igger6

Just rewatched this solidly entertaining movie (man, what I'd give for a return to the early 2000s studio ecosystem...lots of DVD receipts funding big-budget takes on original scripts, and nearly zero thought given to whether and how a movie would please the Chinese Communist Party). But here's a question: what in the name of Rene Auberjonois is going on with the concert versions of this piece? I count 3.5—the OST opener (6:40, with piano and solo violin at the top), the OST closer (7:50, seemingly identical,with a low-key fife and drum coda), the Lockhart version (8:15, opening with woodwinds instead of solo violin, and incorporating a lot more flutes/fifes plus an epic finale), and then the Film Symphony Orchestra version (6:55, which opens with snares and the patriotic theme rather than solo violin or woodwinds and the lyrical one, and which has a slightly less epic, more traditionally Williams-branded finale with a couple of false finishes). Was this piece revised twice, and were these the debut recordings? How recently (if ever) has Williams himself conducted it live, and in which form? Has anyone attempted a catalogue of Williams' various tinkerings with the concert pieces from his scores? I'm endlessly fascinated by what motivates him to revisit certain pieces and tweak, invert, or blow them up. I'm also a little sorry that The Patriot wasn't represented in any of his work with Mutter recently. More for volume 2!

Yeah, that’s probably it. I wonder how much Williams had to do with those concerts in general. I wasn’t on JWFan enough back then to have followed any discussion of it. I’m still waiting for the return of those concerts promised in that insert in the TFA CD package!

No, I totally hear it, too, haha. I just tend to lash out irrationally whenever a theme I like is compared to a prior theme.

Just saw ROTJ with the Chicago Symphony tonight, and it rocked. That’s a fabulous score to hear live, even though the synth choir was a Palp-able flaw. The entr’acte seemed a little bit more elaborate than usual, too: a nice ersatz medley of the “Clash of Lightsabers” version of the Imperial March, Yoda’s theme, and (I believe) “Han Solo and the Princess.”

I am in this exact boat, and I will almost certainly buy this. And I agree about classics being perpetually in print—so somebody reissue Heidi already! Actually, I think the entire JW catalog should be perpetually in print…

Oh, the heck! It’s just the same rhythm.

Interesting. Between that one and the one I found below, the number of Ross themes is creeping up to match the number of Holt themes.

Anyone know what the distinctive seven-note melody that opens and closes "Some Things Can't Be Forgotten" is? I've heard tell of a Ross Vader theme, but I haven't found it yet, and this can't be that. Is it a Holt theme that I'm not recognizing, or is it some other Ross-penned theme?

Giacchino solved the heck out of this “problem” in the climactic Vader scene in Rogue One. Nothing organized about that theater-shaking rendering!

Great point. Toxic fandom is older and broader than tends to get pointed out in the post-2017 era.

It's a weird dynamic. That's true, I suppose, but she has also has a lot of dedicated apologists and even oddly magnanimous attackers (the latter of which is not a bad thing, but it's worth noting). Some of the posts on this thread seem determined to absolve her of responsibility for even the most composer-centered choices, and others have gone comically out of their way to shower Holt with praise before making a criticism of the music ("I LOVE Holt, but..." "Holt is a brilliant composer, but..." "Holt will certainly be godmother to my next child, but..."). For someone with a resumé as comparatively short as hers, people seem awfully convinced of her genius—that, or this dynamic is the bitter fruit of Disney's making her gender a selling point in the first place. Why not just bill her as "the composer of Loki," a high-profile hit show in its own right? All that said, I love "First Rescue," and I like bits of "Hangar Escape" and "Dark Side Assault." "Hold Hands" is nice but wouldn't stand out if I weren't purposely scouring a score I know to be Star Wars for pleasant moments. My next trip through this to pick out MP3s will be a short one.

This sounds undeniable to me. So what the heck scene is this for (I assume it's in Ep 6)? Had Vader—in Chow and/or Holt's estimation—"earned" his theme yet by this point, whatever point it is? Sheesh, what a ride. I'm with @Brando.

Hahahaha, I do. I do indeed!

There were half a dozen cool moments and ideas, almost entirely contained in this final episode, that retroactively underscore how lackluster the rest of the show has been. That spoiler leak is fascinating, but I find it extremely difficult to believe Reva wasn't being set up for a redemption arc from day one, what with her story being threaded into sympathetic flashbacks from the opening moments, and her (ridiculous) motivation building throughout the series to her (equally ridiculous) turn in the final moments. I think we're headed for a Reva+ announcement sometime in the next six months.

Exceptionally well-put. That's exactly what it felt like. My God, what might have been, with a production team that cared about honoring that sound and a composer capable of producing it!

Good job using the three legacy themes (maybe four? I buy the Qui-Gon quote) when you did, but it redeems nothing. This score was a train wreck for which Williams and Ross tried to lay across the tracks in the final two weeks, but even they couldn't save it in that timeframe. Chow (and maybe Holt) grossly misread the needs of the project, and if I had to guess, I'd guess Kathleen Kennedy saw the writing on the wall and got Williams involved. Think about it. Powell says Williams was on board Solo before he himself was. If his arrival on this show was anything other than a rescue mission, they would have been hyping it for months. That his theme was used so liberally testifies to what a snot bowl the existing score must have been. But back to the sudden reveal of the 3.5 themes. (I don't count the "Hyperspace" quote. That was just kind of odd, given the rest of the score—like someone's amnesia cleared up temporarily.) Saving lush and beloved melodies only for the final appearances of each character isn't intelligent and restrained; it's inane and self-defeating. The point of writing melodic leitmotifs is to enjoy the melody while it's playing and associate it with the characters and situations it describes, both as the story unfolds and when you hear it again outside the work—not to salivate over chords and note pairs that may or may not be leading somewhere familiar. (This can work, as in Rogue One's mid-movie Leia reference during Bail's dialogue, but noticing it shouldn't require Robert Langdon levels of scrutiny). If the score didn't touch any other themes but the Force, Vader, and Leia—heck, even if it reserved those themes for the biggest moments, and even if they were orchestrated in some simplistic Holty way—it still would have been better than what we've been doing for five weeks, basically licking traces of snot from the corner of the bowl and speculating that it tastes a little like Leia's theme. And yes, if the themes were present but poorly executed, we would be absolutely complaining about poor orchestrations of legacy themes, but only because in that corner of the multiverse, it would never even occur to us that someone could score a big moment for a legacy character with anything other than the character's theme. The complaints here aren't hypocrisy; they're a testament to the mind-bogglingly misbegotten approach that was taken on the first draft of this score. I have never been so eager for an immediate re-score of a project than I am for this. Sheesh, somebody start a Kickstarter. I have no idea how I might have reacted to it with music that was more in the Star Wars wheelhouse. It probably would have covered a multitude of sins of plotting and acting. After this mess, the whole of Star Wars fandom owes Michael Giacchino a gigantic apology.

I never heard that! Wow, are those available anywhere? Which films specifically? Are there more statements of the Captain America March sitting around somewhere?!

Alternate history: Williams scores X-Men, and it's so iconic that Elfman ends up quoting that theme in Dr. Strange 2!

Anyone else think this photo makes Williams look like a pirate? It was a no-win situation for the PhotoShopper, but still, there are lots of conducting stills out there...

Well said, @Anthony. I own tons of Giacchino, and when he’s good, he’s very good, but he has racked up a lot more “good” than “great” in recent years, though you never know when he’s suddenly going to go hot again. Dominion was a disappointment overall, but there were two or three cues that suddenly pulled out delightful one-off melodies that never reappeared. His most recent Medal of Honor had several absolutely dynamite themes, though he didn’t write the whole score. And for the record, Zootopia’s main theme is optimistic and catchy as heckfire, but it only shows up twice on the boring album for the disappointing film.

Dear Basketball! Without narration, please! You're all clear, kid; now let's record and release this thing and go home! And maybe he's regretting not putting more film themes on A Gathering of Friends. Not too late for a sequel, Johnny...

Been meaning to reply to this comment for over a week, but I finally tracked it down again. It begins around 1:50 in "Marauders Arrive" on the OST (not sure about the deluxe), churning in low strings, and then it becomes higher and more notable around 2:10. It's at about 35:05 in the movie on Disney+, right after Thandiwe Newton announces the arrival of the probe droids and we get an establishing shot of them.

Imagine a Super 8 score in the Star Wars universe! Holy cow! Except wait, Giacchino will be busy scoring every tentpole theatrical release for every studio in Hollywood by then...

Wait, Lola was in the logo? Know your place, new kid! I was questioning whether the mouse droid even deserved it, and it's been around for all 45 years!

Here's one more for Centennial Overture Bingo!