TheAvengerButton

I've been listening to this score off and on and where the orchestration is top notch for this sort of thing, the mix on this album is something else and it's added a bit of different energy to the proceedings. Makes everything 11.

Love those! I should get around to organizing my Emperor's Tomb sound files sometime to actually make a cohesive soundtrack. If anyone has any tips on that, that would be great.

I'm glad to hear Return is so good, that's my favorite movie score and I'm always clamboring to get the best version of that soundtrack I can get, having already owned the 2016 Ulimate Collection version and the RCA edition--which I still appreciate for the amount of music on there. But looking at the tracks for this release, complete with the extra music on the fourth disc, it seems all of the major highlights are there for the score, so I think I'll be pretty happy with this set. But, of course, I'll have the Star Wars and Empire scores as well, which are phenomenal.

Should I buy it? I mean, I've already bought it, but for the sake of argument, should I? Also, I guess there's some sort of badge of honor I get? When can I get that attached to my username somehow?

I was not aware!

Given the majority of Haab's Star Wars work has been with the LSO (outside of The Old Republic and Squadrons) this one will most likely be no different.

The thing I appreciate most about The Rise of Skywalker is that it affirms a big theme of the entire series that was established all the way back in The Phantom Menace--the idea that you can't and shouldn't always rely on a governing body to take care of all of your problems for you. Queen Amidala learns that the thing she was putting all of her hopes in--the Republic--was never going to be able to help her rescue her people. So what did she do? She did it herself. Her sin through the rest of the trilogy was that she didn't learn from that experience--instead of continuing that independence of thought, she bought into the Republic wholesale foolishly hoping to change it from within. This lesson is continued in a big way with the Rebellion--despite their mission being to restore the Republic, which is still an admirable position to take. The Rebellion was an alliance of different rebellions and when Jyn Erso learned that she couldn't rely on the Rebellion to help her take the Death Star plans she formed her own coilition to take them herself, and in doing so she inspired the rest of the Rebellion to shed their fear and make a move. In The Force Awakens, it is Leia who forms her own breakaway organization--The Resistence--after she learns that she can't rely on the Republic to save itself from the threat of the First Order. And the Resistance struggles to inspire the free peoples of the Galaxy to stand up for themselves instead of living in fear--until the final moments of The Rise of Skywalker when the Resistance does what Leia did, what Jyn Erso did, what Padme did before them--they showed the Galaxy through their leadership that evil could be stood up to without having a crutch and relying on a power that is unwilling to help itself. Whether this was intentional (and on some level, it is because it's baked into the story, but what I mean by this statement is 'whether this is a call back to the specific ideas brought up in the Prequels and the original films/Rogue One') remains to be seen, but it works so well as the conclusion to a thematic arc that starts all the way back in Episode I.

The Rise of Skywalker is my second favorite Star Wars film behind Return of the Jedi if that tells anyone anything. Love the score, though I don't know if I especially like it over the score for The Last Jedi--and by that I mean I think there's equal pros and cons to both. The Force Awakens might STILL be my favorite of the sequel scores though. But I'm not a Star Wars hater. I love all the new Star Wars content that's coming out so I'll gladly contribute to Appreciation threads and enchantment threads.

As someone who likes to think they are more fair on the non-Williams Star Wars scores than some others here (and that's not a criticism of other users here) I have to say that the Andor and Obi-Wan scores (outside of Williams' theme) are big nothing burgers. The Andor score especially is just not there and Obi-Wan's score sounds too much like a generic cop show soundtrack. So my ranking would be: 1. Ahsoka 2. The Mandalorian Season 1/3 3. Tales of the Jedi 4. The Mandalorian Season 2 5. The Book of Boba Fett AndorObiWan

*cue whoopsie. Oh, I think I know exactly what you're talking about. I can see the similarity for sure.

Is the Dracula temp taken from the Storm que? That's the only similarity I can think of between the two scores off the top of my head.

Here is an original piece by me called Beyond the World, inspired by Jeremy Soule's music for Elder Scrolls. I love the Oblivion soundtrack so much that I tried to replicate the whole feel of that soundtrack with this singular piece.

This is amazing. I have still yet to give this score a full listen besides a few highlights. I've been B A L L S D E E P in Squadrons, taking notes on that.

Nice! I just picked up Areia strings by Audio Imperia. I really dig Nucleus as an all-in-one orchestra and while it's not the most emotive out of the box, I can still make it sing. Plus, for writing John Williams type material Audio Imperia is actually pretty nice. But now that I have Areia strings, I feel like I can get even more out of Nucleus by expanding the strings. Now, if Audio Imperia can make dedicated woodwind and brass libs, I would be very happy.

This was absolutely wonderful. Thanks for sharing it, I think you did a perfect job of capturing the feel of one of my favorite eras of movie music.