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


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13 minutes ago, Romão said:

The main theme from the Harry Potter series is not a theme for Harry Potter himself

 

Well, Harry Potter isn't exactly leitmotivic...

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5 hours ago, crocodile said:

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

 

Karol

I'm not sure, I never heard anything solo from Ross that would make me excited for an entire score composed by him. But I'll be happy to be pleasantly surprised.

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52 minutes ago, WampaRat said:

The first 8 seconds of “Tales of a Jedi Knight” manages to jam so much mystery, wonder, and melancholy in just a few bars. It’s astounding. I’d love for this little descending/ascending phrase to pop up again 😊

 

 

 

Kevin Kiner took that motif and ran with it in Rebels. He repurposed it to use it as "Somethings going on, but I don't really know what the Force is." Gave me chills every single time.

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47 minutes ago, Romão said:

 

 

The main theme from the Harry Potter series is not a theme for Harry Potter himself

Obviously it is possible the Obi theme will not be for the titular character, but I would say even a conservative probability estimate would put it at 95% chance that it will be.  However, just like with Solo, his piece might have more than one theme to it.  

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30 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

I'm not sure, I never heard anything solo from Ross that would make me excited for an entire score composed by him. But I'll be happy to be pleasantly surprised.

At the very least he would be someone intimately familiar with Williams' musical language.

 

Karol

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1 minute ago, Tom said:

Obviously it is possible the Obi theme will not be for the titular character, but I would say even a conservative probability estimate would put it at 95% chance that it will be.  However, just like with Solo, his piece might have more than one theme to it.  

 

 

I agree that is a very likely scenario. But it could be a sort of theme for "a character in a particular setting" kind of thing, like Luke's exile theme, or young Han

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Middle-age Obi Wan theme?

 

Ok, so Han Solo never had a theme...and he created one for the standalone movie.

 

But obi wan had a theme from day 1, he has to use it at least to form the new theme....

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8 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

 

Kevin Kiner took that motif and ran with it in Rebels. He repurposed it to use it as "Somethings going on, but I don't really know what the Force is." Gave me chills every single time.

Oh cool! Never got into rebels. But glad that Kiner used that motif. Very cool.

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1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

Well, Harry Potter isn't exactly leitmotivic...

 

It may not be *strictly* leitmotivic, but that doesn't mean it's not leitmotivic at all. Several important entities in the first film have clear themes applying specifically to them or their characteristics. The two main characters even have two each, representing different aspects of their personalities.

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3 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Several important entities in the first film have clear themes applying specifically to them or their characteristics.

 

Leitmotives change.

 

The themes in Potter do not. Its closer to Lohengrin than to the Ring.

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31 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

 

Kevin Kiner took that motif and ran with it in Rebels. He repurposed it to use it as "Somethings going on, but I don't really know what the Force is." Gave me chills every single time.


Someone needs to re-record the entire Clone Wars and Rebels scores with a proper orchestra so I can judge them properly. I don’t have the requisite imagination to translate that portable-cassette-player-quality sound to what was in Kiner’s head when he wrote them. It’s one of the greatest tragedies in Star Wars scoring, IMHO.

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Look at this deceitful headline. The media these days!

 

John Williams is scoring Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi, his first TV series since 1985

https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2022/02/john-williams-to-score-star-wars-obi-wan-kenobi-his-first-tv-series-since-1985/

 

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16 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Leitmotives change.

 

Change what? Williams constantly changes his Potter themes in terms of orchestration and accompaniment, sometimes rhythm, sometimes harmony. There surely are varying definitions of "leitmotif". Most I can find online quickly are much less specific than mine here, and none of those are as strict as yours. I always get the feeling that you insist on one super-specific definition and instance of a technique and refuse to acknowledge anything that slightly deviates from it.

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Although that sounds nice, I hope it won't be like this:


I think Williams won't do the cheap move of just playing with the Force Theme in different keys.

 

But seriously, it's really hard to guess what it's going to be.

 

 

This raises a question for me:

Was it Williams' decision to change Ben's theme into the Force theme, or the directors'?

My personal feeling is that he always thought of it more as Ben's theme,

but in the Sequel Trilogy it was just used for EVERYTHING that was supposed to be epic in some way.

Has he accepted this now or will he relate it more to Ben again?

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2 hours ago, JTWfan77 said:

Some hilarious Williams-related comments from Dark Horizons:

 

"I can easily tell a John Williams score. (Though I will admit the resemblances between the Star Wars theme and Richard Corngold's theme for "Kings Row" sounds EERILY similar.)"

 

 

I'd never heard Korngold's theme before but it definitely has a resemblance.

 

Although I realised you may also be referring to his misspelling of Erich :lol:

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15 hours ago, Cerebral Cortex said:

Hmm, a theme for Obi-Wan, huh? Okay, um, let's see here... George had me shelve that theme for him back in '98. Damn, it's got to be here somewhere. Think, Johnny, think!"

 

williams basement 2_00001.png

 

Oh man, that sad face.  Perfect.  

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12 hours ago, igger6 said:


Someone needs to re-record the entire Clone Wars and Rebels scores with a proper orchestra so I can judge them properly. I don’t have the requisite imagination to translate that portable-cassette-player-quality sound to what was in Kiner’s head when he wrote them. It’s one of the greatest tragedies in Star Wars scoring, IMHO.

 

Don't ask Kiner to do it. He purposely put the mockup of the cue "Battle of Yerbana" on the Clone Wars 7.3 album while the show used the recorded orchestral version. A Lucasfilm rep said Kiner did this to add "something special" to the soundtrack or some crap.

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1 hour ago, Drew said:

 

Don't ask Kiner to do it. He purposely put the mockup of the cue "Battle of Yerbana" on the Clone Wars 7.3 album while the show used the recorded orchestral version. A Lucasfilm rep said Kiner did this to add "something special" to the soundtrack or some crap.

 

Yep, I still for the life of me can't understand the rationale behind that... It's interesting too, because the cue wasn't even by Kiner, but rather David G. Russell. One of the best cues of the whole show, as far as I'm concerned. I wonder what the orchestra musicians think of the fact that evidently Kiner thinks a mockup sounds better than them?

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21 minutes ago, Drew said:

 

That's always the excuse made by composers in justifying their rationale for making something bad on purpose.

My life is a gig.  

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On 18/02/2022 at 4:28 PM, Michael G. said:

Was it Williams' decision to change Ben's theme into the Force theme, or the directors'?

 

 

I think it was a complex process and not deliberated.

 

Lucas's decision to introduce that theme for the Binary Sunset was based basically in something like "Ok, this sounds good. Let's put that music in this scene, instead of this dark and misterious theme Johnny composed". And that was the pivotal point for a new interpretation of the theme. If I'm not wrong, Williams refered to that theme as "Ben Kenobi's theme" for a long time even when it was known as the Force them, but that was a long time ago and now he also talk about it as the Force theme too.

 

I don't know if it's because director decisions in the sequel trilogy, but you can notice the Force theme is literally all over the place in the last three films. It's so prominent that it feels like the "new" Star Wars theme instead the known fanfarre. Music themes always changes it significance over time.

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