Which of the Star Wars soundtracks is your favorite?

ESB followed closely by ANH. Imperial March and Yoda's Theme are just too powerful and emotional.

 

Very difficult decision, but if I had to pick just one it would be ANH. I can't get enough of "Binary Sunset".

 

ESB just introduces some great themes. Love it. But I admit, the TFA soundtrack has really, really become a favorite. It's can;t eclipse the ESB soundtrack, but I do love it.

I strongly suspect that favorite soundtrack tracks reasonably closely to favorite movie. After all, music can recall emotion, and if you loved the movie, the music is likely to remind you of it.

 

I'd go with Jedi or Sith as favorites (not artistic merit) because these are the richest in themes and orchestration. But the Star Wars scores with their memorable leitmotives and themes are a ongoing Gesamtkunstwerk and entity, and arguably amongst the artistically most valuable things produced for movies. Hard to single out just one, they all have pros and con.

E.g., with the OT the ANH-score is the most original despite being derivative of Wagner, Holst, Mendelson or Korngold and somehow raw in it's orchestration. RotJ has not the same degree of musical ideas but on the aggregate it provides the richest thematic tapestry, balance and a lot of iconic little cues.

The prequel scores show a musically further matured, self assured composer (reflecting the storytelling, going from a space opera to dystopian downfall of a society and people narrative). At times enjoy it even more than the OT scores. It is still the same genre but a different animal. TPM has the most colorful score with a lot of musical ideas, AotC is the most beautiful, RotS is the most complex and haunting.

 

Tough question as they are all excellent.

Choosing one only, it would be TESB.

I recently listened to ANH on vinyl and that score is truly amazing.

Am also quite fond of the ROTS soundtrack.

I reckon those are my top three, in that order.

Btw, I feel the R1 soundtrack is brilliant in its own, unique and familiar way. Some of the tracks are equal to JW, imo.

Just like the films, I love them all.

 

TESB

Four standout tracks for me are:

Yoda and the Force
The way that music swells as the X-Wing flies over head in the swamp. Probably one of the most beautiful and thrilling movie scenes that I have ever seen. The word "epic" gets used so much, but that scene has an epic quality about it, and most of that is down to the score. I remember how it made me feel the first time I saw it in the cinema as a child.

Imperial Starfleet Deployed / City in the Clouds
Particularly the second half as the Millennium Falcon approaches Cloud City. We are in pure Ralph Mcquarrie visual heaven with this scene, and the accompanying score with the harps and choral voices. It's incredibly good.

Imperial Starfleet Deployed / City in the Clouds
Particularly the second half as the Millennium Falcon approaches Cloud City. We are in pure Ralph Mcquarrie visual heaven with this scene, and the accompanying score with the harps and choral voices. It's fantastic.

Carbon Freeze / Darth Vader's Trap / Departure of Boba Fett
The start of this track has really neat composition, where it plays the opening half of the melody for Luke's theme three times with three different instruments, then the second half of the melody four times in the same repeat manner before a segue into the Imperial March

The Imperial March
Bombastic, instantly recognised and utterly unforgettable. This whole score was Williams at the peak of his powers I think as a composer.

 

Definitely Revenge of the Sith. The soundtrack has its heroic bits like the Battle Over Coruscant, the best rendition of Binary Sunset during the Arrival On Utapau, the spectacular themes like Anakin's Betrayal and Dark Deeds, and more.

The Phantom Menace would be a close second, Empire Strikes Back third, and I'm tempted to say Rogue One would make my top 4. It's an extremely underrated soundtrack.

 

I love all of them!

 

ROTS is imo JW's best work..

 

I've been listening to various Star Wars playlists in recent weeks and it just re-scores (pun intended) the need for complete score releases of the prequels. ROTS is a fantastic score. All three PT film scores are great and I'd really like solid music releases of all three.

That said, we're going to have to make a new version of this poll soon!

 

Here's the closest you can get to a complete score for the PT:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0dqWRYwKNGdyr2GEB-m3mH8DVPjFAvhK

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0dqWRYwKNGfh2fWjsXOaqMilk17C01VX

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0dqWRYwKNGdnCpOqJsKcSWc5nJYgbY3A

As well as additional tracks for both TFA and Rogue One:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0dqWRYwKNGcl4VzkcVv1qbhE6yajq7ii

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0dqWRYwKNGefwP_PRJMtuSK74Uo4tALS

 

Yeah I know. I want actual complete score releases alá LaLaLand Records.

 

When the Sony rights expired recently and reverted back to Disney I emailed Michael Mattesino who does lot of work for LaLaLand and did the recent Jurassic Park and E.T. complete scores.

http://www.mikematessino.com/projects/

His reply:

Thanks for writing. The reissues of the original albums were taken, as you know, from the album masters. In the case of the original trilogy, they were John Neal’s remixes on 1/4” tape. Talking it up they way they did was really a PR thing on Sony’s part so that they could have one last hurrah, so to speak. When their license ended and the albums came out again under Disney, it was effectively hitting the reset button and that’s where things will be left for a while, which is not an altogether terrible idea.


I am involved in the conversations about where to go from here, but I’m not permitted to say anything beyond that. There would be a lot of work to be done and it may not be right away. But when it does happen, I expect it to all be handled properly.


Best,
Mike Matessino

 

Awesome!!!

 

The Empire Strikes Back.
I wore out my cassette of the OST while I did my homework in middle and high school.

Second would be The Phantom Menace. Mainly because of nostalgia in my eyes. It was the first new Star Wars music in forever and I ate it all with a spoon.

It's a shame Shadows of the Empire doesn't count. It's a beautiful soundtrack and Xizor's theme is a hauntingly gruesome cacophony before becoming a deliciously arranged orchestral piece.

 

I feel like a month or two more (maybe the home video release) and we can do a new poll with The Last Jedi included...

 

The Phantom Menace. I grew up listening to the soundtrack on cassette tape in the car when I was 4-6 years old.

 

My favourites would be Attack of the Clones and Return of the Jedi.

 

You know, ROTJ is an underrated Star Wars score, in my opinion. The only issue I have with it is the recording sound quality is not great.

 

I'm going to be honest...it might very well be TLJ now. TPM is usually my favorite.

 

Ikr! TPM is great, well they all are.
I've always liked ROTS and TESB so much as favs or whatever.

But JW has definitely gotten more subtle and nuanced with age and his TLJ score is truly brilliant. One of his best, for sure.

It's harder to choose his best SW score than it is to rank the films lol.

JW is the master.

 

I agree, it's a huge challenge ranking the scores lol. I'm going to try it now though.

1. The Phantom Menace
2. The Empire Strikes Back
3. Revenge of the Sith
4. The Last Jedi
5. Rogue One
6. The Force Awakens
7. Return of the Jedi
8. Attack of the Clones
9. A New Hope

Subject to change. They are all so good.

 

I agree that he's gotten more subtle and nuanced with age and I like that. I really love the TLJ score as well.

 

The Imperial March is iconic but i feel the music throughout was brilliant.

 

The music throughout what? Which Saga film did you pick?