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The Rise of Skywalker - COMPLETE SCORE Discussion - SPOILERS ALLOWED!


Jay

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Yes the film version of many OST cues is shorter than the OST length and that's one of them.  Reunion is shorter too.

 

Wasn't really a spot to fit that in the post but that info will be in a fuller google doc when i can finish that

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4 hours ago, Jay said:

There's a ton of music on the OST not heard in the film at all:

 

  • 01B [1:26-1:45] Fanfare and Prologue    0:00:26 replaced by Starry Night from TFA
  • 01D [1:52-2:52] Fanfare and Prologue    0:01:00
  • 01F [2:58-end] Fanfare and Prologue    1:16:00
  • 02A [0:00-1:02] Journey to Exegol    0:01:02 I think this is actually partially heard as Rey arrives later in the film, hard to hear under sound effects
  • 02C [2:33-end] Journey to Exegol    0:00:16
  • 05 The Speeder Chase    0:03:21 replaced in final cut with new, much less interesting cue
  • 04B [1:19-2:21] The Old Death Star    0:01:01 could be an early version of the trio meeting Jannah's crew
  • 12B [1:05-1:42] The Final Saber Duel    0:00:37 could be an early version of the opening to Healing Wounds?
  • 11A [0:00-0:57] They Will Come    0:00:57 could be an early version of the resistance discovering Rey's message coming from Luke's X-Wing?
  • 13A [0:00-1:12] Battle of the Resistance    0:01:12 Did JJ really delete a minute of battle footage from the final cut?

 

The trumpet rendition of the ROS theme in "Approaching the Throne" is missing from the film too, right? I noticed that the film version of that track appeared to have been further altered from even the FYC, with some spots repeated and then of course that theme missing.

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I'm not sure.  I didn't pay attention to some of the cues towards the end of the film that were on the FYC because I was trying to finish up the analysis.


I did notice that the final like 2 seconds of one cue was missing in the final cut despite being intact on the FYC, I think it was Rescue, can't remember now

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27 minutes ago, King Mark said:

I didn't hear the last part of They Will Come in the film (Farewell theme at the end) .

 

Yeah that was one of my big disappointments - appeared to have been replaced with tracked March of the Resistance concert version from TFA. 

 

11 minutes ago, Tydirium said:

 

The trumpet rendition of the farewell theme in "Approaching the Throne" is missing from the film too, right? I noticed that the film version of that track appeared to have been further altered from even the FYC, with some spots repeated and then of course that theme missing.

 

Yeah I'm not 100% sure as it's been a few days since I saw the film, but I do seem to remember being annoyed that the trumpet Farewell theme was missing in the film. 

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3 hours ago, Will said:

 

Yeah that was one of my big disappointments - appeared to have been replaced with tracked March of the Resistance concert version from TFA. 

 

 

Yeah I'm not 100% sure as it's been a few days since I saw the film, but I do seem to remember being annoyed that the trumpet Farewell theme was missing in the film. 

 

Yep. I must say, for all the good stuff the OST is apparently missing, I am at the very least so glad that we got that rendition of the ROS theme on there at the end of "They Will Come". And same^; was looking forward to that trumpet version! The limited use of the ROS theme in the film I guess is one of the contributing factors to why I view it as sort of a saga-closing theme, rather than one associated with any specific characters or anything.

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So, the longest stretches of movie with unreleased music are:

  • Parts of the first scenes, with almost 4 minutes of unreleased music (mostly about Ren and Palpy, and Rey and Leia).
  • Almost all of the Pasaana sequence, with almost 15 minutes of unreleased music (we only have In the Desert and A Prisoner, and both on the FYC).
  • The heroes on Kimiji, with almost 6 minutes of unreleased music (FYC resuming from Fleeing from Kimiji and the action scene during First Order's ship)
  • The scenes between the Rey vs Ren duel on Kef Bir and Ren seeing Han (FYC 15 Advice) and the final confrontation, with almost 13 and a half minutes of unreleased music.
  • Some material during the climax, from Coming Together to Seeing Sights, with a little more than 4 minutes of unreleased music (and, therefore, excluding crucial material, like Ren vs Knights of Ren and Lando Arrives).

That said, if you consider the movie's climax goes from Arrival at Exegol to Farewell, that's about 26 and half minutes of music (considering tracked material), only 7 minutes and 46 seconds of which are unreleased, or even less, not considering Peace and Purpose. Not so bad as I've thought (although I still miss the Lando Arriving cue).

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Since it's not on the OST or FYC version of Approaching The Throne, I assume it was a creation of the sound effects team, not the music team

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According to the spreadsheet, there's 2h04m12s of music on the movie, which makes it a little less densely scored than The Last Jedi (basically, 87.4% of the movie contains music, while on TLJ this percentage was about 92%).

 

Now, if we exclude the tracked music from other movies, how much music composed for TROS are on the actual score for the movie? I guestimate something between 115 minutes and 120 minutes. But we won't know for sure until we actually have a more detailed analysys on the tracked music.

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In the Don Williams interview, he said 135 minutes had been recorded already, and that was before the final sessions

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Yea

 

Quote

for “The Rise of Skywalker,” he penned more than three hours of music, though the film itself only runs two and a half hours: New or revised music was needed throughout the recording process, which took 11 days between mid-July and late November.

 

https://variety.com/2019/music/production/john-williams-star-wars-rise-of-skywalker-1203446034/

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Yeah, but Burligame specifically said Williams penned (as in wrote) 3 hours of music, while Don Williams said they recorded 135 minutes of music.

 

So, the 3 hours Williams wrote might not necessarily been all recorded, and maybe they include early versions of themes, cues, etc., that doesn't exactly got to the recording stage.

 

I guess we can estimate about 150 minutes of music were recorded, 120 minutes of which were used in the movie (excluding the tracked material). On the half and hour left, 11 minutes are on the unused OST material and the other 8 minutes are the concert suites (The Rise of Skywalker and Anthem of Evil).

 

By this calculation, we have a little more than 11 minutes of music that was unheard, either on movie or on the OST/FYC, probably because it didn't made the final cut of the film.

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No, the Don Williams interview was from a few months ago, BEFORE more music was recorded.  Burlingame meant 3 hours was written AND was recorded

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Really? I knew this numbers were looking suspiciously small.

 

So, let's redo the math.

 

Music composed for TROS that appears on the movie: 120 minutes

Unused material on the OST: 11m08s

Concert suites: 7m42s

Music we heard (either on movie or on album): 2h18m50s

 

Let's imagine 190 minutes (3h10m) of music were recorded. So, there is 51m10s of music we didn't hear yet (alternates, deleted scenes, etc). 

 

This seems about right for every ST Williams score. 3h of recorded music, about 1h on each unheard.

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It's depressing really.

 

We got the Star Wars Anthology box set in 1993, which 16 years after ANH, 13 years after TESB, and 10 years after ROTJ.  Then more definitive 2CD sets of each in 1997, 20 years after ANH, 17 years after TESB, and 14 years after ROTJ.

 

We never got more prequel music except for the TPM UE 1 year after TPM

 

For the Sequel Trilogy we have no idea what will happen.  Here's hoping Disney Records is just waiting for the new year to green light spending the money to hire Mike and license all the LA recorded music (WITH CHOIR) for proper 3 CD sets of each score!  2020 will already be 5 years after TFA.

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Wow, Jay, thank you for the massive amount of work you put into this!

Among the longer unreleased cues you listed, I wonder what It's Ren, The Speeder Chase movie version, Incoming Destroyer, The Destruction of Kijimi, and Poe & Leia sound like (I already know that Training Course, Intel and Rey & Ren Team Up sound great thanks to the samples you posted!)

If the complete releases come some day, I wonder if they'll favor the music as heard in the movie (could be quite messy) or the listening experience.

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The Speeder Chase film version is on page 8

 

The other ones you mention are loaded with sound effects/dialogue and hard to hear the music

 

Once the film comes out on home video/streaming, we'll be able to hear the music better by ripping the rear channels

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@Jay can you compilate all the unreleased material you posted here in a single easy to find post, as well as the spreadsheet? Maybe on the first post of this thread? It'll be much easier for us to find all this wonderful stuff much more easily, and facilitate further research. Thanks!

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Could Anthem of Evil be a discarded piece for the Throne Room reveal/exploration/Kylo arrival? Maybe with a concertesque ending/extension.

I loathed that piece of tracking, so unfitting and badly looped, I just want to grab onto anything :D

 

How the hell did JJ manage to make the Farewell theme have zero presence and impact in the film? It's actually quite impressive in a way.

 

Lots of nice unreleased highlights but it never felt like a thought-out coherent whole of a score, unlike it does outside of the film.

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1 hour ago, Holko said:

 

 

How the hell did JJ manage to make the Farewell theme have zero presence and impact in the film? It's actually quite impressive in a way.

 

 

 I agree, some of the score was mixed well, but not that theme whenever it appeared

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I dunno, I didn't hear that theme until the film itself and it left a decent impact on me (by comparison, I didn't have a clue what Rey's Theme was after the first time I saw TFA). 

 

Maybe just a case of different sound systems presenting the score differently? 

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I’m not sure if it’s been mentioned but is it confirmed that the TFA music before the credits is newly recorded and not tracked?

1 minute ago, crumbs said:

The Knights of Ren motif was probably the most obvious of the lot (but it's the new Peter Pettigrew motif). 

For me it was the main ROS theme... stood out like a beautiful thumb whenever it played.

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It's definitely a new horn solo of Binary Sunset so I doubt it was tracked from the TFA sessions. But it was almost certainly temped that way, unfortunately (it's easily my biggest criticism of the score, just copying the TFA finale; seriously JW? Not even a new arrangement?) 

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Is it possible he was requested by JJ, to reuse the TFA finale? Since the other film he did that ending for was also a JJ film. That was just my first thought when I heard it. But yes, I do wish it was something new.

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Well I only have two gripes in total and that's one of them. :P

 

Meanwhile, on the subject of unused music, from a Q&A with the sound crew:

 

Quote

Sound Design/mixing: David Acord and Matthew Wood talked about the contrast in sound in the scene where Rey goes head to head with Kylo's ship. Rey's sound was very subtle vs Kylo's ship which was very dramatic to show contrast. They also mentioned it was a touch call to have that silence because it meant cutting out some on John Williams music for that scene.

 

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My sister said something to me today about the music which I think is interesting as she is a big fan but not as hardcore into John Williams as those here or me. She said she loved the old themes coming back over and over because it made her feel like she was "home."

 

That was probably JJ's intent where he pulled more in and switched out JW's music in places even taking music from other movies. While I would have preferred to hear just the new pieces and the music as written and conceived by the Maestro, my more casual fan sister thoroughly enjoyed what was there without feeling it could have been newer or different.

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Yeah, sometimes it's great, sometimes it's lazy. I can forgive this score for fan service, but there are one or two times throughout the trilogy where it sounds like Williams just plonked the theme there wIthout any cohesive gel. I do love how Yoda's theme transitions into Rey's (2:16 -) in Reunion:

 

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5 hours ago, crumbs said:

The Knights of Ren motif was probably the most obvious of the lot (but it's the new Peter Pettigrew motif). 

 

Isn't it basically the same? Only the background percussion is new. Otherwise it literally sounded the exact same to my ears.

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52 minutes ago, TheUlyssesian said:

 

Isn't it basically the same? Only the background percussion is new. Otherwise it literally sounded the exact same to my ears.

 

Same as what? Did you mean to quote a different post?

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I can confirm the theater your in  makes a HUGE difference

 

First 2 viewings I saw it in "Super AVX" and the sound was so-so .A lot of the music came out of the side speakers and sounded tinny  and harsh like it was just mids and highs .That was immediately apparent in the Main Title Crawl and all the string pieces that didn't sound lush (like Farewell theme)

 

I saw it a third time in IMAX and the sound system was spectacular .All the music sounded  full range  and had bass frequencies and had a better presence in the mix

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