The Force Awakens lacks a big OST

I know very little about the intricacies of music, I just listen to it like most people do. I felt that this was a good, emotional score that helped tell the story of the scenes. With the original trilogy I felt like there were many more sequences where the music was obviously the focus of certain shots/sequences, whereas in this movie the music walks hand in hand with the story on the screen.

 

One thing I've always loved about SW is that the music helps to drive the story instead of the story driving the music and I definitely didn't feel it with TFA .

 

That's unfortunate. I thought it worked very well. In fact key moments in the movie I definitely noticed the music helping my enjoyment of it.

 

I will definitely admit it worked perfectly with Kylo Ren/Ham Solo, Luke Skywalker/Rey, and Rey/Finn escaping Jakku .

 

I disagree haha, NBC's Sunday Night Football theme is pretty hummable and catchy. It's stuck in my head almost every Monday...

 

The little bit of intro that accompanied the First Order shuttles was a thrilling opener imho.

 

I agree to a point. The soundtrack is forgettable compared to every other SW movie.

 

It's not completely horrible, however .

 

Yeah I agree. It's not bad. Good even. But It's lacking that iconic new tune that I should be humming constantly right now.

ie. The Force theme, Imperial march, duel of fates, Han Leia love theme, Asteroids, Yoda....and more. These new themes aren't even close in comparison. But I do dig the bit at the end just before the credits role.

 

To be fair, you can hear riffs on previously established themes, but it's still a rehash.

 

This is Rey theme, i just post it in the last page

 

The music is superb and supports the movie perfectly, go listen to the expanded music that disney have released .

 

I've been mulling this one over and have discussed it with a few people in private messages (because I didn't want to whiz in anyone's Wheaties here in the Cantina) BUT...

I find the TFA soundtrack to be by far the weakest of the SW scores. And I think it boils down to one very simple thing.

Our old friend, John Williams, is almost 84 years old.

Look, I grew up on his music. We all did (at least most of us, I assume). He remains one of my favorite musicians of all time, and always will. And like any musician, he has his hits and misses (though IMHO a far greater batting average than most.)

The TFA soundtrack sounded tired. I listened to the whole thing a few times yesterday while I was working, and what I hear is some very nice, very Star Wars-ey ambient music. But it's more like orchestral noodling than the dynamic leitmotif approach that was the cornerstone of Williams' best film scores. I hear a lot of march-tempo passages, and a lot of triplets, but they don't really go much of anywhere most of the time. Most of it sounds way more like incidental background music than what we've come to expect from one of Williams' film scores.

Cole, you nailed it... what are the new tunes that we're humming from this soundtrack? Where are the "hit singles" of the TFA score? Because isn't that really what the classic John Williams movie soundtracks always had? Specific musical themes that had a beginning, a middle and an end, that could then easily be quoted in other pieces, using only a bar or two of the theme?

Think of Yoda's Theme, for instance. You've got that beautiful, sweeping string-section melody that opens it, then that slightly more playful, chirpy "middle eight", and then back into the main melody. And then all of those fantastic little variations in other pieces and other SW soundtracks, but all very much grounded in that original theme. Sometimes you'll hear a couple bars of it in another context, but those couple of bars are all it takes to bring back that mental image and emotional color that the full theme evokes.

THIS is what's missing from the TFA soundtrack, IMHO.

Rey's theme is very nice, and almost gets there... so near, yet so far. There is one portion of it that is quoted elsewhere in the score, but as a piece unto itself just sort of wanders. The Resistance March is the only other theme in this score that approaches that classic, self-contained "hummable" melodic theme, and even it wanders in spots. Honestly, I don't even hear the brief little "scene themes" that Williams has also always done. Think of the Sandcrawler music in ANH. Or the Walker battle music in ESB. I bet you all heard them in your heads when I mentioned them just now, didn't you? How about that "There's the blockade!" music from TPM that was reused half a dozen times in the PT? I just don't hear these distinctive melodic pieces in the TFA soundtrack.

Now, I realize that TFA is VERY fast-paced, and some have surmised that this didn't leave room for Williams to do a big, theme-heavy soundtrack for the film. But Star Wars films have always been fast-paced (wellll... PT "stand in a room and talk" exposition scenes excepted!) and there was ALWAYS dynamic, theme-based music under the films. The Asteroid Chase? The Death Star assault in ANH? Heck, how about the Truck Chase in Raiders? All fast-paced action sequences, and FULL of memorable musical passages. There is always room for a bold, thematic score in even the most action-packed movie. In fact, I'd argue that the faster and more action-packed a movie, the more it cries out for the classic leitmotif soundtrack score that John Williams is famous for.

John Williams is just getting old, like we all eventually will. And the bursting-with-energy soundtracks he used to compose probably aren't something he really has in him anymore. The inventive themes that he came up with three or four decades ago... it's very possible that he's wrung himself almost dry of those kinds of pieces. Twilight, as Yoda might say, is upon him. And I think his latest compositions reflect that.

It's okay. I mean, I'll take a John Williams Lite version of a movie soundtrack any day of the week and twice on Sundays. There is simply nobody like him. I've always felt about John Williams what Bill Graham once said of the Grateful Dead: "They aren't the best at what they do - they're the only ones who DO what they do!" IMHO, that describes John Williams to a "T". Who else composes movie soundtracks like he has done? God love him for... well, just for being.

But... time does what time does. And I think that's what a lot of us are hearing as "wrong" with the TFA soundtrack. What's there is perfectly nice music. I think we're just pining a bit for a time when Williams' music had the energy and powerful themes to go way, way beyond merely "nice".

 

The Resistance Theme is awesome as well