How ‘Star Wars’ Is Changing Its Tune

[80sFan 128]

Interesting article:

 

How ‘Star Wars’ Is Changing Its Tune
The legendary John Williams once set the soundtrack for the billion-dollar franchise. Now a new generation of Hollywood composers that he inspired are giving the Force a whole new feel.

 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/music-news/star-wars-music-john-williams-andor-1236191718/

[Edmilson 10,347]

I'll sum it up the whole point of the article so you don't have to click on it:

 

John Williams once defined the sound of Star Wars. But now a different generation of composers are radically changing it to make it more relevant and modern for today's sophisticated audiences. London Symphony Orchestra? Step aside! This is for old geezers. The approach of today's composers will be more dark and disturbing synths because that's what kids like these days.

[Davis 3,948]

13 minutes ago, 80sFan said:

How ‘Star Wars’ Is Losing Its Tune

Fixed.

[Naïve Old Fart 11,512]

Translation: kids today know fuck all about good music.

[Edmilson 10,347]

Today's diversified and sophisticated audiences won't allow themselves to be manipulated by emotional orchestral music. That's a thing from the past. They want music that reflects the world they live in, so only feeling they'll allow in film music is brooding. 

[Meredith McKay 7,783]

27 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Translation: kids today know fuck all about good music.

I made sure my little sister does.

[Naïve Old Fart 11,512]

Good for you... and her 

[Lady Dimitrescu 9,722]

"Happy jolly moozik"

 

– Hans Zimmer

[JazzyNips 75]

10 hours ago, Edmilson said:

I'll sum it up the whole point of the article so you don't have to click on it:

 

John Williams once defined the sound of Star Wars. But now a different generation of composers are radically changing it to make it more relevant and modern for today's sophisticated audiences. London Symphony Orchestra? Step aside! This is for old geezers. The approach of today's composers will be more dark and disturbing synths because that's what kids like these days.

Yeah I've heard that the kids really dig Stockhausen and Wendy Carlos

[Edmilson 10,347]

Here's how every modern Star Wars score will sound from now on!

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Jurassic Shark 14,820]

That's even better than current SW music!

[Edmilson 10,347]

10 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

That's even better than current SW music!

Which is not exactly a hard thing to accomplish 

[artguy360 2,007]

All I care about is that the music fits the media and isn't so bad that it is noticeable. For example, the Andor soundtrack works great for the show, but it's not something I listen to outside of the show. Some of the music for Visions has been fantastic. I like John Powell's Solo score quite a bit. I like listening to different composers being their ideas to Star Wars.

[Lady Dimitrescu 9,722]

I'm a bit over SW now but I still listen to the prequels every now and then.

[mrbellamy 7,238]

The only way to do it was to have a bunch of composers try their own thing and see if any of it sticks. I got real sick of speculation over "passing the baton" to one person, it always sounded so unearned especially if that composer was probably just gonna try to be John Williams (not naming names lol) 

 

It's good now to have somebody like Ludwig Goransson who's put his stamp on a slice of Star Wars and nobody really minds or thinks of him having taken over, especially since he stepped away from Season 3. He could still come back and do another Star Wars iteration and further expand on his ownership of it, or not. I'm sure his fans will be disappointed if he doesn't do the Mando movie, same as with JW. 

[Jurassic Shark 14,820]

45 minutes ago, artguy360 said:

All I care about is that the music fits the media and isn't so bad that it is noticeable.

 

Setting the bar high!

[GerateWohl 5,875]

The best thing Göransson did for SW was stepping aside for season 3 of The Mandalorian because that allowed the score to sound again more like Star Wars. 

 

Why is it so hard to admit? When Williams invented the symphonic sound of Star Wars he was already in his 40s and had so many musical achivements from concert repertoire, jazz, classical music and soundtrack as a composer, conductor AND performer. You simply don't find anyone with that skill level anymore. I know, I sound like Quint in Jaws. "There are no good men anymore below 50." 

[artguy360 2,007]

On 18/04/2025 at 1:21 AM, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Setting the bar high!

LOL, I don't go into every TV show or movie expecting the music to be worth listening to on its own or else I would be endlessly disappointed.

[Jurassic Shark 14,820]

You should watch less TV then. 

[JazzyNips 75]

On 18/04/2025 at 4:42 AM, GerateWohl said:

The best thing Göransson did for SW was stepping aside for season 3 of The Mandalorian because that allowed the score to sound again more like Star Wars. 

 

Why is it so hard to admit? When Williams invented the symphonic sound of Star Wars he was already in his 40s and had so many musical achivements from concert repertoire, jazz, classical music and soundtrack as a composer, conductor AND performer. You simply don't find anyone with that skill level anymore. I know, I sound like Quint in Jaws. "There are no good men anymore below 50." 

The symphonic sound of Star Wars wasn't invented, it was ripped from Holst and Korngold and Stravinsky and a bunch of other classical composers. And to suggest that there are no performers better than John Williams is a level of delusion I can't even comprehend. Are you sure you're not thinking of the guitarist?

[Mr. Hooper 4,953]

So you're that ubiquitous voice-of-reason guy in the YouTube comments section that pops in to rain on the John Williams parade.

[GerateWohl 5,875]

3 hours ago, JazzyNips said:

And to suggest that there are no performers better than John Williams 

Oh! Who did suggest that? Where? That would be really stupid.  Luckily it wasn't me.

[Jurassic Shark 14,820]

3 hours ago, JazzyNips said:

Are you sure you're not thinking of the guitarist?

 

They're the same person.

 

3 hours ago, JazzyNips said:

The symphonic sound of Star Wars wasn't invented, it was ripped from Holst and Korngold and Stravinsky and a bunch of other classical composers.

 

I believe Gerate meant to write that JW defined the SW sound. 

[GerateWohl 5,875]

11 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

I believe Gerate meant to write that JW defined the SW sound. 

Right. But this discussion is nitpicking on the level like George Lucas didn't invent Star Wars, he just ripped it off from a couple of Science Fiction series and fantasy literature. Hello?

[Jurassic Shark 14,820]

Indeed. Ripping off is the new invention. 😎

[crocodile 9,130]

Just skimmed through the article. It's all well and good but, by the end of the day, I doubt anyone will ever look at the new music and instantly think Star Wars. Doesn't have the mythical quality. Concerts with Williams' music are packed and crowds are very diverse. I once took a very good friend in their late 50s, who doesn't like films (at all) or doesn't care about music (popular or not), to a film concert. Keep in mind it's someone who mostly only likes football. And he told me after that he liked the Williams selections because they made him feel "like a kid at the pictures". And he doesn't know shit about Star Wars. It's not something you'll get with Andor. No chance in hell.

 

Karol

[GerateWohl 5,875]

1 hour ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Indeed. Ripping off is the new invention. 😎

It's called postmodernism. 

[Chen G. 5,103]

On 20/04/2025 at 2:49 AM, crocodile said:

by the end of the day, I doubt anyone will ever look at the new music and instantly think Star Wars. Doesn't have the mythical quality.

 

Good point.

 

Of course, the sound of Star Wars is not some uniquely-concieved soundscape: I'm not going to go as far as the claim I read above that it was just "ripped from Holst and Korngold." But what you can definitely say it is, is it's the sound of Golden Age Hollywood movie scores. Nevertheless, when you hear a Star Wars tune, you know that it is Star Wars.

 

With these new, more atmospheric scores? Not so much. All I remember from the Obi Wan score is Williams' main theme. It did have the dividends that when the classic themes came back very late in the game, they had extraordinary pathos because we haven't been hearing them for a long time.

 

I really don't see what handicap these composers see in at least building their own soundscapes out of contours from the Williams' score, at least. It's just another way in which Star Wars is becoming the third comic-book franchise alongside Marvel and DC. Just a bunch of vignettes.

[Mr. Hooper 4,953]

7 hours ago, crocodile said:

I once took a very good friend in their late 50s, who doesn't like films (at all) or doesn't care about music (popular or not), to a film concert. Keep in mind it's someone who mostly only likes football. And he told me after that he liked the Williams selections because they made him feel "like a kid at the pictures".

Talking like that, you sure he wasn't in his 80s? lol

[BB-8 4,893]

Here is a reverse experiment:

 

How “Star Wars” preserved the late-romantic orchestra of the German Empire

 

 

[Bryant Burnette 752]

Thumbs down.

[Tallguy 5,500]

10 hours ago, BB-8 said:

Here is a reverse experiment:

 

How “Star Wars” preserved the late-romantic orchestra of the German Empire

 

 

 

So is the thumbnail based on my demographic (middle aged white guy) or does everyone else get bewbs as the thumbnail for the video? If it's a demographic thing I'd be curious what other parts of the video they choose to attract other demos. (It's not really very 1950s.)

[BB-8 4,893]

7 hours ago, Tallguy said:

 

So is the thumbnail based on my demographic (middle aged white guy) or does everyone else get bewbs as the thumbnail for the video? If it's a demographic thing I'd be curious what other parts of the video they choose to attract other demos. (It's not really very 1950s.)

The music is more 1870s...

 

The boobs are censored...

 

 

[Chen G. 5,103]

On 23/04/2025 at 5:25 PM, BB-8 said:

How “Star Wars” preserved the late-romantic orchestra of the German Empire

 

Is Star Wars music really Romantic with a capital R? It's in the late-Romantic idiom in terms of colour and sonority, perhaps, but it rarely goes for that kind of innigkeit, it has very little evocation of nature, very little that could rightly be consideres Schauerromantik and those other more intrinsically Romantic trappings.

[Tom Guernsey 3,191]

28 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

Is Star Wars music really Romantic with a capital R? It's in the late-Romantic idiom in terms of colour and sonority, perhaps, but it rarely goes for that kind of innigkeit, it has very little evocation of nature and those other more intrinstically Romantic trappings.

I was listening to some Bruce Broughton the other day and had this random thought that he makes modern music sound old fashioned whereas JW makes old fashioned music sound contemporary. Not really something I could explain in a meaningful way (and possibly entirely wrong) but JW's music never sounds as old fashioned as some of the classics it leans on and, in some ways, is more timeless. I guess it's a mix of the jazzy/syncopated rhythms and harmonies which pull away from its late romantic antecedents. I couldn't as easily explain why I feel the opposite is true of Broughton's music.

 

And yes, I'm using "modern" and "contemporary" fairly inaccurately... as though either composer sounds remotely like anything that's *actually* modern or contemporary... but I guess it's more as just a broad brush description of something that doesn't sound like, you know, Brahms or Rachmaninov or Holst or whomever.

[Chen G. 5,103]

Yeah, Williams' novel sense of harmony does punch things up a little bit. But the overall soundscape is very evocative of late-Romantic sound. But in a deeper sense it could be argued that Williams' music for the series is intensly unromantic.

 

I don't mean that in a judgemental way: it's just a classification in terms of type of music.

[geom_00 87]

Just out of curiosity, did you see who wrote the article?

[Maestro 1,182]

[GerateWohl 5,875]

On 24/04/2025 at 11:51 AM, Tom Guernsey said:

And yes, I'm using "modern" and "contemporary" fairly inaccurately... as though either composer sounds remotely like anything that's *actually* modern or contemporary... but I guess it's more as just a broad brush description of something that doesn't sound like, you know, Brahms or Rachmaninov or Holst or whomever.

The term "modern" sounds like something from  the past century.

 

 

 

[Chen G. 5,103]

I try to avoid this term, because strictly speaking "modern" = anything after the French Revolution.

[GerateWohl 5,875]

Yesterday I went with my boys to watch Revenge of the Sith at the cinema. It is such a great experience to watch a movie with a proper John Williams score. Especially Star Wars.

 

You can try to sugarcoat for yourself all these Star Wars scores like Britell's Andor or Göransson's Mandalorian. But sorry, all that is wishful thinking and putting lipstick on the pig. Unfortunately there is nothing like a Williams score for Star Wars by a hundred country miles. Williams Star Wars music was the origin of my film music fandom and there is a reason for this.

[Chen G. 5,103]

On 27/04/2025 at 9:31 PM, GerateWohl said:

Williams Star Wars music was the origin of my film music fandom and there is a reason for this.

 

It's a combination of Williams' ear for striking melodies combined with the increasing overall conscientiousness with which he set to work on it. It's not quite leitmotivic in the sense of the Ring idiom, but it's in that balpark.

 

For some reason that's nowadays seen as stuffy and old fashioned. A more charitable view to take is that these new composers are terrified of confronting Williams' music on his own playing field and so they take Star Wars into their own playing field. In either case, we're diminished for it.

[DarthDementous 1,424]

don't remotely fathom why this has to be a one or the other situation. you write the best score for the kind of project you're making

John Williams' soundtrack for Star Wars works fantastically and is mythic and all the other things people are saying about it because that's the kind of movie that warrants a score like that

you may as well be making the case that every entry in the Star Wars franchise has to have the same goals as the Lucas films when you say that every soundtrack should adhere to the way the movies sound. if you're going to draw upon the grand romantic scope of the movies, then by all means write a score that sounds like the movies. the video games do this all the time whilst also drawing upon those original films for many aspects of their presentation and tone

if you are fundamentally making something that is not trying to achieve the same goals as the Star Wars films like an Andor, then it's not necessarily appropriate to go with the 'one size fits all' approach. if Williams did write Andor I doubt he would go into the default Star Wars mode and he'd probably tap into more of his spy thriller sound. there's an inherently unreasonable thing in expecting completely different composers to have the same sensibilities as Williams though, and I think that's mostly what people want (understandably so) is for more Star Wars music written by Williams, as opposed to more Star Wars music

the best compromise I've seen in this regard is when you end up with someone who adopts similar sensibilities to Williams like Mark Griskey with the KOTOR 2 soundtrack, but is writing to such a different flavour of story that it ends up with its own unique sound whilst still being identifiably Star Wars. this requires a very rare instance where you have a composer that matches sensibilities though, and it's unreasonable to expect that to always be the case. I'd rather have a soundtrack that fits the thing that's being written for it rather than forcing someone to adopt sensibilities that aren't naturally their own because that's when it starts sounding like a pale imitation

[JazzyNips 75]

Late-romantic orchestra sounds like it's referring to the makeup of the orchestra, rather than the sound of the music. The late romantic orchestra is basically what we have today, it's not like there's been much added, and crediting JW as the sole reason we still have orchestras is just clickbait (probably AI slop). Beyond that, there's nothing particularly romantic about his scoring, especially action scenes.

[handz 107]

On 17/04/2025 at 7:11 PM, Edmilson said:

I'll sum it up the whole point of the article so you don't have to click on it:

 

John Williams once defined the sound of Star Wars. But now a different generation of composers are radically changing it to make it more relevant and modern for today's sophisticated audiences. London Symphony Orchestra? Step aside! This is for old geezers. The approach of today's composers will be more dark and disturbing synths because that's what kids like these days.

I love how the dumbing down of the population and the decline in quality are always justified with phrases like “more relevant and modern for today’s audiences.” :-/

 

A post-Romantic orchestral sound with occasional touches of synth or electric guitar is really all you need. Or you can go full Zimmer - his style definitely works in films, though I usually don’t find it musically strong on its own (especially his recent, more sound-design-oriented work, though some pieces from Dune were amazing).

On 27/04/2025 at 8:31 PM, GerateWohl said:

Yesterday I went with my boys to watch Revenge of the Sith at the cinema. It is such a great experience to watch a movie with a proper John Williams score. Especially Star Wars.

 

You can try to sugarcoat for yourself all these Star Wars scores like Britell's Andor or Göransson's Mandalorian. But sorry, all that is wishful thinking and putting lipstick on the pig. Unfortunately there is nothing like a Williams score for Star Wars by a hundred country miles. Williams Star Wars music was the origin of my film music fandom and there is a reason for this.

Absolutely. I am so full of that "Goransson" appreciation, it was ok for what it was but was it good enough to stand next to "classic" SW music? Not at all... But people nowadays are like this sadly. Oh this is "different" so it is better!!