Chen G.

I actually like that the way it is. Something like Luke's Island motif would never have gotten a concert arrangement for its own: its too short a motive for that. By putting those two together, Williams has essentially crafted a distilled form of the score (from a leitmotivic standpoint) in a single piece. That's not the one. I believe The First Order motif appears strictly in The Force Awakens. Its this one: In The Last Jedi, its really represented by Kylo Ren's fanfare, and various none-recurring or incidental fanfares.

There is a recurring little gesture that Frank Lehman classifies as "The First Order" motif, so technically I suppose there is a certain leitmotivic representation of that. Whether or not Williams will reprise it in IX is unknown, although I doubt it.

Not a chance, especially not after The Last Jedi. Unless of course Chris Hartwell has his way: *shudders*

I found that using Kylo Ren's fanfare for the First Order itself (which does have some material attached to it) is apt given that this film will see him overtake it. Indeed, by the end the film the theme is played a bit longer as the stormtroopers march into the Rebel base. But Kylo's "conflicted" motif is very frequent in this score as well - although it stopped representing his conflicted side quite a while back. Maybe he needed a new theme to presage his new position, and thereafter transform into a new march for the First Order?

The world is built around the story and in order to serve the story, not the other way around.

Besides, you can do a "simple" musical setpiece. What matters is the score as a whole isn't simplistic.

I just think that, in terms of what discussions of films have devolved into, it takes courage. Its not uncommon for people well-versed in cimena and film theory to have a dislike for certain "classics" or to certain aspects of them. I'm not talking about people being contrarians. I'm talking about discerning filmgoers who sat down to watch a "classic" but were genuinely left cold by it. It happens. Its like how I'll "Like" a post that opposes one of mine, if I find that it makes a compeling argument, regardless of whether I agree with it or not.

But this is a film. The viewer's emotional attachment is what matters, not the internal logic of this world. What Ren did is worst - from a cinematic, audience-oriented point-of-view - than anything Darth Vader has ever done, certainly in terms of the first three Star Wars films. He doesn't deserve redemption.

Yeah, because who cares about opinions... I don't have anything against E.T. I haven't watched in years. But I appreciate people who dare speak against a percieved classic, even if only for their audacity. How can we develop a discussion about a film, if any attempt at thinking about it critically is shut down by the reverence in which it is held by others?

That moment wasn't envisioned during Return of the Jedi, where Vader was redeemed, and it wasn't depicted on-screen (which is what film is all about) until Revenge of the Sith. It was an afterthought. It doesn't inform Vader's redemption. And there's a difference between that, heinous as it is, and killing a beloved, recurring character like Han Solo. Star Wars may be inspired by serials, but it isn't a serial. Actually, serials are but one of many things that inspired Star Wars. It also pulls from Westerns, foreign Samurai films, from Abrahamic religious narratives, from fairytales and myths, from The Lord of the Rings, from the Wizard of Oz, from science fiction films, etc. It certainly doesn't evoke serials in the way that, say, Indiana Jones does. And with the later episodes, it went further and further down its own path, developing into something fun, but nevertheless grandly scaled and even somewhat impactful. That's certainly what it is nowadays.

I don't see the Skywalker line as the throughline, either, but I do think there's something to be said for stories having a defined beginning and ending. And once you've scrapped the main characters of the series and changed the premise - is it really a continuation of the same story if all that's connecting it to the previous films is the setting, peripheral characters and maybe some of the iconography? I say not. That's the stuff of spinoffs. Besides, even if it were one story, there's only so much of it you can tell before it becomes a bit boring. I was already starting to feel saturated when The Force Awakens ended. And to me, a "redemption" arc will be a cop-out. It was going to be a cop-out even just after seeing The Force Awakens. I don't want a character that has commited onscreen patricide to be redeemed. Besides, there's a lot of satisfaction to be wrought from seeing a villain meet his end.

Hands down, my personal highlight of the entire score and film. Within such a catalog of themes, there's something to be said for having one memorable, beautiful theme that's used very, very sparingly. It makes its appearances all the more dramatic. In other words, the use of Luke and Leia's theme is the anthithesis of the use of The Force theme!

Sometimes authorial intent is appearant in the work itself; sometimes it can be deduced through specific pieces (especially concert arrangements, end-credits suites, etcetra) and often we have at least a good idea of his thinking through interviews, liner notes, etc...

The film? Hell, no!

What? Made for TV Ewok films?! Nothing cinematic. But oh well... I guess I'm just generally less taken with episodic stories.

My speculations are far less of a reach than @mrbellamy's, for instance. Incidental material and coincidental "quotes" and near-quotes of material are an inevitability within such a large body of work. It even happens in the Ring cycle.

Methinks you're confusing "objective" with "quantifyable."

Me? I've only ever been a proponent of adhering to what we know - or can easily deduce - to be Williams' authorial intent.

Me neither. The craft of the film is not subjective.

I think you're forcing your logic onto Williams' thinking. Williams thematic connections are usually quite straight forward. If it isn't readily appearant, it probably isn't intentional. And there's nothing readily appearant in the sequence that recalls or evokes Vader. Williams has been very, very strict with his use of the Imperial March in the sequel trilogy, using it in concise statements and only in conjuction with direct evocations of Vader. This has happened before, in The Phantom Menace. Here's What Doug Adams said to that: Oh, how history repeats itself!

I didn't mean to insinuate that I thought you didn't like it, although I probably like it more than any of those films you mentioned. But that's just me. Again, being at least in part a horror film, its a much, much more subjective piece of work than the other films you mentioned. It can do whatever it can (and it does) in terms to presenting the material in as scary a manner as possible, but if you aren't predisposed to find the subject-matter unsettling, you won't find it unsettling

I love that movie. It doesn't really unsettle me too much, but horror is such a subjective genre, that you have to judge these films by their craft, first, and the craft on Silence of the Lambs is some of the very best in the history of cinema. Its also a strong case against hoity toity film critics and theorists (I'm looking at you, Lindsay Ellis) who wish that films do everything with as much subtelty as they can possibly, bearly get away with. Well, the Silence of the Lambs has the subtelty of a sledgehammer with its frequent use of subjective camera (which is incredibly unsettling), extreme close-ups, hightened lighting and crashing push-ins, but its still a marvel of a motion picture.

I seem to recall that I, too, saw the number 12 being thrown around with regards to the talkד in the aftermath of Star Wars' success. I don’t believe that number was ever taken seriously enough to the point that it was mapped out to include such and such “main story” and “spinoff” entries and their chronology. Even just securing the two sequels in advance was quite bold at the time, let alone a whole sextet, as the episode numbers insinuated. But nine, or twelve? poppycock. Such ideas (some would say, delusions of grandeur on the part of Lucas) were nipped very much in the bud.

Not even a general story arc as much as a vauge idea about what each film might be about: obviously episode 9 was to be the conclusion and was supposed to include the Emperor’s first onscreen appearance. It doesn’t go much deeper than that. Hollywood just doesn’t work like that. And again, by the time Return of the Jedi was taking shape, this nine film plan was all but undone, because the conclusion was evidentially moved to that episode. Aptly so, I should add, as leaving the story of Luke unresolved until after three prequel films, was going to be way too much teasing.

To assume infallibility on the part of Williams is unrealistic and irrational. Besides, to say that these supposed “connections” are not intended doesn’t take anything from the quality of the pieces, themselves. It reminds me of people hearing “Nature’s Reclamation” as Merry and Pippin hide around in Amon Hen, as if to presage their arrival to Fangorn. Come on...