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J.J. Abrams Will Direct, Now Who Will Score?

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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.

“In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be “replaced” by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.” - George Lucas

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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.

 

 

“In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be “replaced” by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.” - George Lucas

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I hope for Williams. 

To write the music, not to score with Frink.

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I liked Giacchino's Speed Racer score, so I'd think he would do well on a SW film.

Williams will be probably be asked first.

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TheBoost said:

I hope for Williams. 

To write the music, not to score with Frink.

Darn.

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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.

John Williams score to Return of the Jedi Remastered/Remixed:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/JOHN-WILLIAMS-Star-Wars-Episode-VI-Return-of-the-Jedi-Remastered-Edition/topic/14606/page/1/

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John Williams. If not him than Giacchino. Lost, the Incredibles, the last two Mission: Impossibles, Star Trek, Up, and John Carter all have great scores. But what you really need to listen to is his score for Super 8. Williams or Giacchino. No one else.

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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 .

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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Marco Beltrami

“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”

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I definitely hope John Williams will be, or has been, approached. I could imagine that he may want to finish off his tenure with Star Wars with something else than the PT scores, which were hacked to pieces and - as far as I know - largely disowned by himself. So it's a no-brainer for me. As long as John Williams wants to compose for "Star Wars", he should.

If Williams is not an option, I'd like to see (hear?) Joel McNeely do the score. His score for Shadows of the Empire was excellent and I'm sure he could score an actual Star Wars film.

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Mission Impossible (3 and 4) and Star Trek showed that Giacchino can do wonders with existing themes - Star Trek in particular managed to be both a great Trek score and a great Giacchino score, no mean feat.

Not to mention the incredible stuff he did for Lost - the evolution of character themes in that were at times quite stunning (unlike Williams' underwhelming efforts with the Anakin/Vader themes, and I don't think that can be entirely attributed to bad editing).

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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.

And in the time of greatest despair, there shall come a savior, and he shall be known as the Son of the Suns.

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

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I wish he hadn't added a choir.  IMHO it is wrong for Star Wars.  I think Empire had the best music followed closely by ANH.  You really felt for the characters because of the music (like Yoda, Darth Vader, etc.)

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Both ESB and RotJ had choirs in their scores.

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Jonno said:

Both ESB and RotJ had choirs in their scores.

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

And in the time of greatest despair, there shall come a savior, and he shall be known as the Son of the Suns.

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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.

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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)

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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

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I wasn't aware Joel Goldsmith had died. It certainly didn't get the media coverage his father's passing did.

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