The Clone Wars - Kevin Kiner

The score's coming August 12:

Coming in time for the August 15 theatrical release of The Clone Wars feature is a soundtrack CD featuring the movie's dynamic score. Composer Kevin Kiner has created a unique musical experience for Clone Wars which builds upon the classic themes created by John Williams. The CD will include 32 tracks for a run-time of 67 minutes, 39 seconds. The soundtrack insert folds out into a Clone Wars poster. The CD is scheduled for release on August 12 from Sony Classical.

From http://www.starwars.com/vault/collecting/news20080709.html#rss

Kiner's good at working with other composers' themes -- David Arnold for Wing Commander; Chris Young for Madison. He also has some music on the Best of Stargate SG-1 CD. This should be good.

 

Judging by the official web site, Kiner has gone for a very modern/rock style with some orchestral ornaments.

 

I'll be very interested to see which JW themes get used and how he arranges them. It has the potential to be very good or very ahck.

 

Standard electric and acoustic guitar chords overlayed with orchestral and electronic elements for a Star Wars score...

Let's hope this small sampling isn't representative of the entire work because I was looking forward to this no matter the composer. We don't have too many other composers' take on Star Wars music outside of a few game soundtracks, so it had/has the potential to be interesting.

 

I really, really want a new theme for Grievous. Personally, I just think that the 3/4 time motif from RotS is pretty lousy, for a villain theme.

 

Track list.

 

Already saw this, but thanks for posting it! I just can't wait till we get the preview clips!

 

Sound clips are up.

http://www.starwarsthemusic.com/music

 

This is most awesome.

I'm incredibly impressed with Kiner's work... not only did he include Williams' themes (even the more minor ones), but he seems to have gone in a completely different (yet still thoroughly good) direction on many tracks.

 

Really? Apart from a few promising tracks, it sounds lacking and generic to me (not to mention just plain bad a few times). I'm curious what Williams' themes you hear besides the main titles and Lando's theme in "Admiral Yularen."

Several tracks sound more like they belong in Gladiator rather than Star Wars.

 

Yeah, where are all those? You know something we don't?


but overall I think I like it. I'm not getting Gladiator impressions, in fact I started humming KotOR music (which I'm not all that fond of, except two or three themes/cues - Malak's theme or something). I like the direction, except for the silly Jabba-related musics - I'm sure fans will love those scenes
Everything about Clone Wars is greatly different - why not the music.

 

Is there REALLY a character called 'General Loathsom'? REALLY?

 

Way too much semi-ethnic drum stuff (I think that's what makes it sound like Gladiator). Even the main titles and end credits are set over cliched eastern rhythms! And I'm most distressed by the electric guitar in 'Obi-Wan to the Rescue' and 'Courtyard Fight'.

Putting that aside, though, it sounds like there is actually some nice stuff in there. Hard to tell from the samples whether there's enough to make up for aforementioned faults.

As for the source music - well, at least it's better than 'Jedi Rocks' . . .

 

Interview with composer Kevin Kiner about Clone Wars:

http://www.scorenotes.com/interviews08/kiner/kevin_kiner_interview.mp3

Over 400 minutes of music recorded over the past year.

More ethnic elements in the score.

68 minutes of music for the movie cd.

 

It's interesting. I'm looking forward to the soundtrack far more than the actual film. It's a bit of a surprise to hear such a drastic variation of the Main Theme, but I like what I've heard. Never been much of a fan of the ethnic music that Hans Zimmer, among others, seems to love, but... eh. It's a new Star Wars score!

 

A new Star Wars score? Sure, but I'd much rather have Mark Griskey's The Force Unleashed on CD. Sadly, that won't happen.

 

Barriss_Coffee: Really interested, where those JW themes you heard are. I only noticed that "Admiral Yularen" sounds similar to Lando's Theme and the Main Title of course.

Plus I'm almost sure there's the beginning of the Force Theme in the end of "The Jedi Council" (first three notes).

Other thing that went through my mind was some resemblence of "Ziro's Nightclub Band" to "Luke and Leia"... but could be random...

But that's sadly everything I've heard of original JW themes in the available clips.

Besides that I'm curious of this score and will buy it when it's out. Like the new sound, but would love to have some more quotes of themes we already know.

 

Darn! Is that a stated fact? Considering TFU's one big multimedia project, and the score used a full orchestra, I'd hoped a CD was on the cards. Especially since Shadows of the Empire got one.

 

Well, there are currently no plans for a release. The game's music editor commented that some legal hurdles would have to be overcome. My guess is that this involves the licensing of John Williams' themes.

 

I haven't done it myself, but it is possible to extract music from game software. Google "game music extraction." We need to find someone who can do this, then set up a site to share the files.

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I'm sure this will happen, but I'm concerned about doing a proper rip. When a game is released for PC, usually everyone can access the files. However, for these console releases, oftentimes just one person will crack the code and distribute his specific rip, and that will be it. The problems with these rips tend to be 1) incompleteness / errors and 2) compression. By compression, I mean that the game's music files will be converted from their native format to an inferior standard, usually MP3. This doesn't bother most people, but for me it dilutes the music.

The generally available rip of the complete score to John Debney's Lair, for example, clips a little and is full of Windows Explorer clicking sounds. It's bad, but who wants to buy a Playstation 3 and go through all the trouble of manually recording the music? (In the case of Lair, there was a "jukebox" function.) Thus, it's the only one out there, as far as I know.

 

Then perhaps you are the person to ask to do this to make sure it gets done right. Can we count on you?


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I know nothing of Cerrabore's technical prowess, but based on his post, I believe he doesn't know how to "crack the code" and make a proper rip of consoles games, thus his concerns.

 

Nah, I'm not going to buy a new console just for The Force Unleashed. I suppose I would pick up the game if it was possible to rip the files on a PC (Xbox 360 version?), but most likely it will take a modded game console to do it. And yes, I don't know anything about breaking the encryption on files.

 

Guys, remember that sharing copyrighted files is illegal and we can't do that here. If you buy a copy of the game, and are able to rip the files on your own computer to listen to, that is fair use of your legally purchased product.