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This cue is also the first time the Star Wars Main Theme was played - ever. Williams has often mentioned that the first thing they ever recorded for SW was the Main Titles (Maurice Murphy's first day with the LSO...), but he is wrong, of course.

This cue is also the first time the Star Wars Main Theme was played - ever. Williams has often mentioned that the first thing they ever recorded for SW was the Main Titles (Maurice Murphy's first day with the LSO...), but he is wrong, of course.

This cue is also the first time the Star Wars Main Theme was played - ever. Williams has often mentioned that the first thing they ever recorded for SW was the Main Titles (Maurice Murphy's first day with the LSO...), but he is wrong, of course.

This cue is also the first time the Star Wars Main Theme was played - ever. Williams has often mentioned that the first thing they ever recorded for SW was the Main Titles (Maurice Murphy's first day with the LSO...), but he is wrong, of course.

This cue is also the first time the Star Wars Main Theme was played - ever. Williams has often mentioned that the first thing they ever recorded for SW was the Main Titles (Maurice Murphy's first day with the LSO...), but he is wrong, of course.

This cue is also the first time the Star Wars Main Theme was played - ever. Williams has often mentioned that the first thing they ever recorded for SW was the Main Titles (Maurice Murphy's first day with the LSO...), but he is wrong, of course.

Finally got to watch the final episodes, and I thought I would share some thoughts of the season as a whole. Seeing how there are already several comments focusing on the negative aspects of the show, some of them which I agree with, I will try to highlight the best parts for me.
 
The absolute highlight this season for me has been the whole plot revolving around Sauron's deception. His presence in Eregion, his transformation into Annatar, the way he manipulated and deceived Celebrimbor and everyone around him till the very end was a joy to behold, and a huge part of that success goes to the actors. Charlie Vickers and Charles Edwards delivered astonishing performances, and their dialogues were for sure the best part of the whole show. I also really like the development of some other characters like Robert Aramayo's Elrond and Adar, which is one of the most interesting characters the show has created. I also enjoyed some parts of the Númenor plot, especially those which delved deeper into the Faithful ways, and the relationship between Elendil and Miriel. And altough I'm not the biggest fan of the Stranger/harfoot storyline, the bond between Nori and, should we say now, Gandalf, is really heartwarming. And I liked Bombadil's portrayal, even though brief and perhaps not as developed as it should've been.
 
The production value is astonishing, as is the visual aspect and the SFX, which put to shame many blockbusters premiered in cinemas. And as always, McCreary's music is one of the best scores out there, and the way his music enhances and elevates the scenes it goes with, many times helps some moments feel much more profound and emotional that they would have with a lesser score. That's not necessarily a critique against the writers, but a praise for the people who put him there and allowed him to do his thing, offering an epic, complex and multi-thematic musical tapestry that's just brilliant from start to end!
 
There are quite a few aspects of the show I don't really like, and even though I feel this season is quite better than the previous one, there's still room for improvement, but I hope they continue the show and are allowed to do their thing, even if it's not perfect.

I have that covered by The Big Army:
 
 
V1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxQSwI5aPja9MllqZGJMeDIzMEk/view?usp=sharing&resourcekey=0-6AMQsw1WmWBgTTntXNY8iw
 
V2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxQSwI5aPja9YWxweTFYSEJtUkU/view?resourcekey=0-7AMXNzpQIYlbeM2e6EdoTw
 
 

Ah, the infamous Reel 6 of The Phantom Menace. Many stories have been told over the years about the fuss that happened in between the scoring sessions and the final dub. It seems Conrad's recapitulations are quite accurate and very close to what actually happened. Some of the issues were already revealed in the big article by the late Richard Dyer for The Boston Globe:
 
 
I think this has always been a bigger issue for us score fans than for the filmmakers and the speculations ran rampant for a long time fueled by that infamous interview with JW by French magazine Starfix which later appeared to have been a mostly fabricated piece.
 
We can still only speculate 25 years later, but it's safe to assume that JW never held a grudge for it. He's the consummate professional and he knows that sometimes you have to let it go and move to the next project.
 
Anyhow, what CP says about the relationship between JW and Kenny Wannberg is the gold nugget there. "Every Don needs a Sancho" is a great way to put it.

I think everyone needs to adjust their expectations for this film.

I will bet $100 that this will be a fairly superficial documentary, covering all his "greatest hits", but little in the way of the lesser known, at least for us fans. Perhaps some montages and stuff to cover the pre-JAWS scores, if we're lucky, but not much. Doesn't matter that Spielberg is involved on the production side (and might pony up a brief recording session snippet or two), it's a Disney+ documentary aimed at the general masses, directed by a guy who's notorious for superficial featurettes on DVDs. It will not be like the Morricone documentary, lovingly directed by one of his frequent collaborators.

I think you're better off having those kinds of expectations to the Tim Greiving book next year.

I started working on the book in early 2020. I didn't interview JW for it until October 2022. (And yes, there is quite a story about that long gap!) I then interviewed him on a regular basis for 18 months.
 
I did all of the other interviews myself over the course of the past 4.5 years. This has been going on long enough that I was able to talk to Ken Wannberg, Leslie Bricusse, Ginny Mancini (Henry's wife), and several others before they passed away.
 
 

Oh, believe me, getting him to open up about his private life was the primary hurdle. I'm certain there are things in the book that he would have preferred I left out, but once he decided to "help" (his word), he really did help. And part of that helpfulness was not dictating what could or could not go in the book. To his great, great credit.

So many people talk about what critics and reviewers say about shows they watch.  Am i the only one that doesn't care about that stuff, never looks it up, never reads them?  I just watch shows I'm interested in and make my own opinions >shrug<

I have Doug Adams's wonderful book, and I've certainly read that passage years ago. I probably assumed that the mock-ups were based on orchestrated scores. 

Lazy: unwilling to work or use energy.
 
Indeed, how lazy of John Williams to not find 28 hours in a day. 
 
“Lazy,” “objectively,” and “relatable,” are three of the most common, and commonly insipid, criticisms on the internet, and a sure fire way for me to ignore anything you have to say.
 
The truth is, Williams was asked by three close collaborators to work on four films in one year. He wasn’t going to pass on Star Wars, and his history with Spielberg was too great. Something had to give. Not even the relative lightness of CMIYC was enough to offset the density of the other three scores.
 
Maybe he should have passed on CoS, or maybe he underestimated the amount of work required. I doubt it; he’d been doing this too long not to know. I think he wanted to keep the door open for future HP films, and felt this was the best arrangement to maintain creative control of the music. I don’t know when the series decided to director-hop, but if Columbus had stayed on, I’m sure he would have done the rest of them. I think that was his intent. It definitely wasn’t to do the least amount of work required to fulfill an obligation.

It's not lazy. It's rushed-up. It's misguided. It's poor. Whatever you want. But not lazy. Lazy means that Williams wasted the time he had to write the score doing other non-work-related things. And that's not what happened.
 
It was a combination of lack of time, wanting too much control over the score (not allowing Ross to actually compose) and the misguided idea that the score needed to be very heavily based on the previous score.

Obviously, AOTC was composed months earlier (October 2001-January 2002). The film had already been released by the time Williams started composing for COS.
 
The "same year" thing is really arbitrary IMO. Clones was composed much closer to the first Harry Potter film, rather than the second, for example. 

It's not lazy. It's rushed-up. It's misguided. It's poor. Whatever you want. But not lazy. Lazy means that Williams wasted the time he had to write the score doing other non-work-related things. And that's not what happened.
 
It was a combination of lack of time, wanting too much control over the score (not allowing Ross to actually compose) and the misguided idea that the score needed to be very heavily based on the previous score.

Obviously, AOTC was composed months earlier (October 2001-January 2002). The film had already been released by the time Williams started composing for COS.
 
The "same year" thing is really arbitrary IMO. Clones was composed much closer to the first Harry Potter film, rather than the second, for example. 

I think I honestly prefer the AOTC version. The percussion and interludes between the orchestral tutti frenzy add a lot. While I do agree that orchestration of the main frenzy motif is more intense in HP, the bridging material isn't as interesting to my ears (partly due to the fact that The Chase Through Coruscant is a sustained 10 minute action setpiece, so JW can return to certain rhythms and vary them, making it a more unified and interesting musical sequence overall).

The OST gives the impression that Double Trouble is one of the main themes, but it really isn't. 
Window to the Past, which is clearly the only main theme, is perfectly developed indeed. The first subdued hint, then the A phrase (always on a different instrument: flute, clarinet, oboe, horn, strings...), and you have to wait to its final appearance to hear the B phrase of the theme, leading into a wonderful ending. 

Really interesting articles!!
 
About the cut John Williams scored being different to the final cut (therefore requiring revisions and edits), keep in mind that, when Williams spotted the film in early January 1977, there was no Death Valley footage, nor any Cantina pick-ups.
Therefore, I believe some of those scenes (like the Landspeeder search, the Sand People scene, R2 captured by Jawas....) were probably scored "blind", without any footage at all. 
 
All the scenes that were shot in Death Valley have the music heavily edited.
 
 
 

Really interesting articles!!
 
About the cut John Williams scored being different to the final cut (therefore requiring revisions and edits), keep in mind that, when Williams spotted the film in early January 1977, there was no Death Valley footage, nor any Cantina pick-ups.
Therefore, I believe some of those scenes (like the Landspeeder search, the Sand People scene, R2 captured by Jawas....) were probably scored "blind", without any footage at all. 
 
All the scenes that were shot in Death Valley have the music heavily edited.
 
 
 

Really interesting articles!!
 
About the cut John Williams scored being different to the final cut (therefore requiring revisions and edits), keep in mind that, when Williams spotted the film in early January 1977, there was no Death Valley footage, nor any Cantina pick-ups.
Therefore, I believe some of those scenes (like the Landspeeder search, the Sand People scene, R2 captured by Jawas....) were probably scored "blind", without any footage at all. 
 
All the scenes that were shot in Death Valley have the music heavily edited.
 
 
 

Good video analysis on Azkaban and why it's the best of the three.