Star Wars Music News

Hi, I'm new here, and couldn't find a thread to just post general music news re: Star Wars music. Apologies if I've duplicated a thread - mods, please just merge if that's the case. Everyone else - please add any news, rumors and comments!

Anyway...

For those wondering if JW will be back for Episode VIII, here's a good sign...

http://www.jedinews.co.uk/news/news.aspx?newsID=26736

"John Williams Fan Network poster nightscape94 brought us this fantastic John Williams quote from a few days ago while he led the Philadelphia Orchestra through some classic Star Wars themes.

When he took the stage, and before he started conducting the Scherzo, he said "I told the producers I wasn't sure if I wanted to do the next one, but told them I didn't want anyone else doing it either." It was certainly meant as a joke, and got a great laugh.​

Great to hear the Maestro is in good spirits and clearly relishing the chance to continue the hottest of hot streaks by scoring Episode VIII. Remember, Alexandre Desplat takes on Rogue One which arrives 16th December."

 

Bit of an update on the above quote over at making Star Wars:

http://makingstarwars.net/2016/05/j...star-wars-episode-viiis-score-and-soundtrack/

 

John Williams will be presented with the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award:

http://makingstarwars.net/2016/06/s...lliams-to-receive-afi-life-achievement-award/

'He plans to begin work on Spielberg’s next film, “Ready Player One,” in November, and then next year expects to do the next “Star Wars” film. “If I can do it, I certainly will. I told Kathy Kennedy I’m happy to do it, but the real reason is, I didn’t want anybody else writing music for Daisy Ridley,” he quips.'

Great news!

 

In addition to everything else, apparently Indy 5 is confirmed for Williams too. Not surprising but it's good to know.
http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/43482/williams-returns-for-indiana-jones-5

I think I might start up a thread for the Indiana Jones scores. If there were any, it's been a while.

 

http://www.jedinews.co.uk/news/news.aspx?newsID=27081

I just saw that! Exciting. It just makes me so pleased that Williams still feels so creative.

Hey, use this thread for any and all John Williams news, if you have a mind to. Keeps it tidy!

Here's a link to the whole piece at Variety:

http://variety.com/2016/film/spotlight/john-williams-afi-1201792072-1201792072/

 

JJ Abrams' favorite Star Wars track by John Williams (includes excerpts from Lucas' tribute to JW at AFI):

http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2016...s-favorite-john-williams-star-wars-track.html

 

When does Sony loose the rights to the soundtracks of I-VI?

 

The rumor I heard is 2018.

 

According to a reliable poster at JWFan, Williams just confirmed at the Tanglewood concert that he'll be scoring VIII and will see the rough-cut in a couple of weeks.

 

That is such a relief; it just wouldn't be the same without Williams. But I wonder if it will be scored in the same manner/process as TFA or the Lucas movies.

 

TFA most likely, especially considering that Williams will be seeing the rough cut more than a year before release (even longer than he did with TFA).

 

how did he score the lucas movies then?

 

I believe that with the Lucas films, he would see a nearly finished cut of the film a few months before release (like January or February) and then score the whole movie in that short span of time with the notion that what he composed would pretty much be the way it appeared in the finished film. The downside to this method is that he doesn't get a lot of time to create and place the music. The advantage is that he can see the ending sequence of the movie and sort of build the themes throughout the movie to naturally lead to that finale. Another advantage is that he can create musical cues for very specific cuts and moments in the movie since he knows that the specific arrangement of scenes has nearly been finalized (although this still didn't stop Lucas from doing more tinkering for the prequels).

With the modern method, he mentioned that J.J. would show him 30 minute chunks of the movie for him to score. He also said that J.J. would constantly be re-editing scenes. What this means is that in order to "marry" the visuals to the music, he would have to do a lot of rewrites. My belief is that since he knew that he would be doing a lot of rewrites, he, either consciously or subconsciously, composed the music to be "flexible" so that it could be more easily modified to accommodate the ever-changing edit of the film. The advantage of this method is that he spends a greater total time working on the music and gets a chance to rewrite pieces that he's not completely satisfied with.

Personally, I enjoy the older method that was used rather than the modern one because I feel that it makes for a tighter marriage between music and visuals. But, the latter method is the one that's mostly used these days for modern films. So it is what it is. And even though I prefer the former method, Williams is still brilliant enough to make an excellent score, regardless of the circumstances.

 

I blame the relatively low-mix of the score and the numerous edits (despite being supervised by Williams) for the music's slightly diminished role in the film. It never disappoints me on album but it's not nearly as effective in-film.

 

This made me happy:

http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2016/12/star-wars-episode-viii-score-begins-recording-this-month.html

 

Great news! Surprisingly soon after TFA. Hopefully it will allow for greater thematic continuity between the two.

 

That is good news, indeed.

 

Wow that is early!

 

The original release date was going to be May 2017, IIRC...? So maybe this was always part of the schedule. They've now got the luxury of a longer post-production, but perhaps it also means a longer development time for Williams' score.

I am so happy he'll be back for this one!