I can't imagine Kathleen Kennedy not going after JW.  If he wants to do it, you have to give it to him.  I seriously doubt Abrams would have a problem with this.

The question is does JW even want to compose them, since he is semi-retired these days.

Three facts about JW Scoring SW:

#1 He said in an interview, that he would still score films by other directors, he just is not asked to much.

#2 Apparently JW has said "I'll Try!"

#3 Giacchino is a big fan of JW

I wasn't crazy about Glacchino's Star Trek score.  I just watched it again recently and was pretty underwhelmed, especially since I had just watched Star Trek 1, 2, & 3, and have always loved Goldsmith and Horner's scores.

But I really am not familiar enough with Glacchino's work to honestly debate his abilities to score Ep VII.

That being said, I will be surprised if JW is not the composer.

I will probably score this weekend.

TheBoost said:

I hope for Williams. 

To write the music, not to score with Frink.

Darn.

Cobra Kai said:

I wasn't crazy about Glacchino's Star Trek score.  I just watched it again recently and was pretty underwhelmed, especially since I had just watched Star Trek 1, 2, & 3, and have always loved Goldsmith and Horner's scores.

I felt the same way, until I heard the full score, without tracking, and hacking, and re-editing.

DominicCobb said:

Williams or Giacchino. No one else.

...or Howard Shore, James Newton Howard, or John Powell or...

There have been other star wars composers than Williams just not on the movies.  For shadows of the Empire, the 2 Kotor games, the 2 force unleashed games.  The Old republic.  The Clone wars cartoon series. 

As for Star Trek i wish they would hire Joel Goldsmith.  And return to the Goldsmith themes but they won't .

Marco Beltrami

Williams is great but he hasn't done that many great scores in decades. The score for the PT is pretty forgettable compared to OT, Superman, Jaws or Indy. I don't think now that he's retired he'd do any better but of course, I'd like to be proven wrong. The feeling of grandeur just isn't there anymore.

I think TPM was really good, actually.  It was so good Lucas kept using it, unfortunately.

Jonno said:

Both ESB and RotJ had choirs in their scores.

But they're waaay more subtle that you almost don't notice it.

I thought that the entire OT all had superb scores, and that TPM also had a wonderful score.  I loved the choir in the climactic lightsaber battle and consider it one of his brilliant ideas, right up there with the OT scores, and one of the redeeming features of TPM.  After that, I don't remember anything memorable in AOTC or ROTS.  Given JW's role in shaping the SW universe, he must be offered the score first.

Don't forget that Lucas would always give Williams a list of songs to use as inspiration for each film. For AOTC it was a list of love themes. Dunno about ROTS.

Just for fun here are some vids with Williams about his work on the prequels:

TPM Part One, Two, and Three

AOTC

ROTS

and here's a bonus ESB era documentary:

Star Wars: Music by John Williams (1980)

skyjedi2005 said:

As for Star Trek i wish they would hire Joel Goldsmith.

Ghosts don't compose music.

He's Dead, Jim.

fishmanlee said:

skyjedi2005 said:

As for Star Trek i wish they would hire Joel Goldsmith.

Ghost's don't compose music.

But most of them know how to use an apostrophe. :p