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Ranking the Star Wars Soundtracks — Page 6

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suspiciouscoffee said:

Tyrphanax said:

It feels less like the PT was scored after TPM and more like Lucas just said “Eh throw in that popular one from the first movie.”

Like the laughable Anakin road trip montage in AOTC that uses Duel of the Fates for some reason.

Oh yeah I love that scene. One of the only scenes in Attack of the Clones that doesn’t make me cringe.

Not enough people read the EU.

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I remember seeing that scene for the first time in the theater as a kid and thinking “why are they playing that song here?” but its use has since grown on me.

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DominicCobb said:

I also am of two minds on Duel of the Fates. Is it an amazing piece of music? Absolutely. Is it also ridiculously over the top? Yes. Why do we need an epic choir for that lightsaber duel? Why do we even care? Well the answer is we don’t

My thoughts exactly.

Completely reversed in R1 track “Hope” (when you-know-what happens), as we do care, and we get something akin to XIXc gothic opera, where the chorus is matching the horror.
(otherwise I don’t like too much chorus, like the one during Jyn’s Theme was too much for me)

I wonder if they will mention it in Oxygen, I found that in Youtube’s comments:

try to speed up that track, at least x2. Notice the notes the chorus hits? Isn’t that a certain familar march…?

Did Giacchino do the same genious trick as John Williams in TPM, where that festive child chorus is actually …sped-up Emperors’ Theme?

I saw the original theatrical release of the Old Trilogy on the big screen and I'm proud of it...
How did I accomplish that (considering my age) is my secret...
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 (Edited)

After listening to the Oxygen on TPM I’ve come to think of Duel of the Fates as more of the theme of the larger dark vs. light conflict.

Also a huge new appreciation for Anakin’s theme. It really does give you the whole character arc in one piece of music (and it dovetails nicely with Imperial March). All that music deserved a much better movie.

Keep Circulating the Tapes.

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Anakin’s theme is a good piece of music but it shouldn’t exist in its current form. It’s childish and Anakin should never have been portrayed as a child, so it’s hard to appreciate fully (not to mention he practically drops it in II and III).

Duel of the Fates is monumental and a perfect example of the film not being good enough for the music (or big enough). If I listened to the soundtrack first, I would have expected something much different.

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Hope is my new morning alarm. Wakes me right up because I’m scared Vader’s gonna kill me 😆

.

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ANH 11/10
ESB 10/10
ROTJ 9/10
ROTS 8/10
TFA 8/10
AOTC 7/10
TPM 7/10
R1 4/10

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YevX said:

ANH 11/10
ESB 10/10
ROTJ 9/10
ROTS 8/10
TFA 8/10
AOTC 7/10
TPM 7/10
R1 4/10

Another one I simply cannot wrap my brain around.

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TV’s Frink said:

YevX said:

ANH 11/10
ESB 10/10
ROTJ 9/10
ROTS 8/10
TFA 8/10
AOTC 7/10
TPM 7/10
R1 4/10

Another one I simply cannot wrap my brain around.

How come? lol.

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TV’s Frink said:

YevX said:

ANH 11/10
ESB 10/10
ROTJ 9/10
ROTS 8/10
TFA 8/10
AOTC 7/10
TPM 7/10
R1 4/10

Another one I simply cannot wrap my brain around.

I guess he really loves “Across The Stars”

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Hahaha, sorry, thought I was in the movie ranking thread rather than the soundtrack thread. Carry on!

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Still though…AOTC’s soundtrack > TPM’s?

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oh yeah, bounty hunters pursuit, across the stars.

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TV’s Frink said:

Hahaha, sorry, thought I was in the movie ranking thread rather than the soundtrack thread. Carry on!

weird enough, that’s how id rank my films, only put r1 after tfa.

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But beyond that the soundtrack is not on par with Williams’ other works imo. TPM has quite a few tracks that are not only great but memorable as well. Can’t say the same for AOTC’s sounctrack.

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YevX said:

that’s how id rank my films

Don’t let Darth Id rank your films. He’ll give you low scores just out of spite.

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I think one of the best parts about the TFA soundtrack are the western/cowboy film influences.

Keep Circulating the Tapes.

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I really appreciate how John Williams just took on a whole new sound for the film, while still obviously working in the same general parameters. It’s definitely SW, but it sounds very different from any of the previous scores.

And of course there’s some of his best leitmotivic work in years (which is showcased in possibly one of his all-time best end credit suites).

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DominicCobb said:

I really appreciate how John Williams just took on a whole new sound for the film, while still obviously working in the same general parameters. It’s definitely SW, but it sounds very different from any of the previous scores.

And of course there’s some of his best leitmotivic work in years (which is showcased in possibly one of his all-time best end credit suites).

Yeah, I’ve come to appreciate the new scores the more I listen to them on shuffle with the OT scores.

Oxygen turned me onto the end credit suite for Revenge of the Sith. Wow. That is just an incredible farewell to the franchise from him (considering at the time that was the last movie). It’s so incredible.

Keep Circulating the Tapes.

END OF LINE

(It hasn’t happened yet)

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Tyrphanax said:

DominicCobb said:

I really appreciate how John Williams just took on a whole new sound for the film, while still obviously working in the same general parameters. It’s definitely SW, but it sounds very different from any of the previous scores.

And of course there’s some of his best leitmotivic work in years (which is showcased in possibly one of his all-time best end credit suites).

Yeah, I’ve come to appreciate the new scores the more I listen to them on shuffle with the OT scores.

Oxygen turned me onto the end credit suite for Revenge of the Sith. Wow. That is just an incredible farewell to the franchise from him (considering at the time that was the last movie). It’s so incredible.

The ROTS end credit has always been a favorite track of mine to listen to (easily has more plays than any other 13 minute track by a mile) - there’s just so much classic music there, and put together quite magnificently. I will say, if I have to put my critical hat on, the majority of is just recycled from SW, and of course in many ways it’s meant as a suite for the whole saga (which, with hindsight, dampens its effect) so I’ve always found it hard to rate amongst the others. As an original composition, the best (only?) thing it has to offer is a pretty fantastic rendition of the Force theme (ROTS is nothing if not filled with great Force theme variations).

In my mind, SW will always be the best end credit suite because of a whole host of reasons. It is the shortest and the simplest, but there is a beauty in simplicity, and we must not forget that for SW, truly the whole thing was a suite (including the initial Rebel fanfare/main title/rolling thunder medley that is reprised in all the suites).

Empire is certainly up there with it’s delightful, bouncy play on Yoda’s theme (music edit be damned, though the transition into Yoda’s theme is maybe the best transition into new themes there is) and for having the best ending to perhaps any score ever(?).

ROTJ, TPM, and AOTC are pretty straightforward (with AOTC as usual being the biggest offender with only ONE new theme in the suite, at least ROTJ and TPM had a couple). Though still obviously all fantastic pieces (this is JW we’re talking about).

TFA though… damn. First you get one of the best Rey’s theme renditions there is in the whole score, then you get a whole serving of Kylo Ren (two themes and one ambiguously Ren/FO motif), which then segues into the action (Finn? Falcon?) motif, DURING which Poe’s theme comes out of nowhere, and from there we jump into the March of the Resistance in full force, and then we segue back into Rey’s theme which plays masterfully alongside the Force theme and then finally resolves with a beautiful, twinkling rendition of the main title. Jesus what a piece.

If we’re going on a pure numbers game, SW has a medley of three themes/motifs, ESB three (not counting holdover material), ROTJ two (ditto), TPM two (three if you count the Imperial March), AOTC one (two, again if you count blink and you miss it Imperial March), ROTS two I guess(? or three? don’t know how to evaluate this with regards to holdover material… side note, would you believe though that this is the first suite to feature the Force theme? how is that possible?), TFA has SEVEN (and that’s IF you count all the Ren/FO stuff just once). I’d call that impressive.

SW Oxygen is pretty good. Just starting to get into it - binged a bunch on a long plane ride a couple days ago. I’m mostly mad though that I wasn’t listening along at the time because there’ve been a few instances where I wanted to send them feedback on nearly four year old episodes.

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I agree about the feedback, haha. Dave and Jimmy are really nice on Twitter, so send away.

I feel like if ROTS was intended as a goodbye to the series, TFA is like a “hello, old friend” stretching of the legs in a new world. Very good credits.

Keep Circulating the Tapes.

END OF LINE

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I’m not much of a soundtrack guy at all, so I really have no opinion on any them…but it’s interesting to hear you guys discuss how good TFA is after hearing months of how bad or boring it is.