Pellaeon

It makes sense, on one level, that consuming Star Wars is not the key to creating good Star Wars. A good writer or director (of anything, really) should have a breadth of influences and a breadth of life experience. They should consume voraciously—film and literature and music and non-fiction (history and mythology and anthropology and popular science and mechanics)—and live voraciously—enjoying many kinds of activities in many kinds of outdoor environments, and in many countries, sampling the architecture and the cuisine and the social scene, etc.
 
But the corollary of that is that if your creative well is such a deep well, such a colorful kaleidoscope, that’s much different than consuming five ingredients and vomiting them right back up onto the Star Wars canvas to where the audience can pinpoint your exact five influences and feel smug that they “got it”—and that’s the whole exercise. Especially if those five things are all just nerd culture things.
 
The other corollary is that if your creative well is such a deep well, such a colorful kaleidoscope, then you have the capability to create something truly unique like George Lucas did in 1977—and in that case, doesn’t the Star Wars canvas really limit your creativity? The answer is yes. You should go forth and make something new.
 
But if you are tasked with making new Star Wars (for love or for money), your job is NOT to innovate just because George innovated. The point of an imaginary universe is that you can imagine it as a coherent whole, hopefully without compartmentalizing each component. The more seamless the better. And that obviously involves an element of the ouroboros—themes and scenes and lore which feel like reflections or inverses or outgrowths of themes and scenes and lore that we have seen before.

I guess I went into Andor with low expectations considering all the backlash in the film music community... but I actually not only loved the series itself but really loved the use of music throughout. That diegetic funeral procession music in the final episode was unique and good stuff in particular. I'd probably buy Andor on CD. Same probably goes for the first two seasons of The Mandalorian, honestly.
 
But I'd draw the line at Obi-Wan I think. I liked some of Holt's cues and would be curious to hear what she came up with for original main theme before Williams, but I gotta say that overall her work on the series is a far, FAR cry from her amazing scoring for LOKI. Maybe she was bad casting for Star Wars or maybe she was just given poor instruction and the showrunners wanted music like she delivered...
 
 
I agree with this though.
 
 
I uh... I probably would too. But I'd honestly want them to also include the songs and stuff! I unironically enjoy Bea Arthur's song, to be completely honest:
 
...Just me?
 
Yavar
 
P.S. Andy, have you already heard my 2019 interview of Peter Bernstein, where he touches on his Ewok scores?
https://goldsmithodyssey.buzzsprout.com/159614/1746388-odyssey-interviews-peter-bernstein
 

PARAMOUNT+ ANNOUNCES THE NEXT SOUTH PARK EXCLUSIVE EVENT TO PREMIERE FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27
 
October 11, 2023– Paramount+ today announced that the service’s next South Park exclusive event SOUTH PARK: JOINING THE PANDERVERSE will premiere Friday, October 27, in the U.S. and Canada and Saturday, October 28, in the U.K. and Australia with further international markets to follow. The first four South Park exclusive events – SOUTH PARK: POST COVID, SOUTH PARK: POST COVID: THE RETURN OF COVID, SOUTH PARK THE STREAMING WARS and SOUTH PARK THE STREAMING WARS PART 2 – are available to stream exclusively on Paramount+.
 
In SOUTH PARK: JOINING THE PANDERVERSE, Cartman’s deeply disturbing dreams portend the end of the life he knows and loves. The adults in South Park are also wrestling with their own life decisions as the advent of AI is turning their world upside down.
 
 

Tiny bit of new info
 
So I started being put in all these writers’ rooms, but I also started being asked to help people crack IP, including Star Trek, which started as the Tarantino writers’ room. Tarantino wanted to do a Star Trek room, which was the most fun room I’ve ever done.
We got in there and he started with, “So what are your guys’ ideas for a movie?” and I think I went first. So he listened to us patiently and just kind of nodded his head, and then he took out his notebook and started talking for 20 minutes with lines of dialogue and passionate ideas that he’d already written. It wasn’t really a story yet; they were just random thoughts he had on a movie, but it was so passionate and so wonderful. And I laughed to myself and thought, “Well, why didn’t we start with that?” There was a funny moment where he just stopped in the middle of that room and turned to me and said, “Lindsey, you’re really good at this.” And getting that compliment from somebody whose career I admire so much meant a lot, obviously.
 
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/pet-sematary-bloodlines-lindsey-anderson-beer-1235610485/

I still think The Adventures of Han should be the album's finisher, since the credits just kinda end, it opens with Williams and it should end with him too.

Also read Thrawn Trilogy and Plagueis fairly recently, what utterly fantastic stories. The former is a more thoughtful and strategic classic Star Wars trilogy romp (and is a perfect Sequel Trilogy as far as I’m concerned), and the second is a really enthralling psychological thriller that gives really important insight on what Palpatine was like before he became a Sith

Sell it, buy a digital copy for $5, and pocket the profit 

Gotta love it!
 
 
 

Gotta love it!
 
 
 

Gotta love it!
 
 
 

This is a list made by someone who has no clue about Star Wars music.
EVERYONE in this forum would come up with a better list.
 

Actually this question reminds me I once saw a thread on here where someone asked where the 1997 track titles came from and there was some backstory about Lucasfilm policy and needing to include as many technical terms as possible or something? Does anyone remember this thread? I've never been able to find it again it's almost like I imagined it

Of course, I wasn’t talking about JW, but about the best non-Williams SW composer, i.e John Powell.

No Solo?

In recent years, top-notch composers like Michael Giacchino, Nicholas Britell, and Ludwig Göranssonhave all put their own stamp on Star Wars.
 
Seriously, they don’t even evoke the best one ?

Victory Celebration? Really?
Better than Luke and Leia theme for example? or Han and Leia love theme?

Not sure why JW isn't taking up all 15 spots, but ok.

Personally I don't think I'd call Horner's music any more cinematic than Roseman's, the main theme is very bracing and the secondary theme (the 6/8 one) is romantic (in a the classical music sense) and pretty sweeping. I think his score has got better notices since the expansion even if there's still quite a few who hold a grudge because James Horner didn't score it. I've always liked, and for my money, the fun action cues are perfectly fine in context. It is the most light hearted of the original movies and a couple of breezy action cues don't distract too much. Rosenman hits the dramatic beats very effectively elsewhere.
 
As a kid I always loved TFF, indeed I even loved the effects, but now realise how janky they are. I always loved Jerry's score and, after the 1999 expansion of TMP (which I still have as a playlist created from the 3CD LLL expansion, I always thought it was a terrific programme), was probably the Star Trek movie score I wanted expanded the most. The Mountain is indeed a wonderful intro* but it has some of Jerry's best 80s/90s action music, one of his best combinations of synths with the orchestra and the quasi-religious music for the finale is perhaps the best example of Jerry scoring the movie the filmmakers intended to make but didn't have the budget for. I've said it before, but the thing his later scores often lack (and the Giacchino scores almost entirely lack) is the awe and wonder/romance of space travel/exploration sound that the original 6 movie scores have in spades. TFF might not have achieved its ambitions, but Jerry scored it as though it did (without it sounding like it doesn't fit). I never really understood why the plot of TFF was disowned - sure the movie may not be great, but a madman trying to find god on an alien world could easily have been an episode of TOS!
 
*It follows my favourite rendition of the TMP theme, even if the horns and other brass are all oddly mixed the same side - sorry if that now becomes a thing can't not hear! I always miss the synth whoosh that is used during the segue from the Courage fanfare to the TMP theme in later recordings, it always feels like something is missing. I'm hoping that Omni will publish the score sometime as I'm curious as to the differences between this and the TMP version of the main theme, they are definitely slightly different. I always like (dare I say, prefer?!) the way he segues out of the TMP theme in the later version too, those unexpected harmonic changes tell you things are about to change.
 
A friend of mine commented that he didn't like how slow the TMP theme was in cues like The Enterprise or other more low key quotes of it. I guess when you're used to it at TNG speed it might seem oddly slow, but those gentle renditions are great. The cello version at the end of Let's Get Out of Here from TFF is wonderful (now playing!).
 
Definitely agreed with Generations after TNG. TNG is a great show and well worth watching and there are plenty of "essential" episode lists, although if you start at season 3, you can't go far wrong. Generations was a missed opportunity, with some good ideas badly executed and some bad ideas (not to mention gaping plot holes) that scupper things. Having said that, Dennis McCarthy's score is actually pretty great, the main theme is perhaps a bit basic, but the action music is decent and his more wistful material is gorgeous. The sad music near the end (won't spoil it just in case!) and the finale cue are particularly lovely.
 
I endorse watching DS9 though, a superb show, especially once it got going, again in the 3rd (but definitely 4th) seasons. Great Dennis McCarthy main theme too. First Contact is well worth a watch and Jerry's First Contact theme is probably the best thing he wrote after TFF.
 

It is a magnificent journey indeed. But as you hint, for most people it’s an insurmountable task to undertake all 12 volumes, and they have no inclination to become “experts.”
 
Which is why I put forward The Book of Lost Tales and The Lays of Beleriand as part of the semi-popular tier. If you ignore the footnotes, they are straightforward reads with very great literary merit. I mean they are not drafts of something else, they are some of Tolkien’s major works in their own right. If you are looking for something to blow the roof off your imagination the way LotR did, for me that would be BoLT.

Eh, not to denigrate The Children of Húrin, one of my long-time faves, but it’s no Lord of the Rings.
 
 
I’m not so sure. The Lay of Leithian is about three times the page count of the Narn (the UT version), and it’s poetry, which takes considerably more effort to write than prose. The Lay (which extends to the escape from Angband) is more complete than the Narn (which is missing its middle—the fall of Amon Rudh, the Taur-nu-Fuin episode, and the Nargothrond episode entirely). Additionally, there are two very different prose versions (the Lost Tale and the Silmarillion chapter).
 
 
The significance of this is not clear to me. The Lord of the Rings, for example, was VERY different from its conception to the form it ultimately took.

Naah… The Children of Húrin has a polished presentation, which I definitely appreciate, but that doesn’t make it the “only true narrative“ outside the famous two. That’s a most unfortunate attitude, and will rob you of the Lay of Leithian (the dearest to Tolkien’s heart of all his writings), the epic Fall of Gondolin, the nuanced Aldarion and Erendis, the majestic Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, the incredible characters of Fëanor and Ulmo, and the continuing tales of Húrin and Mîm. The grand sea journeys of Ælfwine and the odd time travel of Elendil, so fantastic yet you sadly dismiss.

That’s what I thought. Many of the titles seem oddly in-universe, referencing specific tech, ship names, Mynock and Dianoga, etc.
 
Remember that the next time you go to reference “Binary Sunset” or “Burning Homestead”.

Agreed. But I read every volume of History of Middle-Earth, so I'm a glutton for punishment.  
 
 
Yeah, that's really quite nice, and you're right, it would be a great book.
 
Speaking of long-forgotten, if you haven't heard it, there's a recording of The Hobbit by Nicol Williamson that's simply fantastic. Sadly, it's abridged, but I'd put right up there with the Inglis or Serkis versions, and it probably has the edge on those two in charm.
 
 

I agree completely. I just like to encourage people to read more of the books (for enjoyment!) beyond the obvious Hob+LR, and since there are so many books, it’s maybe helpful to have a numbered short-list. I aimed to find a balance between the way the story unfolded for its audience (i.e., the publication order) and the way it might unfold slightly more naturally for the reader (i.e., satisfactory novels with beginnings, middles, and ends).
 
The one I’m not so keen on is the 2017 Beren and Luthien. I think the Lost Tale and the full Lay as part of their proper collections work just fine, and the 2017 publication just ends up having too much explaining to do.
 
That reminds me, though, there is a “forgotten novel” which I think would work very well slotted in before the (notoriously difficult) Silmarillion. There is a 1977 LP of The Silmarillion: Of Beren and Lúthien read by Christopher Tolkien. It’s a good listen, and I think it would make a nice little standalone book.