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John Powell on working with John Williams for 'Solo'


chinaismine

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13 hours ago, Tom said:

Let's say your boss tripled your workload and for reasons having to do with his own lack of foresight.  Would you be cool with that?  

 

OK, that would make sense, if the report is true.  And it sounds like some of the bosses I've had...

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6 hours ago, Tom Guernsey said:

Gosh I hadn't spotted the Corigliano lift... it's such an incidental (and I don't meant that in a bad way) part of the symphony that you'd easily miss it. I think I'd spotted Ravel previously now you mention it although not Respighi or Martin, any chance of a steer on which works to listen to? (Not to drag McNeely, I'm just curious). Funnily enough, been listening to Respighi's Roman Trilogy a lot recently...

 

The Frank Martin reference is that little hymn theme that pops up here in there in SotE, based on a section of Martin's "In Terra Pax." I'm blanking on the specific Resphigi ref but I think it was from either the Pines of Rome or The Birds. There's also, IIRC, a handful of grabs from Poulenc and Vaughan Williams too, and probably others. Should have written this down when I noticed them!... I'll post if I remember!

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1 hour ago, Falstaft said:

 

The Frank Martin reference is that little hymn theme that pops up here in there in SotE, based on a section of Martin's "In Terra Pax." I'm blanking on the specific Resphigi ref but I think it was from either the Pines of Rome or The Birds. There's also, IIRC, a handful of grabs from Poulenc and Vaughan Williams too, and probably others. Should have written this down when I noticed them!... I'll post if I remember!

Thank you. I’ll have to look that up when I get home. Annoyingly don’t have that work on my phone. I’ll give Respighi’s The Birds a listen. I don’t recall anything specific from TotE in the Roman Trilogy during my recent traversal (the excellent John Wilson release from last year if you’re wondering).

 

Update. Didn’t see you’d thoughtfully posted a link to the Martin work. Imperial City if I’m not very much mistaken? Absolutely gorgeous. Love rich hymnal stuff like that. 

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36 minutes ago, crumbs said:

I know we're veering off topic but it really is the most horrendous twist (if true) that Williams lobbied hard to get Deathly Hallows and JKR stopped it from happening, for whatever stupid reason.

 

Like, seriously. The man gave her character the most iconic musical theme of the past twenty years for goodness sake! :banghead:

I think it's probably because she realized that the only thing people will be talking about in twenty years would be the score of those three movies and not the movies in themselves :lol:

Anyway between her and Yates the Harry Potter franchise is in good hand...

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Regarding those rumors about Williams almost quitting "Episode 9", I did notice at the time a lot less fawning over Abrams in interviews this time around.

 

Which makes Abrams fawning over Williams seem more like he's scared than that he truly loves him.

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Outside the digital bonus feature, there really was very little fanfare from Williams for TROS despite the momentous occasion. It felt like he did much more publicity when TFA was released. 

 

It's like everyone just wanted to get it over with and move on. JJ didn't even bother recording a commentary track or putting deleted scenes together, and has barely commented since it was released. It's all very strange. 

 

I did notice the 'interesting' body language in that featurette when JJ, Williams and Ramiro are discussing Ben's theme during a break in recording. 

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16 minutes ago, crumbs said:

 

I did notice the 'interesting' body language in that featurette when JJ, Williams and Ramiro are discussing Ben's theme during a break in recording. 

 

Where? 👀

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6 minutes ago, Jay said:

Whoever it was that came up with the idea, that heroic version of Kylo's theme is freaking brilliant

 

Also: How lame that that featurette gets locked into being a "digital exclusive" instead of something everyone gets to see on their DVDs and Blu Rays

 

Agreed on both accounts. That's so common though about some featurettes these days. I imagine they will release another "double dip" edition that will eventually include this on disc ala Force Awakens.

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12 minutes ago, Jay said:

Also: How lame that that featurette gets locked into being a "digital exclusive" instead of something everyone gets to see on their DVDs and Blu Rays

Unfortunatly it's always the case with the Disney related pictures. Before you had to own the Blu-ray to get the featurettes which weren't on DVD and now with Disney+ they all appeared to be digital exclusive

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I guarantee they will probably release some Collector's Set at some point with all of this on it. Happened with TFA and the Kelvin Star Trek films.

 

I miss the days where there was one release with everything on it. Of course they may release an Anniversary edition at some point with more, but that's usually 10 or more years later. 

 

In many cases now, featurettes are either on some digital service or spread between Best Buy / Target / Wal-Mart exclusive editions. It's annoying as hell.

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2 minutes ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

I also doubt JK Rowling got involved with the music of HP to prevent JW from returning. That seems so far-fetched, but whatever.

 

I don't doubt that. That sounds quite believable to me. Why wouldn't she have an opinion / get involved in that?

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3 minutes ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

I also doubt JK Rowling got involved with the music of HP to prevent JW from returning. That seems so far-fetched, but whatever.

 

She's proven in the last years to be crazier and crazier, so who knows at this point.

 

47 minutes ago, crumbs said:

 

The part where Williams discusses it was JJ's idea to invert Kylo Ren's theme. 

 

5:16

 

 

Ah, right! Could be, JJ seems to be a little on the defensive and JW processing how the hell can he do what JJ's asking. In the end it was a good idea, but JW always the professional he is, complied.

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3 minutes ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

I also doubt JK Rowling got involved with the music of HP to prevent JW from returning. That seems so far-fetched, but whatever.

Well she did hired Yates for 6 movies (not including the upcoming ones) so that wouldn't be her first weird choice...

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The director of the later movies obviously preferred musical stylings of other composers and JW didn't seem to show much desire to return. There's no proof that JK Rowling wanted JW out.

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3 hours ago, crumbs said:

 

The rumour goes that he nearly quit IX once he heard that Abrams was returning, after the experience on TFA.

 

After seeing the final result, I don't blame him.

 

Instead he just quit after 9. 

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24 minutes ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

The director of the later movies obviously preferred musical stylings of other composers and JW didn't seem to show much desire to return. There's no proof that JK Rowling wanted JW out.

 

What are you talking about? That doesn't even line up with the public stories:

Quote

Harry Potter Fan Zone (HPFZ): Was John Williams ever asked to score Deathly Hallows: Part 2? Did he decline?

 

David Heyman (DH): Yes, he was. We wanted to make it work with John but John’s schedule didn’t permit.

 

David Barron (DB): He was just unavailable unfortunately.

 

HPFZ: He wanted to do it?

 

Both: He did, very much so.

 

DH: We asked him around the time of [movie] six. Actually, we talked to him all the way along [about coming back for the end] but his schedule didn’t permit.

Quote

On John Williams not returning for Deathly Hallows – Part 2, director David Yates said that in order for John to have returned, he would’ve needed to provide John with a rough cut of the film sooner than was possible.  Their schedules simply did not align, but he did make it clear both Williams and Yates wanted to work with each other.

 

Clearly it was something both Williams and Yates did indeed want.

 

It's possible there were scheduling issues, but also just as possible that JKR voted against it and they went with this schedule conflict story publicly to not damage egos or cause problems or whatever. That wouldn't be the first time that something like that would've happened either. 

 

It could false, for sure, but I don't think it is at all unbelievable that it could've gone down that way.

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37 minutes ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

Okay, so you've presented an entirely different reason for JW not to do it with absolutely no proof JK had anything to do with it.

 

Yep, but I didn't say it was proof of that. I quoted those to disprove this part of your comment:

1 hour ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

The director of the later movies obviously preferred musical stylings of other composers and JW didn't seem to show much desire to return.

 

That is clearly not the case according to those interviews.

 

I also literally said this if you read my post again:

41 minutes ago, TSMefford said:

It could false, for sure, but I don't think it is at all unbelievable that it could've gone down that way.

 

To reiterate, I'm not saying that it 100% happened at all. I'm just finding it weird that you would immediately find that scenario completely unbelievable. It's definitely a believable turn of events in my eyes. It certainly could have happened. Again, could have, not that it did.

 

Good grief, why does everything on the internet have to be either 100% for or against something? That's not how thoughts work.

 

If people are willing to believe all the Star Wars rumors posted by that same user, then why is the JKR one so unbelievable? That was the question I initially posed to you.

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I don't believe any of these rumors. They're just that. It's unsubstantiated possibly Fake News. I doubt JW even knows who Michael Giacchino is, for instance, and I've been saying that for years. Not sure why you're getting so bent out of shape. 

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Lol. I'm fine.

 

I was mostly just mildly irritated that you were acting as if I believed the rumors to be 100% true and that I was even trying to prove them true somehow, instead I was mostly confused about your assumption of Yates' and Williams' motivations when there actually is proof to the contrary.

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Hmm most of these ROgue One information had slipped my knowledge.

 

It saddens me my two favourite composers had have this kind of headbutting :(

 

I would love to hear Giacchino's early versions...i hope they vere recorded (and never deleted on purpose...).

 

I think that What giacchino did was what everyone was expecting of the score.

 

I could really have lived with "Rogue One Original themes by Joyhn Williams, Music composed and adapted by Michael Giacchino".

 

And heck. I would have loved to have a Williams Rogue one score. Why are they so scared to ask him to score sequels, spin offs or derivative scores? He can always decline, but at least he doesnt feel alienated and angry for not being asked...which seems what seems to happen. He probably wouldnt want to score those projects, but wants to have the opportunity.

 

 

And please just cancel out JKR!

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I wonder if the lack of bootlegs regarding Rogue one could be in part because Williams attitude. Maybe Giacchino does not want to make him angry so he has been more tight-fist  with this score's material.

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3 minutes ago, Falstaft said:

 

That would make a really nice side-project. I do know and adore SotE very well, despite -- maybe in part because -- of the density of classical allusions. But it coheres really well as an overall musical story, and holds up very well in view of 25 additional years of star wars music since. Maybe some day...

 

I'm not hugely familiar with SotE, I've listened a couple of times over the years, but I'd be very interested to know the Poulenc reference you mentioned earlier.  I'm a great fan of Poulenc!

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And of course Trauma Towner Tantrum.
(Multiple edits because I'm not used to come up with authentic Giacchino titles out of the blue and keep find ways of making them more authentic)

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I don't think the Force Theme appears at all in that score. Happy to be corrected!

 

But yeah, refreshing change from the onslaught of monotone Force Theme renditions throughout the sequel trilogy (sorry JW).

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2 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

 

I'm not hugely familiar with SotE, I've listened a couple of times over the years, but I'd be very interested to know the Poulenc reference you mentioned earlier.  I'm a great fan of Poulenc!

Ditto on the Poulenc. I really enjoy SotE, it makes a good bridge between the originals and the prequels. Sure I wish it were a little more original but it makes me think Joel McNeely could write a blinding Star Wars score if he was asked. And these days I think he’d be a whole lot more original. 

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