Category: Star Wars

Categories
2022 B Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Star Wars Year

The Book Of Boba Fett Volume 2 – music by Joseph Shirley

4 min read

Order this CDHey, remember that crazy turn that The Book Of Boba Fett took when it suddenly went all “we interrupt this broadcast to bring you an important message from the Mandalorian”? I’ll forgo my musings on that perhaps being why we’ve never gotten a season two, and just talk about the music.

Since this second volume of score from The Book Of Boba Fett covers the fourth through seventh episodes, the sudden shift from Boba Fett’s narrative to Mando’s is precisely where we pick up. It sounds more like music from The Mandalorian at this point, but the interesting thing happening here is that we’re getting Mando music a la Joseph Shirley. It doesn’t sound terribly different from Ludwig Goransson’s style, but considering that Joseph Shirley graduated from scoring this series to scoring the third season of The Mandalorian, it’s tempting to think of it as an audition piece. A jaunty pace creeps into the proceedings in “Faster Than A Fathier” as Mando tries out his new ship, and that tone becomes triumphant in “Maiden Voyage” as the space pedal is duly applied to the space metal. “It’s A Family Affair” shifts to a more pastoral – and more John-Williams-esque – feel as Mando goes to pay Grogu a visit at Skywalker’s School for Tiny Jedi. The Williams influence becomes overt in “Life Lessons”, complete with quotation of Williams’ themes for Yoda, Luke, and the Force itself. Like Goransson before him, Shirley proves that while he’s comfortable making the sound of Star Wars more percussive and electronic, he’s equally adept at layering in the classics of the Star Wars playbook very authentically.

Shirley also plays nicely with Goransson’s themes, delivering a more playful rendition of the piece last heard when Luke rescued Grogu at the end of The Mandalorian’s second season (a piece that was positively mournful in its original application). The setting returns to Tatooine for “From The Desert Comes A Stranger”, and stays there as much of the rest of the album concentrates on music from the final episode. Fett’s theme proper doesn’t come back with a vengeance until “Battle For Mos Espa”, and it remains at the forefront in “A Town Beiseged” and “Final Showdown”. With “A Town At Peace”, things calm down considerably and bring us to the end of the series.

4 out of 4The four tracks at the end of the album feature music from earlier in the series, with some of the show’s key scenes that mysteriously didn’t make the first album appearing here, including “The Reign of Boba Fett”, the six-plus-minute “Train Heist”, and “The Bonfire”. There’s also a source music track, “Hit It Max”, played by the remarkably bulletproof Max Rebo and his band – did he survive that bombing, or did his luck only get him as far as surviving the battle on Jabba’s sail barge? – which is no “Lapti Nek”, but at the very least I like it better than the number that replaced “Lapti Nek” in the Special Editions.

I really liked The Book Of Boba Fett while it was about, well, Boba Fett. It’s a pity that it didn’t get to even attempt to be its own thing for very long, especially with Temuera Morrison willing to don the armor again. But even if the series and its central character went no further than this, Joseph Shirley proved himself more than capable of providing music for wearers of Mandalorian armor everywhere.

  1. The Underworld (3:19)
  2. A Cautionary Tale (3:12)
  3. Faster Than A Fathier (4:59)
  4. Maiden Voyage (1:21)
  5. It’s A Family Affair (3:48)
  6. Life Lessons (3:56)
  7. A Gift (2:46)
  8. Teacher’s Pet (6:26)
  9. From The Desert Comes A Stranger (2:19)
  10. Two Paths Diverged (2:51)
  11. In The Name Of Honor (3:24)
  12. Battle For Mos Espa (2:30)
  13. A Town Besieged (6:46)
  14. Final Showdown (4:13)
  15. Goodnight (2:32)
  16. A Town At Peace (2:22)
  17. The Reign Of Boba Fett (1:22)
  18. Hit It Max (2:01)
  19. Train Heist (6:16)
  20. The Bonfire (1:41)

Released by: Disney Music
Release date: February 11, 2022
Total running time: 1:07:56

… Read more
Categories
2023 D Film Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Star Wars Year

A Disturbance In The Force – music by Karl Preusser

2 min read

Order this CDI’ve already raved elsewhere about the better-than-anyone-had-any-right-to-expect documentary about the making of the infamous 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special, A Disturbance In The Force: How The Star Wars Holiday Special Happened. In short, it’s a better documentary than you ever expected about such an arcane, niche topic. The documentary actually has wider appeal than the subject it’s covering. That’s a neat trick.

Karl Preusser’s score for A Disturbance In The Force: How The Star Wars Holiday Special Happened is just over half an hour long (the frequent clips and needle drops in the movie don’t leave a lot of room for an original score), but there’s actually a lot to love in that half-hour-and-change. I found myself hoping that the whole thing would be drenched with disco cheese, but Preusser shows admirable restraint by containing that style reference to only three tracks (“So Bad, It’s Not Good”, “A Disturbance In The Force”, and “The Lost Treatment”, the first two of which walk right up to the edge of riffing on Meco’s disco cover of the Star Wars theme). The rest of the score riffs on John Williams’ style of arrangement without ever directly quoting any Williams themes. There are passages that are almost the Jawa theme, or hint at other Williams compositions, and this is an impressively sharp-eared feat made more impressive by the fact that it’s all carried off fairly convincingly with samples.

4 out of 4And now that this score, for a documentary about the Holiday Special, has been released? Go find and release the score from the special itself, you cowards. Seriously. I dare you. It’s got to exist somewhere in the files of the late composer Ian Fraser (who shouldn’t be obscure: he was a frequent music collaborator on Julie Andrews’ prime time variety specials, was the music director for the opening of EPCOT, and arranged the accompaniment for Bing Crosby and David Bowie’s “Little Drummer Boy” duet). Because chances are I’ll buy that too. You can bet your Life Day on it.

  1. So Bad, It’s Not Good (1:59)
  2. Charley Lippincott (2:24)
  3. Boba Fett Genesis (2:16)
  4. Fan Outreach (1:01)
  5. It All Started In 1978 (1:40)
  6. Maintaining Momentum (2:46)
  7. The Talent (0:54)
  8. Life Day (1:49)
  9. The Faithful Wookiee (1:36)
  10. The Lost Treatment (1:57)
  11. Costume Difficulties (1:31)
  12. Sell Toys To Kids (1:10)
  13. It Just Was Not Working (1:49)
  14. And They Loved It (2:14)
  15. Fanbase Grows (3:01)
  16. A Disturbance In The Force (3:30)

Released by: Gription Music
Release date: December 4, 2023
Total running time: 31:17

… Read more
Categories
2023 Music Reviews S Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Star Wars Television Year

Star Wars: Visions Volume 2: Sith – music by Dan Levy

2 min read

Order this CDFor the second year running, Disney Plus celebrated Star Wars Day (i.e. May the Fourth be with you) by dropping a new batch of the highly stylized Star Wars: Visions shorts. The Visions mission statement is pretty simple: hand esteemed animators and animation studios a few minutes in the Star Wars universe, with no obligations to be canonical, or even necessarily serious. Their only obligation is to have some fun with the universe and the lore, in their own unique visual style. The inaugural 2022 batch consisted of shorts all done by respected anime studios; the slots in the 2023 batch (I hesitate to call it a season) were given to studios further afield, not just those in the world of anime.

Clocking in at just under 15 minutes, Sith, written and directed by Rodrigo Blaas, who served as the supervising director of Trollhunters: Tales Of Arcadia, was among the most visually arresting of the 2023 shorts. The entire story is animated in a very stylized, painterly style, befitting the main character – a recovering/escaped former Sith apprentice – who has gone into hiding to lose herself in her art. The score by Dan Levy (a French-born composer who seems to like the short-form animation format; he also die an episode of Netflix’s Love Death + Robots) drenches nearly the entire running time of the short, which is not unusual for the Visions shorts. With so little time, many of the animators and filmmakers contributing Visions shorts make the decision to let the score and the sound effects mix do the talking rather than slowing down too much for mere dialogue.

3 out of 4Levy’s score starts strong – its deceptively quiet opening is a bit more interesting than the inevitable busy chase and fight scenes (because you can’t just quit being a Sith apprentice without some blowback from your former boss). The action music has more in common with The Matrix than with anything in the Star Wars universe, while managing to be less interesting than either of the two. It’s in the quieter, more contemplative moments that this score distinguishes itself as a standalone listening experience; the chase music is best when it’s accompanied by the actual chase.

  1. Blank Canvas (2:59)
  2. Sith Apprentice (2:43)
  3. The Chase (1:24)
  4. Light And Dark (2:57)
  5. Destiny (2:11)

Released by: Disney Music
Release date: May 5, 2023
Total running time: 12:14

… Read more
Categories
2022 Music Reviews O Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Star Wars Television Year

Obi-Wan Kenobi – music by Natalie Holt, William Ross, and John Williams

5 min read

Order this CDWho scored this? The credits on the cover seem to make that an interesting question, as does the timeline of the public reveal that John Williams – who, we had already been told, was retiring from scoring Star Wars and from scoring films altogether – was contributing a new theme for Obi-Wan himself. Most of what is heard in the show and on this release is by Natalie Holt, who had already made a splash on another Disney Plus streaming series, Marvel’s Loki. But top billing goes to John Williams for the Obi-Wan theme, and the cover then tells us that theme has been adapted by William Ross. Anywhere Williams’ wistful new theme for the aging Jedi Knight appears in the show itself, it’s in a cue credited to Ross. One begins to suspect that Williams’ involvement (and therefore Ross’ involvement as well) happened at a very late stage, replacing work that had already been done by Natalie Holt. (A bit of research – and a bit of reading between the lines of all the industry-speak – reveals that this is precisely what happened. It’d be neat to hear Holt’s original theme and the replaced score cues to hear what the show would’ve sounded like before the guys dropped in to do a little of the work and claim a lot of the credit.)

Williams’ theme is nice, I will give it that. It does fit Obi-Wan where we find him in this movie – noble, but subdued. In the end credit rendition, there’s a big orchestral build-up that seems a little out of place, but otherwise a nice theme, and a bit more distinctive than the theme Williams penned for inclusion in John Powell’s Solo score (of which more another time). Its first major appearance as a piece of the score arrives in “Thr Journey Begins”; Ross’ adaptations of the Williams theme takes up five more tracks in the soundtrack outside of the opening titles and end credit theme.

The first score cue, “Order 66”, lurches from pastoral to relentless action on a dime for the prologue in which we see the moment that the Emperor’s order to rid the universe of the Jedi affects a class of young padawans. That same propulsive action then shifts down a gear or two into lurking menace as the show jumps to the present day for “Inquisitors’ Hunt”. Tracks like “Young Leia”, “Days of Alderaan” and “Bail and Leia” have a different feel entirely as, for the first time since a fleeting glimpse in the epilogue of Star Wars Episode III, we get to see Alderaan as a utopian world that somehow hung onto its idealistic identity well into the reign of the Empire. The tone darkens significant;y as Obi-Wan leaves the safe obscurity of Tatooine to begin his mission (“Daiyu”, “Cat And Mouse”). There’s an unexpected bit of electronic instrumentation in “Ready To Go” that almost sounds like something that escaped from the Tron Legacy soundtrack; it’s not unwelcome, but does stick out a bit in a score that’s doing its best to stay in Star Wars‘ traditionally orchestral wheelhouse.

Some more exotic flavors creep in as Obi-Wan’s quest takes him further afield (“Spice Den”, “Mapuzo”, “The Path”), and things again take a dark turn as master and apprentice once again find themselves in the other’s proximity (“Sensing Vader”, “Stormtrooper Patrol”, “Hangar Escape”, “Empire ARrival”), the latter of which introduces a strident march that screams “the Empire is here” without just quoting Williams’ “Imperial March”. Holt even sneaks a quotation of Williams’ series theme into “Dark Side Assault” – see, she didn’t need outside help with that, did she?

After Ross shows up to drench another major Kenobi/Vader confrontation with buckets of synthesized choir in “I Will Do What I Must”, Holt gives us a brief reprieve from the action music with the quieter “Sacrifice”, before resuming the chase and finally getting a hint of “The Imperial March” in (“No Further Use”). As is typical, the major action setpiece (“Overcoming The Past”) is handed off to Ross’ arrangement of Williams’ theme, elevated to a grand level as Obi-Wan finally finds his footing within the Force again, leaving Vader in a weakened state both physically and emotionally. Two more Holt cues (“Tatooine Desert Chase”, “Who You Become”) tie off the story of Reva, an Imperial Inquisitor obsessed with tracking down Obi-Wan, with Ross again getting the last word with “Saying Goodbye”, which quotes both Williams’ newly-minted Obi-Wan theme and the original trilogy’s theme for Leia.

4 out of 4It’s all fine music. Despite the number of cooks in the kitchen, it does all integrate better than one might expect. Some of you reading this are probably shouting at your screens something along the lines of “We’re privileged to be getting even one new piece of Star Wars music from John Williams!” And there may be something to that, but as solid as Holt’s work is throughout, why was it not good enough for nearly a quarter of the score, if the soundtrack’s track listing is any indication? It’s a little unsettling to think that while the casting of the Star Wars steaming shows is growing more diverse (though, as the unfortunate pushback against the amazing Moses Ingram demonstrated, not without difficulty), other elements of production very much present the appearance of keeping the glass ceiling in place with Imperial zeal.

  1. Obi-Wan (4:06)
  2. Order 66 (1:40)
  3. Inquistors’ Hunt (3:09)
  4. Young Leia (1:04)
  5. Days of Alderaan (1:38)
  6. The Journey Begins (2:57)
  7. Bail and Leia (2:19)
  8. Nari’s Shadow (1:14)
  9. Ready to Go (2:26)
  10. Daiyu (2:25)
  11. Cat and Mouse (3:10)
  12. Spice Den (1:10)
  13. First Rescue (3:10)
  14. Mapuzo (1:17)
  15. The Path (1:35)
  16. Sensing Vader (2:49)
  17. Parallel Lines (2:12)
  18. Some Things Can’t Be Forgotten (4:47)
  19. Stormtrooper Patrol (2:34)
  20. Hangar Escape (2:33)
  21. Hold Hands (1:39)
  22. Empire Arrival (2:04)
  23. Dark Side Assault (2:37)
  24. I Will Do What I Must (2:48)
  25. Sacrifice (1:41)
  26. No Further Use (3:39)
  27. Overcoming the Past (4:28)
  28. Tatooine Desert Chase (2:19)
  29. Who You Become (3:36)
  30. Saying Goodbye (5:26)
  31. End Credit (4:02)

Released by: Disney Music
Release date: June 27, 2022
Total running time: 82:34

… Read more
Categories
2021 Music Reviews Other S Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Star Wars Year

Star Wars: Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge

8 min read

Order this CDPoor Disney. You know, despite the fact that I realize that they’re a gigantic media conglomerate that no one’s really supposed to root for, I can’t help but feel for them. Opening an in-person Star Wars attraction had to be very high on their list of reasons to purchase Lucasfilm outright; after all, Star Tours had been doing fairly brisk business since the 1980s. Surely an entire Star Wars theme park would be the most obvious money-maker in the world for Disney – never mind movies and merch, Galaxy’s Edge would probably make back most of the astronomical purchase price of Lucasfilm by itself. And then COVID happened and emptied it out. And then they overcompensated and overshot the mark with the far-too-expensive-for-most-fans Galactic Starcruiser attraction, which remains perennially underbooked. Just as the sequel movies made depressingly clear that our beloved space heroes could find no lasting peace, this chain of real-world events just underlined that you can’t have nice things in the Star Wars universe.

But hey, let’s talk about this soundtrack’s very, very good reason to exist: we get to hear Star Wars a la Bear McCreary, which is the kind of thing one hears is the stuff of days long remembered. McCreary, of course, made his very splashy entry into the ears of genre soundtrack fans with the early aughts revival of Battlestar Galactica, to which he brought a pan-cultural sensibility that was telegraphing, from the first season, what the story eventually told us at its end: these people from other worlds are where all of our world’s music comes from. So yes, you do, in fact, hear every Earth culture in there. In a lot of ways, honestly, McCreary’s scores for each episode told the story more succinctly than the scripts did. He’s since put his very audible musical stamp on such things as Outlander, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Walking Dead, Lord Of The Rings: The Ring Of Power, and Foundation, as well as modern big-screen revivals of Godzilla, Child’s Play, and more. McCreary builds worlds in his music, sometimes better than the scripts that inspire his music.

When Disney bought Lucasfilm and made it clear that more Star Wars was on the way, of course we expected John Williams to return for the sequel movies (and he did, for all of them). But then side-story movies started happening, and it became clear that Williams’ presumptive absolute lock on the franchise’s musical sound was on the verge of expiring. Rogue One went through two composers, meaning that movie has an entire Alexandre Desplat score we’ve never gotten to hear. Solo was an odd musical duck: an experienced composer, new to the franchise, under the obligation to refer to a freshly-penned Williams theme for young Han Solo (an arrangement also in place for the more recent Obi-Wan Kenobi streaming series). But after Solo, and mere weeks before The Rise Of Skywalker, came The Mandalorian, with a very clear musical vision and a very clear message: John Williams does not have to be the only one who can do this.

But the moment that other composers started entering Williams’ well-constructed sandbox, with its established classical/romantic lexicon, I started wondering when McCreary might enter the chat. One of my other picks, Michael Giacchino, landed a Star Wars assignment almost instantly, replacing Desplat’s Rogue One score. But – allowing for the fact that his schedule with TV and movie projects alike keeps him incredibly busy – when would McCreary get to play in that sandbox and bring his impeccable sense of musical world building with him? The answer came in late 2021, at a time when Disney – trying desperately to keep Galaxy’s Edge alive as its own brand at a time when it still wasn’t the greatest idea to actually go there – created a virtual reality universe built around the Galaxy’s Edge storyline. Now you could stay home and explore that world without paying travel expenses or contracting a deadly disease. This was not only its own new product, but was also served as a promo piece for the “real” Galaxy’s Edge. And would it have its own soundtrack? Oh, of course it would – even Williams had contributed a symphonic suite for the opening of the attraction itself.

But other composers would be devising the music for the VR attraction – enter the very interesting combination of McCreary, Joseph Trapanese (Tron Legacy, Tron Uprising), and Danny Piccione (sound designer for a previous Star Wars VR game). McCreary is an obvious composer to bring to the Star Wars party; the lengthy opening track reveals that he’s adept at honoring Williams’ musical lexicon while also bringing more modern sonics into play. (If you found the synths in The Mandalorian’s early episodes off-putting, this will probably be more to your liking.) “Tara Rashin” not only sees McCreary bringing his trademark thundering percussion to the table, but also a theremin-like synth. More woodwinds, percussion, and a mysterious sound accompany the “Guavian Death Gang”, characters glimpsed briefly in The Force Awakens, who I always assumed probably killed people by pushing a button and burying their victims under an avalanche of fresh guavas. Hell of a tasty way to go. “Baron Attsmun” is also swathed in mystery, but has more string-driven grandeur. “Dok-Ondar Treasures” is very much a throwback to the style that won McCreary so many fans in the Galactica days; it’s safe to say that if you know Bear chiefly from Battlestar, you’ll be pleased with his contributions here.

But wait! Joseph Trapanese is also here. He did a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes for the Tron Legacy score attributed to Daft Punk (and then proved, by effortlessly scoring the animated spinoff series Tron Uprising, that he was deservedly the co-author of Tron Legacy‘s sound). His first three tracks bring something of the “big wall of ominous brass and pulsing synth notes” feel of his Tron work, though obviously without using the exact sounds so closely associated with that universe. It’s definitely a more synth-oriented approach.

Danny Piccione takes up the middle of the album, offering up shorter selections with more of a pop music sensibility; you could dance to this stuff, though he’s clearly trying to go for the “unconventional used of earhly instrumentation standing in for alien instrumentation” feel of, say, the original Cantina Band music. All five of his tracks tend to top out at around the three minute mark. These are all fun in-universe listens, not a million miles away from the “previously unreleased Cantina Band music” remit of the two Oga’s Cantina: R3X’s Playlist albums. “Azu Ragga” is the best of these tracks, succeeding in hitting an otherworldly but still tuneful balance.

Trapanese returns for five more tracks, including the album’s longest, “IG-88”, clocking in at over 15 minutes; again, appropriately enough for a bounty hunter droid, the technological precision of his Tron work is a useful frame of reference for what to expect here. A more orchestral tone is struck with “Life Wind” and “Sacred Garden”, which is the closest that Trapanese gets to the Williams wheelhouse of most prior Star Wars music. “Patience” sees the return of the slightly-reminiscent-of-Tron synth work, while “Fountain – The Message” does away with pulsating synth bass lines.

McCreary brings things to a close with three final tracks, “The First Order” giving the sequel era’s big had a theme that isn’t borrowed from previous iterations of the franchise. “I Would Do It Again” strikes a much more hopeful note, and by the time the end credits wrap up, you’ve heard a whole hour and a half of Star Wars music without a single Williams theme.

4 out of 4In the interests of full disclosure, I haven’t played Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge itself. I’m going entirely by how enjoyable its music is. Kind of a weird way to judge a soundtrack, sure, but if the music does anything, it actually makes me want to play the game (you know, if I owned any VR gear). Surely it’s quite an experience if it merits the considerable talents of these three composers. Also, let’s set these gentlemen loose on some movies and streaming shows. Because they just spent the running time of this album proving that any one of them is worthy of the task. And because this taste of Star Wars a la Bear McCreary is an indication that we could have a whole feast.

  1. Batuu Wilderness by Bear McCreary (11:05)
  2. Tara Rashin by Bear McCreary (02:55)
  3. Guavian Death Gang by Bear McCreary (07:48)
  4. Baron Attsmun by Bear McCreary (06:49)
  5. Dok-Ondar Treasures by Bear McCreary (03:31)
  6. Age of Jedi by Joseph Trapanese (03:33)
  7. Shadows by Joseph Trapanese (04:59)
  8. Ady’s Theme – Hyperdrive by Joseph Trapanese (02:51)
  9. Pinteeka Dub by Danny Piccione (02:37)
  10. Desert Dance by Danny Piccione (02:33)
  11. Ghenza Shuffle by Danny Piccione (03:04)
  12. Cyinarc by Danny Piccione (02:25)
  13. Azu Ragga by Danny Piccione (03:09)
  14. IG-88 by Joseph Trapanese (15:25)
  15. Life Wind by Joseph Trapanese (02:55)
  16. Sacred Garden by Joseph Trapanese (04:07)
  17. Patience by Joseph Trapanese (01:54)
  18. Fountain – The Message by Joseph Trapanese (01:27)
  19. The First Order by Bear McCreary (02:49)
  20. I Would Do It Again by Bear McCreary (03:18)
  21. Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge End Credits by Bear McCreary (02:37)

Released by: Walt Disney Records
Release date: December 3, 2021
Total running time: 1:31:40

… Read more
Categories
2022 B Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Star Wars Year

The Book Of Boba Fett, Volume 1 (Chapters 1-4) – music by Joseph Shirley

5 min read

Order this CDSince it’s embraced full-time fanservice, I’m not as sure as I used to be that The Mandalorian was the revolution in Star Wars storytelling that was so urgently needed after the bulk of the sequel trilogy, but I will still give it credit for shaking up the status quo where the music of the Star Wars universe is concerned. That willingness to experiment beyond the John Williams playbook continues with the music from The Book Of Boba Fett, scored by Mandalorian composer Ludwig Goransson‘s longtime collaborator, Joseph Shirley. He’s been Goransson’s programmer since 2015‘s Creed and began racking up “additional music by…” credits alongside his mentor on TBS’ Angie Tribeca series and season two of The Mandalorian. The Book Of Boba Fett really should be his breakout work, because there’s a lot in this score to enjoy. I don’t expect to see him doing much programming work for other people after this.

Goransson still has his fingers on the scale, however: he composed the theme for the series, which is referred to frequently in the score, and he also has intimate knowledge of Goransson’s working style, so there are plenty of ways in which The Book Of Boba Fett and The Mandlorian are musically of a piece (especially since – and surely it’s been long enough that this is no longer legitimately a spoiler – two episodes out of seven are taken up by what even the show’s creators refer to as “The Mandalorian Season 2.5”, where the narrative momentum surrounding Fett himself comes to a grinding halt so we can catch up with the stars of the show from which this series was spun off). The lumbering theme Goransson coined for Fett in the second season of The Mandalorian also makes several appearances here.

One sound that The Book Of Boba Fett can claim all its own is an almost-guttural tribal sound, with low male vocals either supplanting or supplementing traditional orchestration. This is another element taking its lead from Goransson’s main theme, but it lends this show’s scores a very unique flavor. Combined with just the right level of low, threatening brass, as in the track “The Stranger”, this is an amazing sound. It’s not just an unbroken vowel sound, though; the vocals have wordless syllables that do a great deal of the rhythmic work, even if the vocals are not in the foreground of a given piece (such as “Fear Is A Safe Bet”). These elements convey a lot of the emotion as Fett joins the Tusken tribe and takes them on as his found family in the early episodes’ flashbacks. The vocal work reaches peak beauty with a passage toward the end of “Aliit Ori’shya Tal’din” that reaches for an almost religious feel.

The score also has a very modern edge, too; the “Road Rage” and “The Mod Parlour” tracks bring a trip-hop beat to the proceedings. This is particularly fun with “Road Rage”‘s extended chase scene – it’s some of the most fun action music I’ve heard since, honestly, The Matrix trilogy‘s Don Davis/Rob Dougan mash-ups. The orchestra gets its licks in, but the synth elements that almost wander into dubstep territory glue it all together, and it’s the standout action scene here. “The Mod Parlour” is a piece of source music, heard alongside the first appearance of a cybernetic modifier (think of it as the Star Wars universe’s answer to a tattoo artist) played by musician-turned-actor Thundercat, accompanying a montage of his working to save the life of Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) at Fett’s insistence; a well-known bassist, Thundercat actually plays the trippy descending bass riffs on the track itself.

If you’re looking for the music accompanying episode 2’s train heist as Fett and his found Tusken family finally take the fight to the Pykes, it’s a bonus track on the second volume. That may be a frustrating thing to move to a later release, but honestly, a lot of the best music happens before a show that’s nominally about Boba Fett suddenly gets hijacked for a check-in with Mando and Grogu.

4 out of 4If there’s anything I want out of a second season of The Book Of Boba Fett (something which, at this time, has yet to be announced officially), I want an entire season of Temuera Morrison as the show’s intense lead without the jarring “we interrupt this program for an urgent update from the Mandalorian” gear-shift of the first season, and I’m definitely ready to hear Joseph Shirley doing the music again.

  1. Rebirth (03:17)
  2. The Stranger (03:01)
  3. Normal Day at the Office (02:42)
  4. Fear Is a Sure Bet (03:48)
  5. Desert Walk (03:01)
  6. Boba’s Throne (03:45)
  7. The Twins (04:37)
  8. Stop That Train (04:06)
  9. Like a Bantha (02:03)
  10. The Ultimate Boon (05:08)
  11. Aliit Ori’shya Tal’din (06:12)
  12. Road Rage (04:57)
  13. The Mod Parlour (featuring Thundercat) (03:04)
  14. Fennec and Boba (02:09)
  15. You Fly, I’ll Shoot (05:34)
  16. The Families of Mos Espa (05:34)
  17. The Book of Boba Fett (02:56)

Released by: Disney Music
Release date: January 21, 2022
Total running time: 1:05:45

… Read more
Categories
2017 Film S Soundtracks Star Wars

Star Wars: The Last Jedi – music by John Williams

4 min read

Star Wars fandom may never be a cohesive whole again once the post-original-trilogy trilogy wraps up. The Force Awakens was knowingly derivative – on purpose, so we’re told in hindsight – to bring a new, younger audience into the familiar story beats of a Star Wars movie, while The Last Jedi‘s iconoclastic approach to the story’s remaining original trilogy characters seemed to split Star Wars fandom down the middle. The one unchanging constant in this whirlwind, however, has been John Williams, the architect of the orchestral Star Wars sound.

The soundtrack from The Last Jedi, appropriately for the middle chapter of a trilogy, leans heavily on themes already established. Themes for Rey, Kylo Ren/the First Order, and Poe/the Resistance are holdovers from The Force Awakens, with Rey’s theme given a great deal of development here. From the original trilogy, the Force theme (also frequently associated with Obi-Wan Kenobi) gets plenty of play here, as does a theme for another Jedi Master long past. The TIE Fighter battle theme is back as the Millennium Falcon shakes off its pursuers on Crait, with maybe two seconds of whimsy dropped in for Chewie’s new Porg sidekick. (Not heard on the album: the re-use of the Emperor’s theme for Snoke – perhaps a tacitly tuneful admission that the two were nearly interchangeable?) Luke and Leia’s reunion gets a somber, low-key treatment of their theme from Return Of The Jedi, tagged out by a short reference to Han and Leia’s love theme before Luke strides into battle against Kylo Ren.

Virtually the only truly new theme here is reserved for Finn’s winsome new partner, Rose (though that description should, perhaps, be the other way around). This leaves the movie’s major action setpieces for the majority of “new” material – percussive, raging battle music for Rey and Ren’s fight against Snoke’s guards, Finn’s final fight with Phasma, and naturally Luke’s climcactic duel with Kylo Ren. “The Battle Of Crait” rolls out a low, threatening motif for the oncoming First Order forces, as well as a choral interlude for Finn’s futile attempt to sacrifice himself for the Rebel cause.

The introduction to Canto Bight has an opulent opening (hearkening back to some of the “Coruscant” music from the prequel trilogy, which then segues into a boisterous jazz tune that sounds like it’s played by the same ensemble as the original Star Wars‘ Cantina Band music. It’s not a callback to that specific tune, but very much a delightful callback to its style. “The Fathiers”, accompanying the scenes of Finn and Rose lowering Canto Bight’s property value with large, four-legged help, is a callback of another kind – it sounds like a theme from an Indiana Jones movie slipped into the Star Wars universe.

I can handle a soundtrack falling back on old favorites more gracefully than I can handle the entire script of a movie doing so, and – spoiler alert – John Williams gives Luke Skywalker and Leia a truly epic sendoff, the 5 out of 4former with a mythic choral treatment, and the latter with her theme from Star Wars arranged for piano during the end credit tribute to the late Carrie Fisher.

With J.J. Abrams back in the driver’s seat for Episode IX, the question isn’t whether John Williams’ final Star Wars outing is worthy of the franchise. The question now becomes whether or not the movie itself will be worthy of Williams’ grand finale.

Order this CD

  1. Main Title and Escape (7:26)
  2. Ahch-To Island (4:23)
  3. Revisiting Snoke (3:29)
  4. The Supremacy (4:01)
  5. Fun with Finn and Rose (2:34)
  6. Old Friends (4:29)
  7. The Rebellion is Reborn (4:00)
  8. Lesson One (2:10)
  9. Canto Bight (2:38)
  10. Who Are You? (3:04)
  11. The Fathiers (2:42)
  12. The Cave (3:00)
  13. The Sacred Jedi Texts (3:33)
  14. A New Alliance (3:13)
  15. Chrome Dome (2:03)
  16. The Battle of Crait (6:48)
  17. The Spark (3:36)
  18. The Last Jedi (3:04)
  19. Peace and Purpose (3:08)
  20. Finale (8:28)

Released by: Walt Disney Records
Release date: December 15, 2017
Total running time: 77:49

… Read more
Categories
2015 Film S Soundtracks Star Wars

Star Wars: The Force Awakens – music by John Williams

Star Wars: The Force AwakensJ.J. Abrams had no shortage of composers who he could’ve called into action for this project; indeed, during press junkets for Star Trek: Into Darkness, not long after Abrams was announced as the first non-Lucas director of a Star Wars feature film, he was being asked if he was going to bring longtime collaborator Michael Giacchino to the Star Wars franchise, or if he would try to rouse John Williams out of semi-retirement. As much of a Star Wars fanboy as Abrams is, it didn’t seem terribly surprising that he fully expected to work with Williams. Ultimately, you bring Williams back to Star Wars for the same reason that you pull Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher back into it: to create a point of audience identification and to make this new, outside-the-original-trilogy entry authentic.

There, at least, Williams – now 81 years old – succeeds, because he set the bar for what to expect. But The Force Awakens isn’t really Star Wars from the past: it’s Star Wars for the future. For lack of a better way to put it, the “texture” of the soundtrack is very different, as it deals with a movie that takes place in settings unimagined in the six prior films, populated largely by character we’ve never met before. Williams gives Jakku a different flavor of desolation than Tatooine, and Kylo Ren’s musical signature is very different from Darth Vader’s. It’s an almost entirely new universe scored with almost entirely new music.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t some familiar tunes; outside of the main titles, the Star Wars theme makes itself heard first in “The Falcon”, an otherwise new track whose rapid-fire strings echo the past exploits of Han’s ship. It may not be “Hyperspace” or “The Asteroid Field”, but it’s still a pulse-raising piece of music. The Star Wars theme shows up as a motif elsewhere, including “Scherzo For X-Wings”. “Han And Leia” revives both the Princess Leia theme from Star Wars, and “Han Solo And The Princess” from The Empire Strikes Back, and both themes show up elsewhere as well.

It’s probably no surprise to anyone that the Force theme, whose perfect Platonic ideal performance-wise remains “Binary Sunset” from Star Wars, also reappears (what with the Force awakening and all). But what’s more surprising is to hear it coupled, in “The Jedi Steps and Finale”, with a musical callback to the prequel trilogy, referencing music from the scene showing Anakin’s final transformation into Vader. A surprising and ominous choice for a refrain.

It all adds up to a nice musical package. Some fans demand completion in their soundtracks; in some cases, I’m one of them. But Williams has always sequenced and sorted his soundtrack albums so they make cohesive musical sense as a listening experience. He picks out his favorite bits, and even though the three original trilogy movies have each received more-or-less-complete score releases, I still find myself going back to the original albums. The Force Awakens soundtrack is a lot like that: there’s over an hour of music here (something of a minor miracle given that it was recorded in Los Angeles by union musicians, a factor that many labels cite when issuing irritatingly short soundtrack releases), and Williams’ favorite material 4 out of 4is good enough for me. As much as the shiny new action figures of Rey and Finn and Poe Dameron and Kylo Ren (and, yes, BB-8) sitting on my shelf, a new CD of new Star Wars music by John Williams himself is the thing that says “It’s back!” more than anything else. (Now I’ll just be waiting for Meco’s take on the whole thing.)

With the next franchise movie (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) set to be scored by Alexandre Desplat, it’s clear that the learners weaned on Williams’ soundtracks will soon become the masters. But if this is the last Star Wars movie Williams scores, he’s left a parting shot to show the next generation of Star Wars soundtrack composers how it’s done.

Order this CD

  1. Main Title and the Attack on the Jakku Village (6:25)
  2. The Scavenger (3:39)
  3. I Can Fly Anything (3:11)
  4. Rey Meets BB-8 (1:31)
  5. Follow Me (2:54)
  6. Rey’s Theme (3:11)
  7. The Falcon (3:32)
  8. That Girl With The Staff (1:58)
  9. The Rathtars! (4:05)
  10. Finn’s Confession (2:08)
  11. Maz’s Counsel (3:07)
  12. The Starkiller (1:51)
  13. Kylo Ren Arrives At The Battle (2:01)
  14. The Abduction (2:25)
  15. Han And Leia (4:41)
  16. March Of The Resistance (2:35)
  17. Snoke (2:03)
  18. On the Inside (2:05)
  19. Torn Apart (4:19)
  20. The Ways Of The Force (3:14)
  21. Scherzo For X-wings (2:32)
  22. Farewell And The Trip (4:55)
  23. The Jedi Steps and Finale (8:51)

Released by: Disney Music
Release date: December 18, 2015
Total running time: 77:28

… Read more
Categories
2008 Film S Soundtracks Star Wars

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – music by Kevin Kiner

6 min read

Order this CDHaving reviewed the music from nearly the entire prequel trilogy “sight unseen” (i.e. without seeing the movie first), I thought I could get away with it again here, with the soundtrack to the CG-animated movie The Clone Wars. It may turn out that this wasn’t a good idea, because the soundtrack is as much a departure from everything that has gone before it as the film itself.

What sets The Clone Wars apart from the prequel and original trilogies is that it was done entirely in the computer. One could argue that no camera ever rolled on large chunks of Episode II and Episode III as well, but with Clone Wars there’s not even a pretense of photorealism – the characters are now seen in a stylized, animé-inspired light, and the only actors involved are voice actors. It would seem that the entirely-computer-generated scenes of the prequel trilogy were just a stepping stone.

The music marks a significant departure from the rest of the saga as well. For one of the very few times in the Star Wars franchise’s history, it has been decided to go with a composer other than John Williams, although of course the new maestro may make use of Williams’ themes from time to time. In this case, the new musical voice of Star Wars is provided by Kevin Kiner, who has scored several films and TV shows on his own (such as the Leprechaun movies and Stargate SG-1), and served a vital role in the final season of Star Trek: Enterprise when the show’s budget cuts forced its composers to fall back on synths and samples instead of real orchestral instruments; Kiner teamed up with longtime Trek composer Dennis McCarthy and fleshed out McCarthy’s music into synth-orchestral life. The best example of this available on record may be on McCarthy’s privately-released Star Trek: Borg soundtrack, whose last three tracks are explosive, memorable stuff that you’d swear was performed by a huge ensemble. Kiner is, in fact, that good.

But from the first moments of music on the Clone Wars soundtrack, it’s clear that the musical vocabulary of Star Wars is changing along with the visual vocabulary. The music is a complete departure from the traditional opening of a Star Wars film, and though Williams’ immortal theme tune is quoted, it’s quoted in an unfamiliar context. For those of us who are rushing toward (or past) the age of 40 like the Millennium Falcon making the Kessel Run, it could be seen as a sign that this isn’t our Star Wars anymore – this is Star Wars for our kids.

Nowhere is that more evident than in the early track “Obi-Wan To The Rescue”, which breaks right out of the romantic-orchestral mode into a staccato barrage of electric guitar. To be fair, screaming guitars could be heard woven into the orchestral textures of Episode II‘s wild chase through the “streets” of Coruscant, but here, it’s front and center, and instead of being an exotic flavoring, it’s rock ‘n’ roll. Similarly, tracks such as “Ziro’s Nightclub Band” and “Seedy City Swing” don’t attempt to view earthly music through a somewhat alien prism (a la Williams’ “Cantina Band” cues) – they’re on-the-nose earthly music with no pretensions of being anything but. Given that this installment of the franchise – and it subsequent TV incarnation, which will also be scored by Kiner – seems to be aimed at a younger audience, I’m not saying that these more traditional, not-so-otherworldly treatments are bad. They server their purpose as a kind musical shorthand for the action they accompany.

And yet, with cues like “Destroying The Shield”, you’d swear Williams was at the conductor’s podium – Kiner’s original pieces, for the most part, do not sound out of place next to the rest of the saga. This is partly why I listened to the soundtrack before seeing the movie: I wanted to see if the music would work just fine if there were real actors on the screen in costume. It’s not like this is John Williams meets Carl Stalling. There’s nothing I can think of that stands out as “cartoon music.” Slightly cliched bits of source music? Sure. Maybe all of a couple of minutes’ worth. This is why we have “next track” buttons.

Those expecting wholesale use of Williams’ themes all over the place, however, may be surprised – Kiner develops his own themes across the board, and while there are occasionally hints of the musical signatures originated by Williams, you don’t get big, obvious quotations of the original Star Wars themes until the very end, when some really neat variations on “The Imperial March” and the Ben Kenobi/Force theme roll out. By this time, you’ve grown so accustomed to not hearing a lot of the Williams material that their appearance comes as a shock, which is a neat effect.

Fans of Star Wars music will probably square off along a love/hate battle line to which no skirmish between clones and battle droids can compare when it comes to this album. With its orchestral-plus-occasional-rock-and-techno-beats style, this is post-Matrix Star Wars music. Oddly enough, fans who have already had their palates cleansed in advance by some of the better Star Wars game music of the past 10 years, from Force Commander’s rockin’ remixes to Empire At War’s stew of original material and Williams quotations, will be primed for this approach; those who have stuck to nothing but the original six film scores may be shocked.

4 out of 4The story of Star Wars, and its music, are under new management (though with George Lucas standing over everyone’s shoulder, clearly with the approval of the old guard), making new Star Wars stories for a new audience. And going by this first installment, there really isn’t anything necessarily wrong with that. It’s cracking good adventure movie music with a few nods back to some old favorites. Star Wars was such a boon to my generation when we were in our single digits – it single-handedly got me fascinated with the visual medium, orchestral music, and the concept of space as a whole, all of which have stayed with me my entire life. So even if this is the sound of Star Wars for our kids…that’s cool. They should be so lucky to have that same kind of inspiration.

  1. A Galaxy Divided (1:13)
  2. Admiral Yularen (0:56)
  3. Battle Of Christophsis (3:19)
  4. Meet Ahsoka (2:44)
  5. Obi-Wan To The Rescue (1:24)
  6. Sneaking Under The Shield (4:24)
  7. Jabba’s Palace (0:46)
  8. Anakin Vs. Dooku (2:18)
  9. Landing On Teth (1:43)
  10. Destroying The Shield (3:08)
  11. B’omarr Monastery (3:10)
  12. Battle Strategy (3:07)
  13. The Shield (1:36)
  14. Battle Of Teth (2:45)
  15. Jedi Don’t Run! (1:22)
  16. Obi-Wan’s Negotiation (2:07)
  17. The Jedi Council (2:04)
  18. Ahsoka (3:39)
  19. Jabba’s Chamber Dance (0:42)
  20. Ziro Surrounded (2:20)
  21. Scaling The Cliff (0:46)
  22. Ziro’s Nightclub Band (0:53)
  23. Seedy City Swing (0:34)
  24. Escape From The Monastery (3:12)
  25. Infiltrating Ziro’s Lair (2:21)
  26. Courtyard Fight (2:41)
  27. Dunes Of Tatooine (2:00)
  28. Rough Landing (3:03)
  29. Padme Imprisoned (0:50)
  30. Dooku Speaks With Jabba (1:28)
  31. Fight To The End (3:59)
  32. End Credits (0:51)

Released by: Sony Classical
Release date: 2008
Total running time: 67:23

… Read more
Categories
Prose Fiction Star Wars

Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice – The Death of Hope

Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice - The Death of HopeOrder this bookStory: On the trail of the captured Jedi Knight named Tahl, Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi finds himself losing confidence in his master, Qui-Gon Jinn, as Qui-Gon allows his personal feelings for Tahl to obscure his loyalties. At the same time, Obi-Wan and his master must try to resolve a conflict between social classes that is tearing the planet of New Apsolon apart.

Review: Boy, I hate the Star Wars Expanded Universe. I have read many Star Wars novels and with the exception of “Splinter of the Mind’s Eye” and the Brian Daley Han Solo books, I have found them almost universally dreadful. (The early Lando books weren’t too bad, either.) Seldom do the authors seem to grasp the storytelling forms used in the films. They seem to have set up their own little view of the Star Wars Universe and are more interested in adhering to that than to the work of George Lucas. (Case in point: you can make an argument for an anti-alien bias in the Empire based on what’s in the films, but the EU makes it an all-encompassing passion of the Emperor far beyond anything that Lucas even suggests.) The one area where I have ocassionally found a more accurate representation of the Star Wars universe is in books written for a younger audience. (They don’t want to mess around too much for the sake of the kids.) … Read more