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Jon Burlingame Variety article on The Rise of Skywalker


ricsim88

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Warning: There is a spoiler in the article about someone appearing in the film ,so if you don't want that spoiled, wait to read the article until after seeing the film.  If you want to discuss this cameo, do it here, not in this thread.  Thanks!

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46 minutes ago, Jay said:

Warning: There is a spoiler in the article about someone appearing in the film ,so if you don't want that spoiled, wait to read the article until after seeing the film.  If you want to discuss this cameo, do it here, not in this thread.  Thanks!

Sorry, I should have realized this. But I wasn't really concerned about the movie part...I actually don't even remember who that character is.

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On 12/18/2019 at 11:30 AM, bollemanneke said:

Mike Matessino is quoted saying that something like SW will never happen again. Isn't that a bit of a sweeping statement?

 

I think he's pretty spot-on. One cannot compare this to any other film series musically, especially its endurance in the public consciousness. 
Lord of the Rings / Hobbit for example, six films with one composer but that has not and will never resonate as much as Star Wars. Nothing really ever will, nothing has ever come close. 

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On 12/19/2019 at 6:46 PM, NL197 said:

 

I think he's pretty spot-on. One cannot compare this to any other film series musically, especially its endurance in the public consciousness. 
Lord of the Rings / Hobbit for example, six films with one composer but that has not and will never resonate as much as Star Wars. Nothing really ever will, nothing has ever come close. 

 

I think Mike's statement, particularly in context of the type of music and the span of decades, is fine and accurate when viewed through both a film and musical lens.

 

You need three components which makes the likelihood difficult for this type of event to happen:

1. A composer with the talent and interest to work that long in the same universe. 

2. A universe or world rich enough to sustain this high level of interest and to not want to change artisans as part of the development.

3. The cultural demand for the work and the continued positive reception of it (even with detractors and weaker entrants such as the story and movie of Attack of the Clones).

 

In the case of Lord of the Rings, personally, I did not feel the Hobbit reached the grandeur of Lord of the Rings both from the films and the music. I love listening to the LOTR, but I rarely return to the Hobbit. Partly this is due to the second trilogy going on too long, and partly I think the characters did not inspire Shore the same way. I also felt that the rift over the rejected King Kong score harmed the Jackson-Shore relationship, even if supposedly mended over.

 

We've had 8 Harry Potter films, within a shorter timespan than Star Wars by more than a factor of 2. Yet, Williams only did the first 3, and while Hooper used a lot of themes from Williams, others, particularly Desplat, did very different scores. Would I have loved all 8 by JW - of course! But while the world wanted many HP films, JW and/or the producers/directors wanted changes and different directions.

 

Similarly, Star Trek has had 13 films in about 40 years. Wise and Roddenberry both wanted Jerry Goldsmith for ST TMP. Then he was not affordable when Star Trek II and III were made for the budgets Paramount set. That gave a young James Horner a chance, and it really helped launch his career. I think JG was unavailable for STIV, so Nimoy had to chose someone else. After the disappointment of ST V (despite one of JGs best scores), budgets again forced a different choice in composers. I don't recall why JG was not in for Generations (whether it was creative, a promise to Dennis McCarthy or budget). And of course, we lost Jerry after Nemesis. I am not sure Abrams would have hired him anyway for the Kelvin timeline films given his relationship with Giacchino. (Note, I am doing this from memory, so apologies if I have the facts slightly off on why JG was in and out of the franchise.)

 

I think the point still stands - here are three other huge, culturally relevant, successful franchises where we could have had a similar output from one composer - but it didn't happen the same way.

 

Even in the classical world, Beethoven's 9 symphonies could not be considered a cohesive set - they are not meant to be sequels at all. Mahler's completed 9 probably are a better comparison because he used parts of his earlier songs in many of them, and they better interrelate. Still, I am sure both of those composers would not want one to think they had to listen to a previous entry in their output to understand the next. Williams definitely wants the IX to sit together and it is right for the work and franchise to think of them as that. Even Wagner's Ring Cycle, with 16+ hours over 4 massive music dramas changes a lot from the second half of Siegfried (3rd opera) forward as Wagner's philosophy changed. I think this is the closest musical phenomenon to Star Wars and Williams.

 

 

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