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The Force Awakens Disney Records OST


Not Mr. Big

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You'll find good examples on either way. The long schedule at least assures the music won't be as edited and cut and pasted as in prequels, regardless of the quality of the music itself

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I would be greatly surprised if there was a more prominent piano element in this score. None of the other six had one.

I would be greatly surprised if the prequels had a choral element in the score. None of the original three had one.

Lies! Episode VI had choral elements!

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I have a feeling this'll be an outstanding score. In the past, when JW has worked with someone other than say Spielberg/Lucas (and to some extent Columbus) he has produced some really good stuff. POA, Memoirs of a Geisha, Far and Away, even Jaws 2, they all contain some of my all time favourite JW moments.

Not to be Captain Negative but The Book Thief was nothing spectacular by JW's standards.

Although neither was the film, and Williams certainly did his best to elevate the material. The final few minutes were perfection, musically.

Of course it wasn't, but by everybody else's standards, it was the best frackin' thing you heard all year.

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Sometimes lots of time doesn't necessarily render a composer's best work. There's a lot of truth in the aphorism attributed to Leonard Bernstein "To achieve great things, you need a plan and not quite enough time". Two examples I can think of are Horner on Avatar and Williams on Tintin. Both were good scores but certainly not either composer's best work by a long shot, at least in my view.

By that margin TROY should have been a masterpiece...

We shouldn't confuse crass commercialism (AVATAR) or deliberately cosy looks back on one's own old repertoire (TINTIN) as inherently musical problem: in both cases the musical direction was a mandate and probably would have sounded vastly different with another director at the helm, see HP3 or APOCALYPTO.

And from what i've heard talking to an orchestrator who did some duties on AVATAR after a Ghent film music gala, Horner had not much leeway on this one. Cameron is not a man of a very bright musical taste.

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James Horner probably got some good ideas of his own what works dramatically...after all he's made more films than Cameron...but Cameron's tastes in music seem more in line with commercial radio listeners' meaning a bit lowbrow and not very cutting-edge.

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The staggered schedule Williams had on TFA is a consequence of the film's post-production approach and not a choice on filmmakers' part to give the Maestro unlimited time. Looks like Abrams' usual preference is to work on single sequences, finessing them as long as he likes and having them completed with score and 5.1 mix before having a more traditional full first cut of the movie, so they delivered Williams new footage and sequences as they went along. Williams didn't score TFA for a year continuously, but with several breaks between the delivered edited reels (and we had it confirmed that he was planning to score Bridge of Spies during one of these breaks).

As others pointed out, a prolonged schedule is good for a composer, but that doesn't automatically mean a better score. Just to remember, Williams wrote TESB in 6-7 weeks (between October and December 1979), which is a relatively short amount of time given the density and length of that score. Surely Williams was younger then and maybe he wrote faster than he does now, as he was probably already well accustomed to deliver that much of music over such a span of time.

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Williams had more time to write and record this score than Giacchino did for either Star Trek film by a huge margin. Possibly even more time than both of those put together!

You have to take into account that an 83 years old composer with health problems needs different time to compose a score than a 48 years old composer.

Different people of different ages and different experiences need different time to compose a score.

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When do we usually get the short online samples?

It varies from case to case, from two months to the same day of release. Plus the film promotion hasn't really followed an established pattern.

I say we'll have to wait until December to get the first samples.

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When do we usually get the short online samples?

It varies from case to case, from two months to the same day of release. Plus the film promotion hasn't really followed an established pattern.

I say we'll have to wait until December to get the first samples.

Yea, maybe we'll get the track list in mid November, samples in early December

Yes this seems to be logical. Like some people have said JJ might have the samples held back. I don't think anyone decides the samples, because each site seems to have different times, I remember with the Battle of the Five Armies over the various websites we nearly had a quarter of the album.

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The staggered schedule Williams had on TFA is a consequence of the film's post-production approach and not a choice on filmmakers' part to give the Maestro unlimited time. Looks like Abrams' usual preference is to work on single sequences, finessing them as long as he likes and having them completed with score and 5.1 mix before having a more traditional full first cut of the movie, so they delivered Williams new footage and sequences as they went along. Williams didn't score TFA for a year continuously, but with several breaks between the delivered edited reels (and we had it confirmed that he was planning to score Bridge of Spies during one of these breaks).

As others pointed out, a prolonged schedule is good for a composer, but that doesn't automatically mean a better score. Just to remember, Williams wrote TESB in 6-7 weeks (between October and December 1979), which is a relatively short amount of time given the density and length of that score. Surely Williams was younger then and maybe he wrote faster than he does now, as he was probably already well accustomed to deliver that much of music over such a span of time.

Those were also the years he was working with orchestrator Herb Spencer (was the last one Home Alone? Hook?) who also seemed to be a real quick draw himself.

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The tracklist almost had me fooled.

The track title "Kylo Ren's Theme" gave it away as a fake. You can tell it from the cross-sections.

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Amazon artwork has changed

819505WdM0L._SL1500_.jpg

Might win the Academy Award for Best Original Soundtrack Album Cover Design ;). Seriously, though, whether or not this is the final cover (and I hope it's not) seeing this gives me chills. Less than two months till December 18! :)

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It's still going to be the best score of 2015.

Most likely.

It will be the best score of the 2010's!

It will be the best score of all time!

It will be the best thing of all time!

Karol

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It's still going to be the best score of 2015.

Most likely.

It will be the best score of the 2010's!

If we're being truthful, there's really no other composer out there right now at even near the level of Williams. Even if TFA isn't good by Williams standards, it will probably still be the best of 2015 and one of the best, if not the best, of the 2010s.

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Do we think the score will be comprised of mostly new themes? I think I recall early Williams' interviews saying they hadn't yet recorded any references to old themes? The trailers are so heavily reliant on nostalgia for their music - this hopefully isn't representative of the film.

They didn't record any references to the classic themes because they don't have too.

It will be tracked in the film using the OT recordings

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