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John Williams Returns to ‘Star Wars’ Universe with ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ Theme - Jon Burlingame Variety article


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4 minutes ago, King Mark said:

I hope he recorded somekind of 4-5 minute piece even if they use only 1 minute of it on the TV show

 

He's doing these things for the music. Even if the show itself needs only 50 seconds of music, I'm pretty sure Williams would still approach it as a concert piece and distil the show's shortened version from that.

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27 minutes ago, crypto said:

A minor but not insignificant detail: is this Williams' first scoring project for a female director?

 

Could be ! 

I thought Patty Jenkins' Rogue Squadron would be Williams' best shot at ticking that particular box, but here we go ! 

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2 minutes ago, rpvee said:

This series will be the closest we might ever get to an extension of the nine-episode saga, and specifically Lucas’ original six. Williams coming up with the main theme for it raises my hype level and expectations even more, when I thought they couldn’t possibly be higher just from the subject and characters alone.

 

This will also serve as a musical bridge between the prequel and original trilogy scores, right down the middle :)

 

Solo was the same time period but for a character that only appeared in later trilogies.

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4 minutes ago, eitam said:

 

Could be ! 

I thought Patty Jenkins' Rogue Squadron would be Williams' best shot at ticking that particular box, but here we go ! 

 

She is going to hire Hans Zimmer though...sadly

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IF Powell is the guy who is working with JW on this (and I think it’s still a really big IF) It will be amazing to hear almost 8 hours of JW/JP Star Wars music for this series!

 

(…followed by only two 65 min albums missing some amazing highlights. 😜

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4 hours ago, Jay said:

 

YES!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS AWESOME!!! I was already looking forward to the series, but that anticipation just increased 100 fold!

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38 minutes ago, Datameister said:

Now we just need to get JW writing a theme for a Star Wars video game!

 

Just tell him Giacchino is scoring the next video game. Williams will be announced as composer within the week.

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20 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

He could perform it as an encore with the Vienna Philharmonic.


It would be amazing if he did this, but it’s been 42 years since he actually did, right?

 

Obviously I’m hoping for a totally original JW theme, but there are some great possibilities for reimaginings of things here, too, and if it’s Powell, you know he’s game for it. Imagine some tragic, reminiscent renderings of BotH on soft woodwinds, maybe even some references to Anakin’s theme or “Across the Stars” in some oblique or transformed state. From what I understand, the Disney-era Vader comics have dealt with some sort of quixotic attempt by Vader to resurrect Padmé. Maybe this will be a two-hander about these two broken warriors picking up the pieces of their respective pasts, with opportunities for all sorts of prequel music to come back in.

 

What a lesson in gratitude the last decade has been for JWFans! We have it so good. 

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Amazing news, if true.

 

Please get john powell as far as he can from this project. The modern synth rythms do not belong to a midage kenobi series...

 

My choice would be william ross, give him at last a full commitment, and maintain the classic sound please. No modern crap i pray.

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Just occurred to me -- if not for Indy 5 getting delayed, we probably don't get a JW theme for Kenobi.

 

Presumably JW would've been too busy writing Indy for the last 4 months instead.

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Great to have this confirmed.

 

I'm pretty confident this will either be an arrangement of the Force theme, or somehow incorporating it. That's fine by me. Of all the STAR WARS evergreen themes that I've heard a million times before, the Force theme is the one I like the most (although it can't compete with the few seconds of choral religioso goodness in the Vader/Luke duel). It's a theme that Obi-Wan "shares" with other figures and elements in the story, so it isn't exclusively his own, but it's the closest we've got. Whatever the case, I look forward to it.

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Coming late to the party but what an exiting news. Can't wait to hear this, after watching the last SW TV show I thought we will never hear again some proper Star Wars music but here we go...

 

Star Wars is back! Love you Johnny baby!

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11 hours ago, Drew said:

I'm not going to fully embrace this until Disney announces it. I don't like that the article is based on "sources".

 

Jon Burlingame is a respected film journalist veteran. He'd never publish something if not confirmed by reliable sources.

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Can I just say that even though I'm excited to hear this piece, I'm beginning to find it a bit ridiculous that they're asking him to compose theme after theme that he really should have composed while he was doing the movies? Continuity-wise, this makes no sense at all, thoug it fits perfectly in Disney's 'we'll see where things go, just crank them out!' strategy.

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7 minutes ago, crocodile said:

Wouldn't it be lovely if William Ross did this?

 

Karol

As I mentioned elsewhere, I wonder if this hints at them going for a more traditional Star Wars sound for this show after the Ennio goes rogue music for the other shows. William Ross would be a great choice and if they got him to write the theme I’m sure they consulted on choice of composer too. 

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52 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

Can I just say that even though I'm excited to hear this piece, I'm beginning to find it a bit ridiculous that they're asking him to compose theme after theme that he really should have composed while he was doing the movies? Continuity-wise, this makes no sense at all, thoug it fits perfectly in Disney's 'we'll see where things go, just crank them out!' strategy.

And if only the next generation of film composers would make use of this plethora of themes.

 

I mean, just look how little they made of the many HP themes. Hedwig was the only one which kept popping up.

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I am not sure what to expect... I hope John surprises us.

 

If Obi-Wan's purpose at this time is to protect young Luke, it would be nice to have Luke's Theme round it out as a coda, as in the final seconds of the TFA End Credits.

 

 

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Looking at this first page is nuts, so many posts have the border around them from having at least 3 likes.  I doubt any other page on this entire forum has that many

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I predicted this development. Makes a ton of sense.

 

On 08/02/2022 at 11:45 PM, TheUlyssesian said:

I am wondering if he might like the Solo model in the future perhaps? So he is asked to contribute 2-3 themes and 1-2 suites. And that's it. And then another composer runs with them and does the overall score. 

 

I think he might find it attractive. It is no different than writing for concert hall since he would in fact be writing JUST the concert suite.

 

We know most modern composers can't write good themes for shit (even the big name ones) and Williams can do so in his sleep. So this might be a great arrangement. 

 

I am sure this can work almost as an apprenticeship for young upcoming composers who would give their left kidney for a job like this - taking Williams themes and crafting a full score around them. 

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4 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

Continuity-wise, this makes no sense at all

 

As much as I made the Ring comparison earlier, ultimately Star Wars doesn't have the same musical continuity, so its hard to criticize the place this new Obi Wan theme would have in the piece as a whole.

 

I mean, if the Williams-scored Star Wars cycle were to be taken as a single piece of musical dramaturgy in the style of the Ring, then why are Duel of the Fates and the Imperial March built up in the "first" three entries only for the former to disappear completely and the latter to go on vacation for a whole film? Why does Han get two themes that are never reprised again? Why is the motive associated with the Droids - the two characters who unite all the entries - never heard again except in one entry?

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10 hours ago, Smeltington said:

He is composing the scores for Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabermans”

 

I am kind of surprised Variety still hasn't fixed that typo 16 hours later

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