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Hot take: Howard's main theme for this franchise (the tinkly magical one in "Tina Takes Newt In" from the first score) is every bit as vivid an evocation of a secret, whimsical, magical world as "Hedwig's Theme," which itself is on my Mount Rushmore of Williams themes.

Wow, I feel like I got a celebrity response! Thanks, John! That confirms my impression. And fear not, @bruce marshall, Vol. 3 is now within 10 miles and a few postal workers of me.

If you strain hard enough, you can hear his pencil scratching across the paper!

I'm thinking of picking up some more LLL Batman CDs during the sale, but I'm a little confused about how the digital and physical releases relate to each other. If I'm understanding things correctly, all the digitally released albums ("Volumes 1-6" with the more generic, color-coded album art) account for only volumes 1 and 2 of the LLL releases, right? This set ends with the episode "Fire From Olympus" as far as I can tell, which is also the end of LLL's second set. Are LLL Volumes 3 and 4 exclusive releases, then, with no digital equivalent? Has anyone done a comprehensive catalog of what's been released where? Long story short, I enjoyed being able to sample the sets digitally before buying, but it looks like that won't be an option with the remaining ones.

Happy Star Wars Day! I just realized that scoring Star Wars now officially marks the exact midpoint of Williams’ life!!

Hahaha, well-played. I’m beginning to wonder if Holt might be using the term “suite” more cavalierly than most of us would be inclined to. Maybe all we’ll get is a minute or so of pure JW. Still, if that’s the case, it will be a joy to hear his theme expanded on by Holt and speculate about when and whether her musical gestures were inspired by whatever other variations he wrote. That bit fascinates me; it’s like Michael Jordan teaching dribbling tricks to newly signed prospects.

[Backs away as usual, realizing his contributions to another thread have been duplicated and superseded by a more relevant thread.]

Hu—freakin'—zzah!! Bring it on! Also this: Theme and suite!

So? So? Will they release it on May the 4th?

It seemed to me that the ASM version of this arrangement has less Eiger Sanction-adjacent noodling in the opening minute than the orchestral version. At several points he basically expands it from a six-note motif to an eight-note. But maybe it's just less prominent to my ear in the violin version? Either way, it's a fascinating phenomenon that I'm not sure has an analogue anywhere in Williams' oeuvre—a concert suite that not only changes the core notes of a theme's identity in the course of six minutes, but does so with a theme from decades earlier.

I had never actually looked up what's onscreen when that bit plays, but if it isn't droids, I'm going to either A.) assume it was somehow tracked or microedited from a shot that did involve R2 or 3PO at one time, or B.) concede that it's a coincidence, the theme is in fact limited to TESB, and we've just deepened the sad depths of the Tragedy of Droid-Motifus the Wise, a melody so powerful he could influence the MIDI-chlorians to create life—until his composer murdered him in his sleep after just one movie.

R2's theme gets one airing in ROTJ!! It's in one of the 1997 Battle of Endor cues (not III) and I won't attempt to dredge up the earlier posts where we discussed it last decade. I don't know where film score forum search engines learned to communicate, but they have the most peculiar dialect.

I will inevitably be at work when it releases, so my big decision will just be whether to break the seal on cheesy laptop speakers, cheesy classroom speakers, or cheesy (but probably more immersive) earbuds.

Someone decided they needed to pull a Holt-o maneuver! Sorry, I missed the "rando system" pun and had to get my licks in somewhere.

Does biting my lip count? I did that as a kid! Hat tip: Charles Dickens If I find myself unable to consume my own head, I will at least use what brains I have left to change my avatar to this:

Holy mackerel! Congrats! If Johnny ever figures out how to access that flash drive, he's in for a treat!

Benny, Her Man (Love Theme for Obi-Wan & Satine Kryze)

I will eat my own head if this turns out to be real.

I find “Dry Your Tears, Afrika” a great evocation of rebirth after suffering. Honorable mention to “The Patronus Light” and whatever the climactic Patronus cue is called (“The Dementors Converge”?).

Stray thought 4: serving up nearly the entire brachiosaur reveal scene from the original film while rescoring it with generic high-plunking piano is the most brazen and witless act of pop-cultural appropriation since…well, any Star Wars trailer between TFA teaser #1 and the Obi-Wan trailer.

All I've seen is a petition from a year ago and one anonymous person claiming 80 and 95 percent certainty. Am I missing something?

If I'm reading this correctly, we have zero hard evidence for the Holt claim. I await an announcement.

Guilty as charged!

I was/am hoping for new cello arrangements of literally anything in Williams' film catalog. I really want—and wanted this to be, or hoped it would be in part—an "Across the Stars" equivalent for cello, basically equivalent to what Yo-Yo did with Morricone's music decades ago. Imagine if Williams did soloist-and-orchestra arrangements of a non-overlapping set of film themes for cello. Here, off the top of my head: Love Theme from Superman Fawkes the Phoenix Love Theme from The Terminal (I can't post more than 50 words on JWFan without those being five of them) Rose's Theme from The Last Jedi Theme from Angela's Ashes The Return from Jane Eyre The Rise of Skywalker Smee's Plan Where Dreams Are Born March of the Villains (why not?) I mean, obviously JW is entitled to sit on his duff, so good for him for doing anything, but this just seems so redundant: updated concerto recorded by the same guy who did it twentysome years ago, along with film pieces that already existed for cello (except maybe two of the Schindler pieces, which will probably be the highlights for me). We should be grateful he's doing anything, but this is basically a skip for me.

I, for one, find this tracklist a rather crushing disappointment.