OFFICIAL NEWS Alexandre Desplat to score Rouge One!

It's not as though Williams was going to score every Star Wars movie going forward (not at his age), so this isn't completely unexpected. Hear's hoping Desplat builds his score off of Williams' themes. This isn't a point when I'd try to reinvent the wheel.

 

I suspect The Force Awakens will be Williams last Star Wars movie. With his age being a factor. I'd like to see if he has one more trilogy left in him, but I'd understand if he wants to call it a day after this. He will always be a master. That said, Alexandre is definitely talented and the franchise is in good hands.

 

Great news!

 

I wasn't sure when I heard the news. Godzilla was fairly inconsequential in terms of the score, but then I noticed The Imitation Game was his work, which fills me with a lot more confidence! I don't want, as someone so aptly put in the SW7N article, a watered down John Williams, so it will be good to see a new flavour to Star Wars, but I do still want a similar idea. Kevin Kiner did a great job with TCW (and I'm sure he'll find his feet with Rebels), so hopefully we'll get something new and exciting out of this.

I'm still holding hope for Giacchono in the future!

 

I wonder who that someone is? He must be a pretty cool guy.

 

This is exactly what Star Wars doesn't need. "They aren't my themes, so I'm not going to use them."

That's like a steak house hiring a chef who says, "Steak isn't my speciality. I shall make my souffle instead!"

 

Precisely.

Star Wars has always been the sum of its parts, and one of the most important of those parts has always been John Williams scores. There are a lot of gifted composers out there, and they need to find one of them who counts among his gifts the ability to compose old-school leitmotif themes in the style of John Williams. You know damned well that they're out there, too.

IMHO, how you water down John Williams' style is to write a Star Wars film score in which you don't bother to pursue Williams' style, or in which you pursue Williams' style in a half-assed way.

 

I really don't know how to feel about this. I mean, Harry Potter's theme is pretty iconic too (in my opinion) and recognizable yet I didn't feel that the music was completely disregarded in DH part 1 and 2. I felt they went in a direction that required a more dark and ominous score as opposed to the happy-go-lucky score we heard in the earlier movies.

That said, I think if you take away the "theme" mentality with characters and go to more tone setting scores and broad pieces then it doesn't feel like Star Wars, though I'm not sure this movie is supposed to feel like the others. I think it will be a completely different movie than we're used to seeing. I'm not sure there will be an opening crawl...

Johnny (we're pals) did a great job with a dark yet reminiscent score in Episode III, so I think maybe they are going in a completely different direction than the Episodic formatted films.

 

Why wouldn't it be intended to feel like the others? It's a Star Wars movie.

Think way back to the beginning, when there was just one movie out - STAR WARS!! - and it hadn't yet become a multigenerational soap opera about the Skywalker family. It was an adventure movie that was very much about what it was advertised to be - "An epic of heroes, villains and aliens from a thousand worlds." It was big ol' fun, and the music reflected that.

That's still going to be what the stand-alone movies are. And I see no reason why they shouldn't have the same kind of exciting, theme-driven musical scores that every other Star Wars movie has ever had.

 

I'm just saying the movie is not called "Star Wars: Rogue One." It's called Rogue One. In MY mind this is not a cookie cutter Star Wars movie like everyone seems to think it is. It is a different film altogether. Sure it will have some common themes (like you said, it is Star Wars), but my feeling is this movie needs to stand on its own and the only way to do that is to make it different. Not worse. Just different.

 

Since when? That sounds a lot like the early rumors that The Force Awakens wouldn't have an episode number attached to it.

They aren't going to ditch the Star Wars name just because it isn't part of the Skywalker saga. The marketing teams at LFL and Disney would have a conniption over that notion.

Sticking a movie about starfighter pilots with a bland, generic soundtrack score isn't exactly the way to make the movie stand out on its own. It's a good way to start the spin-off series down the "straight-to-DVD" path, but I don't think anyone wants to see that happen.

 

I know what a spinoff show would be, but I have never seen a spinoff movie before. Does it have to go along the same lines or can it stand on its own? I thought it was the latter.

Edit: Wow read my original comment back to myself and realized how douchey I sounded. Didn't mean to come off that way. Clarified above.

 

Please don't think twice about it, man. I know I tend to get kind of revved up about my own opinions too, and I apologize if I injected too much of that into my posts.

I think our best comparison for now, until we see what the SW franchise actually has in store for it, is to look to the Marvel films. There are the Avengers movies, which bring all of the characters together into a big epic story, and then there are the individual superhero movies, which I guess sort of correspond to the SW spin-off/stand-alone movies.

Each film, whether it's just about Iron Man or Thor, or about the Avengers as a whole, have the same overall feel to them. They're superhero movies, and that's how they all feel. None of the directors of the individual superhero movies are trying to be Fellini or anything. It all feels like one "universe" with the differences coming in the characters and stories for each movie.

I suspect that we'll see a similar degree of cohesion between the Star Wars movies. There is a certain look, feel and sound to a Star Wars movie that I think (hope!) will be maintained regardless of whether it's a main saga film or a stand-alone film. What will make the stand-alone films different will, I think, be far more about character and content than about the style of the direction, the music, etc.

 

Excellent choice. His Godzilla score gave me chills!

 

[OFF-TOPIC]Please, check your spell, specially on thread titles.
Rogue:

Rouge:


Canon:

Cannon:

[/OFF-TOPIC]

 

Thank you!

 

I had the chance to communicate with Desplat back in the days (before the emails, we were correspondants),.... he's a great and talentuous composer, one of the very best. Rogue One has landed one gem, believe me. This guy is a potential John Williams for Star Wars Next Gen. I am so happy it is happening. I would not be surprised if he ends up composing for the next trilogy (X, XI, XII).