you just know that when Kasdan wrote the "set-up", he didn't have that payoff in mind. Makes it feel all the more contrived. All this "Kylo is lying to Rey about her lineage" is nonesense. Its made very clear that she feels he's right, through The Force. Frankly, Rey should never have been a Skywalker. It would only make this universe feel extremly small, and put this story in a box that we've explored all too well.

Only in retrospect. In 1980 - it wasn't. If you want me to give a damn about the "canon" than better put the work to actually make it feel cohesive and not like its being made up on a whim as you move along.

He didn't speak about Leia, much less about Rey. He spoke of another as just that - another. Who that other actually is was to be decided later. And when the time came to decide, George Lucas (who this time was a co-writer, rather than just outlining the bare bones of the story of the film) coped out to "well, in Empire we had a surprising reveal of a hitherto unknown familial connection between two established characters, and that turned out great; let's do it again! I l know! We'll make Leia Luke's sister!" Hands down, one of the worst narrative choices of the entire series, and certainly the one that solidified this stupid expectation for everyone in this universe to be related.

It’s just as impressionistic sequence of the film. It’s not meant to be taken literally beat-for-beat. Mostly it’s to set up Rey’s rivalry with Kylo.

In terms of his film composition, he undoubtedly is the happiest writing to the brass section.

More than anything, referring to these pieces as separate leitmotives or not is really a mere preference as to how to organize them.

Yep. It’s just a recurring ostinato for the more kinetic action scenes in the film. It just so happens that these scenes tend to include Finn being scared out of his mind.

John Williams has said that he written two themes for Kylo Ren. The third theme is, as you say, just an introduction figure to the second theme, I think. It can be quoted on its own as a shorthand for the whole thing. The same is true of Rey’s theme: it’s a single thematic unit, it just has multiple parts, I say. Its just a different way to look at these things, I suppose. I just like to stick to what Williams said on the subject: Other then Ren’s theme, I’ve never seen him refer to any one of his themes (even outside of Star Wars) as being comprised of multiple motifs.