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The Force Awakens Blu Ray special features include 7 minute music featurette "The Seventh Symphony"


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3 hours ago, Jay said:

 It sounds nothing like any Imperial March variation we've ever heard before.

Reminded me a bit of I am the Senate.

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On March 20, 2016 at 6:26 AM, BloodBoal said:

I don't know, but I'm glad he's back. After Jwfan2234's ban, this forum was starting to get dull again...

I am back

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36 minutes ago, someonefun124 said:

He better come back for 8 and 9!

 

He says it in a way that seems to almost say "I'm going to try and keep up as long as I can." That may be me just hearing what I want to hear, though. 

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12 hours ago, Jay said:

Don't hold your breath.

 

I'm guessing you know something more - it's not in the works at all, is it?

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13 hours ago, aj_vader said:

What I think is the original cue of the "Imperial March" cue (where we see Vader's Helmet) has lots more low aggressive french horns in it than the film version. Also a great "Force Theme" rendition at the end of the documentary. Hopefully we get an expanded release this year with all this extra music! 

 

Who cares? You can rip that music from the documentaries: they have 5.1 audio, with the music completely clean on the rear channels!

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On 29/03/2016 at 2:56 PM, Jay said:

I wouldn't say the prequels tell a single narrative.

 

TPM is a story about a planet fighting trade taxation, and the governing body of the galaxy sends 2 Jedi to help and one of them finds a force-sensitive boy along the way

 

AOTC is a split narrative, with one half being Obi-Wan investigating the mystery of an assassination attempt on a senator with a connection to clone armies and the other being Anakin protecting the senator while they fall in love and he has to confront his past, with both stories converging at the end

 

ROTS was a bunch of crap I don't remember about Palpatine revealing himself and turning Anakin and them wiping out most of the jedi and taking over the government or whatever

 

None of this is what 'narrative' means. 

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Indeed.

 

While the original films tell 3 more or less separate stories, the Prequels have a single narrative thats set out from the start.

 

The taxation of trade routs war is the opening gambit of Palpatine's political machinations to increase his political power. AOTC builds from that with ROTS showing his end game. It's actually all very clearly connected. Even though it's execution is woefully done. 

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9 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

Indeed.

 

While the original films tell 3 more or less separate stories, the Prequels have a single narrative thats set out from the start.

 

The taxation of trade routs war is the opening gambit of Palpatine's political machinations to increase his political power. AOTC builds from that with ROTS showing his end game. It's actually all very clearly connected. Even though it's execution is woefully done. 

So Luke's hero's journey combined with the larger Rebellion VS the Empire backdrop doesn't count as a bigger narrative for the original trilogy?

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Sure, but it's far broader. 

The actual plot of TESB is almost completely separate from the one of Star Wars. And after Han is saved the plot of ROTJ is completely self contained too.

 

Luke's journey is really the only through line of this trilogy. This is ofcourse because Star Wars was presented as a single narrative since it was completely unclear if a sequel would ever be made. When The Phantom Menace was made it was (almost) ab inevitability.

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Yeah, reading that, I don't think we'll hear Jedi Steps again, except maybe at some relevant triumphant moment later in the trilogy. Seems it might be the Victory Celebration of the ST.

 

He doesn't sound like he's ruled out continuing with VIII, but just being humble about whether he's capable of continuing to serve the series to the high standard established thus far. Just the usual modest fluff. Kennedy just needs to talk him into it over a morning tea!

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4 hours ago, BloodBoal said:

 

Who cares? You can rip that music from the documentaries: they have 5.1 audio, with the music completely clean on the rear channels!

Ripping as I type ;) 

 

The documentary is indeed in 5.1 so was able to remove some dialogue. There's some volume automation that I can't compensate well for at the minute though. 

 

Darth Vader's Theme (Alternate)

 

 

First Order Theme (Unreleased?)

 

Spoiler in this unreleased Cue

Spoiler

 

 

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2 minutes ago, BloodBoal said:

 

That's not the First Order theme, that's Kylo Ren's tragic theme.

I thought this was the First Order Theme

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5 hours ago, fommes said:

 

I'm guessing you know something more - it's not in the works at all, is it?

 

Huh?  I know absolutely nothing about what Disney or Lucasfilm is up to and likely never will.  Nice of you to think I would, though!

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28 minutes ago, crumbs said:

He doesn't sound like he's ruled out continuing with VIII, but just being humble about whether he's capable of continuing to serve the series to the high standard established thus far.

 

And that's the most reasonable thing he can say right now. I don't think we should read too much between the lines of such kind of statements. The simple fact, imho, is that JW will very likely return to score 8 and also 9 if time, health, energy, schedule and overall level of commitment will align altogether. These kind of assignments nowadays are of course very demanding, even though JW surely didn't show any sign of fatigue so far. He probably doesn't want to officially commit too early in the process (ie. right now) just to avoid any issue of stepping back for any reason, like it happened with the TFA/Bridge of Spies situation.

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Just now, BloodBoal said:

 

Well, it's not. ;)

 

Williams himself confirmed it's a theme for Kylo, if I remember correctly (I'm sure someone will post the video in which he said that!).

Wow. Thanks for clearing that up, I had no idea. So The First Order really has no Theme! 

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Well, if member Marcus is to be believed:

 

On 16/12/2015 at 10:38 AM, Marcus said:

The First Order has a fairly prominent motif (almost as prominent as the Imperial motif in the first Star Wars film).

 

On 16/12/2015 at 10:47 AM, Marcus said:

It's there in the very first track, right after the opening crawl; a four note motif (b3-2-4-b5; or if you will: two descending notes, followed by two ascending notes). And it's repeated quite a few times throughout the album.

 

On 18/12/2015 at 11:20 PM, Marcus said:

The First Order motif is first heard during the opening sequence at ca.01.47; b3-2-4-b5, played by horns over a string ostinato.

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Yes; these are three separate musical entities; two ideas pertaining to Kylo Ren (his "main motif", and a more tragic, repeated note-then-descending motif), and then a four note motif for the First Order (long notes; descending minor second, then an ascending minor second a minor third higher; usually b3-2-4-b5).

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What I remember, is that the motif in question accompanies prominent First Order moments (initially: Star Destroyer shadow, the attack on the village, Finn's reaction shot to the atrocities, etc..), and I don't recall it ever playing under scenes not featuring the First Order... 

It's about as prominent as Star Wars' imperial motif (albeit more sinister, and less martial, in character). 

 

...At any rate, the motif consistently functions as a harbinger of the First Order's presence.

 

I don't know how specific Williams necessarily treats these smaller thematic snippets; there are plenty of them throughout the Star Wars saga, and some of them seem to relate to characters in a perhaps broader, less literally leitmotivic sense. Perhaps it's a sort of "tragedy of war" motif, or another motif related to the dark side. 

 

Importantly, it consists of two minor thirds a minor second apart, and as I keep observing, that interval (min 3rd) seems absolutely symphonically vital to Williams' TFA score. I don't know what it means, but I'm pretty sure it had structural significance for its composer, if not for movie audiences or more casual listeners.

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15 hours ago, Marcus said:

What I remember, is that the motif in question accompanies prominent First Order moments (initially: Star Destroyer shadow, the attack on the village, Finn's reaction shot to the atrocities, etc..), and I don't recall it ever playing under scenes not featuring the First Order... 

It's about as prominent as Star Wars' imperial motif (albeit more sinister, and less martial, in character). 

 

...At any rate, the motif consistently functions as a harbinger of the First Order's presence.

 

I don't know how specific Williams necessarily treats these smaller thematic snippets; there are plenty of them throughout the Star Wars saga, and some of them seem to relate to characters in a perhaps broader, less literally leitmotivic sense. Perhaps it's a sort of "tragedy of war" motif, or another motif related to the dark side. 

 

Importantly, it consists of two minor thirds a minor second apart, and as I keep observing, that interval (min 3rd) seems absolutely symphonically vital to Williams' TFA score. I don't know what it means, but I'm pretty sure it had structural significance for its composer, if not for movie audiences or more casual listeners.

Could you provide timestamps from the soundtrack album on this motif? And does it appear elsewhere in the film aside form the opening sequence?

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The four note motif in question recurrs throughout the score (and not only in the first reel), always in conjunction with the First Order. I'll try to provide timestamps shortly!

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Watched this featurette earlier today. Sad to say there's almost nothing new presented. I don't know how many times they're gonna use a clip of JW saying he had no idea there would be more SW films after the first one but maybe George Lucas did. There are some good slowmo shots of JW conducting. What's frustrating is that from the interview snippets, you can tell JW actually talked a lot about the score and specific scenes but so little of that was included on the bluray.

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I watched it last night too and agree.  There are a few very short snippets in the studio.  Williams discusses Rey's theme, Kylo Ren's theme, and the Jedi Steps theme briefly and in limited detail (if I recall, most if not all of this was in the online featurette a few weeks back).  The rest is JJ, Kathy, and the staff blowing a little pleasing smoke up Johnny Baby's tuckus.

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The other PR shows that Wiliams did for news anchors appears to be more informative than the run of the mill featurette in the new DVD?

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Correct, there's a little bit of a moment where he says "I don't know how long I can keep doing these," but my read on that statement is that he wants to keep going at it.

 

I plan on watching, or at least starting, the hour documentary tonight.  There may be a little bit more about Williams in there.

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Wishful thinking but I don't think he'd make a comment like that if he'd already decided he wasn't scoring VIII or beyond; in that case we would've had the usual, "I feel so privileged to have been part of this series for so many years," etc.

 

It sounds like he wants and hopes to continue but he's being mindful of his age and 2015's health issues. With Kennedy in charge, Williams will always have first right of refusal with Star Wars Episode films, but he probably doesn't feel comfortable or see any point agreeing to score a film over a year before he'd start working on it.

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Such a wasted opportunity! I still haven't seen the featurette, but what you say sounds more or less exactly what BloodBoal predicted a few pages ago.

 

My blu ray should be here on monday. I hope!

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It does only scratch the surface of the score, but it's still a lovely featurette. At least it wasn't just 10 minutes of blowing smoke up his ass for his legacy as a composer, which it could easily have been. They discussed the new themes and John seemed totally engaged with the continuing story, all the new characters and new themes, as well as his meticulous ability to combine them for a satisfying emotional climax.

 

Curious if the vision of him conducting the End Credits opening was clever editing; I though Dudamel conducted that cue? Before we heard the soundtrack, JJ seemed rather specific when discussing The Jedi Steps and Finale that John was conducting. A fine performance either way, along with the rest of the score.

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