A little over a year ago, iconic composer John Williams indicated that the then-untitled ninth Star Wars movie would be his last time writing music for that particular universe, but for a guy who once said that he didn’t think his work with Star Wars was ever very “memorable,” Williams seems to be excited about The Rise Of Skywalker so far. Speaking with The Times (via /Film), Williams said that he’s already seen an “early cut” of the final film in the main Star Wars story, and he likes it “very much.” The Times also noted that he “beams” when he talks about it, and he has apparently already written 25 minutes of score in “about a month” of work.
Of course, the Star Wars movies—especially the recent ones—have been very referential with their music, even when quietly sneaking in subtle twists, so it’s probably fair to question just how much work 25 minutes or score really is. Maybe he watched an early cut of the movie and just took notes on the spots where he could slip in the main theme, the themes for Rey and Kylo Ren, and then maybe the Imperial March (since it seems like Palpatine is coming back in some way). That’s gotta be a good chuck of the score already. We’re not saying that Williams is lazy or that he’s not very good at what he does, we’re just saying that what he does is very easy and that we could do it for much cheaper if J.J. Abrams wants to, say, send us an early version of the movie as well.
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Maybe he watched an early cut of the movie and just took notes on the spots where he could slip in the main theme, the themes for Rey and Kylo Ren, and then maybe the Imperial March (since it seems like Palpatine is coming back in some way). That’s gotta be a good chuck [sic] of the score already.You don’t know how music composition happens, do you?
He’s a writer, and not a composer, so maybe he doesn’t.
Some of us are both.He definitely doesn’t.
Good for you. Here’s your cookie.
Some would argue that Barsanti is neither.
The weirdest part is assuming Imperial March would be subbed in for the Emperor. He has his own theme.
Exactly! He’s the Emperor, not the Imperor!
Considering that the article ends with him saying that he could easily do the job because he wants to see an early cut of the film, I’m going to assume that he was joking.
AV Club writing about a subject they clearly know nothing about?! Get outta here.
If you ever get the chance to see John conduct live, run, don’t walk. I’ve seen him at the Hollywood Bowl with the LA Philharmonic for the last two years, and both times have just reduced me to mush. He did the last 10-12 minutes of ET live to picture the last time I saw him, and the entire place was just enraptured. Really one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.
This last time he played, I seriously computed bus cost to O’Hare, plane tickets to LAX, tickets to the show, uber cost, and expense for like 3 meals. I think it came in under $900. I couldn’t pull the trigger. I gotta get on the Hollywood Bowl/Disney Theater alert page so I can get notices for the next time.I’m kicking myself for not going to see Hans Zimmer live as well (with Tina Gao, dammit) – he’ll tour again though. Hopefully after the Dune Soundtrack comes out.
He usually plays in the late summer, so get on the HB mailing list now. They usually send out notices a month or two in advance. As much as I hate to say it, I’m not sure how many more years he’s gonna be doing it. He is pushing 90, after all. If you can swing the dough, I say do it. It’s been on my bucket list for decades, and I’m so glad I got to see the maestro in action. He did so much rad shit in the two times I’ve seen him – the Raiders March (my favorite movie and movie theme of all time), Superman (which brought the damn house down), ET, Harry Potter, Star Wars (including Rey’s Theme, Han and Leia’s theme, Scherzo For X-Wings, the Imperial March, the opening credits theme, and a ton of other amazing pieces), Close Encounters, the list goes on and on. I have a dream of getting to see him play ‘The Map Room – Dawn’ from Raiders if I get to see him again, but we’ll see.Just an honor to be breathing the same air as him for a little while. Truly the musical voice of an entire generation, and then some.
He’s pretty much done conducting live it would appear. As of this year, he has turned over all his annual “Film Night” gigs in Boston over to Keith Lockhart full time.
I figured it was coming. Glad I got to see him a few times, then. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he announced his retirement after Star Wars comes out. He deserves it. To say he’s had a good run would be wildly understating it.
Yeah. After passing up the chance to see him at the Bowl for well over a decade, I finally went two years ago. Maybe that was the last chance.
He’s not doing the Bowl this year. Well, there’s a John Williams night, but he won’t be there.
Yeah, I got the feeling that last year would be his final performance. I’d bet money he announces his retirement either after Ep. IX, or just before.
This pains me to say this: I really hope the soundtrack is good. The score to Last Jedi okay, but just that – okay. As for Force Awakens, outside of the Rey Theme, the score kind of sucked. It wasn’t nearly as memorable or awesome or inspiring or stirring or bombastic or cool as the other six movies.
“It wasn’t nearly as memorable or awesome or inspiring or stirring or bombastic or cool…” So, right in keeping with the sequel trilogy aesthetic.
I’m pretty much with you though. The Last Jedi score was weak sauce. I like “March of the Resistance” and “Scherzo for X-Wings” from TFA and “Rey’s Theme” is just awesome, but the rest was just okay. Here’s hoping he can hit something on the level of “Raider’s March” to bring it home.
Yeah, I thought they sucked too. This video explains it a lot better than I ever could
Hehe, he says “filum”.
It’s a good video, but man, you could easily be forgiven for tl;dw(atch).
Yes, all new Star Wars films from Force Awakens onwards seem to be as much vehicles for nostalgia as they are for saying something new. The music reflects this.
There you go, the video in two sentences. ;D
And it misses one of the big reasons the new soundtracks aren’t as good as, say, Empire Strikes Back. Williams had an army of orchestrators working on Empire (as documented by Kathryn Kalinak). The new films, not so much. They don’t sound as big because the production literally isn’t.
I’d be super excited if they got Mark Griskey(KOTOR 1 + 2, Force Unleashed games) to do the soundtrack for one of the spinoff films, but that probably won’t pan out since they seem more focused on getting other film composers in to do the movies.
I don’t know, I’ve been listening to both of those a lot recently and realizing how good some of the music is. Are they as good as the score to Empire, no, but they’re damn good in their own right and better than the last two prequels at least. Maybe my standard is also a bit different because I’m comparing them not just to other Star Wars or Williams scores generally, but also to other blockbuster scores which are mostly generic these days. But still, March of the Resistance hasn’t been leaving my head lately.
I went nuts for “The Spark” for about 4 months, as well.
That’s also a great one. One thing I find with the newer scores is that listening to them independently is when I really realize how good they are. I think when I first saw TFA my initial reaction to the score was that it was good but that only Rey’s theme was a standout. But listening to it separated from one viewing where I was focusing on following the plot, I can pick out several fantastic themes in that film alone.
The music from when Luke appears on Crait through his Force illusion duel is incredible and some of Williams’ best work in the franchise.
I actually prefer the prequel scores to the music Williams has created for the new trilogy. Still, he’s still been able to come up with some melodies that are more memorable than what we tend to get with movie scores these days. I mean, the guy still is John Fuckin’ Williams after all.
I completely disagree.The score for Last Jedi ranks among Williams’s best in years. It expands and falls back on the original work, it takes some ideas and themes from the old and re-appropriates them in the newer context. The music has an arc and direction, an ambition. It’s friggin fantastic.
Remixed “Here they Come” had me so pumped up. Great score.
The arrangement of the Millenium Falcon theme or whatever that is when it arrives on the salt planet is the best version of that often used theme.
I did like how he took the Cantina Theme and kind of played it upside-down for Canto Brite. I thought that was kind of clever. But otherwise, believe me I wish I was on the same page as you. John’s score is the soundtrack of my youth. Growing up it was always Jaws or CE3K or Raiders or Superman or Star Wars on the turntable.So saying a Star Wars score was just Meh is murdering my inner child.
“Outside of the Rey theme” is a hell of a qualifier. That’s a terrific theme.
Yeah, even a lesser John Williams soundtrack beats just about anything. Insane just how little stands out in a movie score these days.
Wow. Couldn’t disagree more. Tlj is one of Williams finest scores, like ever. And unlike the prequels, which have one standout track per film, the St is consistently good from start to finish a la OT. Seriously. It blows my mind people are mum on the music. The leitmotif work is incredible.
“The Adventures of Tin Tin” was really the last time we got that kind of score out of him.
If I might make a suggestion, the digital release of TLJ has a ‘soundtrack only’ option as a bonus feature. If you watch the film solely with the score playing in the background with no dialogue or sound effects or anything, it’s very powerful. Give it a watch if you have the chance.
That finale to Revenge of the Sith? Absolutely epic. Williams summed up an entire lifetime’s worth of Star Wars music in that one piece.
He wrote Han’s theme for Solo, which was okay, but not memorable.
Had a chance to see the E.T. score performed live to the movie a couple of nights ago. It was almost religious. And also how did Henry Thomas not even get a nomination for an Oscar?
I have no answer to your question but you are correct.
It’s such an awesome way to see a movie! It’s like seeing it for the first time again.
Look, I revere the guy as much as anyone, but I don’t know if I’d put too much stock in his opinion of these movies. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/star-wars-composer-john-williams-says-hes-never-seen-any-of-the-movies-2016-12
I was a kid in the ‘80’s, and somehow my brother got a cassette tape of John Williams scores. This was probably around ‘82-83 and it was the best thing ever. Theme from Raiders, all the Star Wars, and my parents hated me for a solid month (for a lot of other reasons) because this is all I wanted to listen to. He’s still doing this shit 30 years later. Coming up with and creating music on this level isn’t easy. He’ll never do anything better than the Imperial March though.
“it’s probably fair to question just how much work 25 minutes or score really is.”Good composers borrow. Great composers steal.Legendary composers steal from themselves.
He’s praying for the sweet release of death and fans asking him about Avatar.
Williams has accomplished more in a month of his life than any of the bloggers on this site will “accomplish” in the entirety of theirs.
JJ should write the music himself. He’s good at everything he does!/shttps://news.avclub.com/don-dohler-s-nightbeast-gave-j-j-abrams-his-start-in-s-1798286607
This is cute. Although, unless I missed something, it’s unclear whether the music in the video is by Abrams. ‘Cause if so, it’s very good for a 15 year old. The mix and orchestration/instrumentation are excellent.
Pretty sure JJ does write music. I read he wrote the theme to 11/22/63. Which is fucking awesome.(and this is from the guy that thinks every single one of his feature films has been crap. but, credit where it’s due.)
Abrams’ theme to Fringe is quite good.
25 minutes in a month? Zimmer can do that in an hour. For three different movies.
And it sounds like it.
Hey, if they all sounded different, he couldn’t use the same score for like 20 other movies.
The Last Samurai is a great soundtrack
So is the Dark Knight.
So could a chimp on meth. It doesn’t take very long to record 12 drum kits and an electric cello.
You forgot ALL THE SYNTHETIC FRENCH HORNS
Look, he goes through like 8 meth chimps a week; you can’t argue with results.
I thought he retired or something. It would’ve been nice had he stuck to that and gone out with a BANG BANG BANG BANG CLANG CLANG BWAAAAM BWAAAAAM BWAAAAAM
I haven’t listened to a Star Wars soundtrack since I bought the first one in 1977. I still have the vinyl and the little poster that was included in the sleeve.
I had that, the double album, gatefold sleeve and poster. Sold it a couple of years ago during a clearout. (It was either that or the floor collapsing).
If you ever get the chance to see Williams in conversation, do go. I saw him give a Q&A several years ago and he was terrific, very funny and entertaining. He was particularly interesting about his jazz years, as Johnny Williams, and refers to his Jaws theme as ‘the thump-thump thing’.
On one of the Force Awakens docs, JJ Abrams says John walks around calling everyone ‘baby’ like the proper old jazz-cigarette-smoking badass that he is.
Saw A New Hope with a live orchestra recently and resparked my love of SW…the music in the new trilogy doesn’t hold a candle to the OT soundtrack.
Fun fact: John Williams’ son Joseph is the current lead singer of Toto.
As much as I like him, it doesn’t matter anything. He obviously is saying that, and the movie probably is going to suck anyway.
I’ve seen TFA and TLJ several times and I have no clue what the “Rey theme” even is. Whereas, even with the mediocre (at best) quality of “phantom menace”, I was humming the earwormish “Duel of the Fates” after one viewing.
You cannot compare Duel of the Fates to pretty much anything else.
That track is pure perfection. It’s like saying: “Well, this picture is good, but it’s not like, the Last Supper.”