BTR1701

That's the way I've felt about TEMPLE OF DOOM and JAWS 2 for years. Fantastic music. Horrible movies.

You should check out "The Legacy of John Williams" podcast. Mauricio has been interviewing a dozen or so L.A studio musicians who've played on Williams's scores over the last 40 years. Their stories are fascinating, as is the way they offhandedly describe getting one, maybe two, run-throughs of some of the lost difficult music ever written before they hit "record" and have to do it for real. I just finished the Malcolm McNab (principal trumpet) episode. It's stunning to me that he was able to do most of JURASSIC PARK in one take with no real rehearsal. I was also surprised that JW picks who plays in the orchestra. I always just assumed the studio orchestra was staffed by the studio, not the composer. Jim Self (William's principal tubist and the voice of the mothership in CE3K) talked about how Williams cleaned house in the entire brass section around the time FORCE AWAKENS came out. Players who had been with him for decades were out and he seated a whole new crew.

It's as if Elgar himself arranged it.

My secret musical fantasy is for JW to have been given musical authorship over the Marvel Cinematic Universe, composing the scores for all the individual hero films, creating and developing themes to all of the characters-- Cap, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Widow, etc.-- and then weaving them all together in the various Avengers films. It would be monumental task, and likely not something he'd have been interested in committing to at his age even if offered, but it's fun to imagine.

Would have been nice to have heard a little bit of this in the scene where it was appropriate.

He's signed on to score the next Indiana Jones flick, if they ever get it off the ground.

When I saw POTTER live-to-projection with the Chicago Symphony last year, they used an old-school beautiful dark wood--mahogany?-- celesta. Very ornate looking.

I don't think it's disjointed. I think it's uninspired and just a rehash of what's come before. (I love the rest of the score. It's just this one cue that I don't like.) But the live performances, both concerts and live-to-projection, use the real deal.

Several people have said this and I have no idea if that's what happened, but I just can't imagine why Abrams or Disney would care all that much about which themes/music are playing over the end credits when most people, let's face it, are leaving the theater. I just doesn't strike me as something they would be concerned enough with to veto whatever Williams wanted to do and basically order him to recycle a bunch of old material instead.

The ending of 'Finale' is note-for-note the ending to RETURN OF THE JEDI. It's a new recording of it, but it's just a copy/paste of the ROTJ sheet music. I wouldn't say lazy. More like disinterested. Just my impression, anyway.

Really? Because this is one of the rare times JW has disappointed me. The end credits (Finale) was JW's opportunity to wave a musical goodbye to the franchise, the fans, and basically 40+ years of his life's work, and instead of new, original, and poignant material, he basically copy/pasted the Imperial March from the Hal Leonard Signature Series, did some stuff with Rey's theme, then copy/pasted the end of RETURN OF THE JEDI. It's like he finished scoring the film, then realized he still had almost 11 minutes of credits to fill and was, "I'm tired of this, I'll just take a bunch of stuff that'll fill the time from previous films and call it a day." I thought his end credits music in FORCE AWAKENS was far superior, especially the way it ended on a variation of the Rebel Fanfare, then a quiet denouement to a major chord in the basses with Luke's theme quietly ringing out in solo celeste. That was an emotional gut-punch the first time I heard it. This was just, "Oh, that again? I've heard that a dozen times in every Hollywood Bowl concert ever." I don't like how it was mixed. The brass-- especially the trumpets-- is a lot tinnier and weaker than previous recordings.

Williams' SUPERMAN themes were recently used in the CW's Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover event (as well as Elfman's BATMAN theme). And they weren't orchestrated the way the were in the films. I doubt Williams was involved with scoring a CW show, either.

My wish would be for the Chicago Symphony to re-record the score to RETURN OF THE JEDI. I really don't like the quality of the original recording and that legendary CSO brass would own that score.

That principal violin is quite a biscuit!

I thought it was interesting that comments from the professionals who are involved in recording these cues are similar to the folks here with regard to the sound quality of Abbey vs Sony. https://www.finalemusic.com/blog/may-the-fourth-spotlight-on-joann-kane-music/ Can you say anything about the difference in working on Star Wars music with an American orchestra in a different studio? The LSO is a leading, well-established, top symphony orchestra. They play together all the time and they have a definite kind of overall sound and Abbey Road also has got its own unique sound. We’re working with a studio orchestra in L.A. which is a fine orchestra, at Sony, one of the L.A. scoring stages in Culver City. It’s a big room that can absorb a lot of sound. And so there’s a denser kind of feel to the sound the orchestra makes than at Abbey Road – it’s not quite as bright. It’s a slightly different experience. I also found it interesting that Williams apparently doesn't use an orchestrator anymore, instead sending his sketches directly to Joann Kane, which prepares the scores and parts from the sketches. Can you describe your workflow on these films? John Williams writes very detailed handwritten sketches. On the prequels, these sketches went to orchestrators. The orchestrators would write pencil scores and we would copy parts into Finale. But for the past six or seven years, John has just sent the sketches directly to us. We put them straight into Finale. I’ve kind of edited them, checked them out myself, and then we’ve used them at the stage for recording.