SPECULATION Who Should Score the Spin-Offs if John Williams is Unable To?

I wouldn't mind Kevin Kiner who did The Clone Wars and is now doing Rebels do the spin-offs or Joel McNeely who composed the soundtrack for Shadows of the Empire.

As for the Daft Punk score, I don't think their style would fit right with the tone of Star Wars. They sound more computer-y and not space-y.
If I had to choose a non-classical styled composer, I would choose Joe Satriani. He would do an amazing score for a Star Wars spin-off, listen to tracks from his album Black Swans & Wormhole Wizards they have that adventurous, outer-space feel with rockin' guitars.

 

Michael Giacchino.

 

Hans Zimmer or Steve Jablonsky

 

Alan Silvestri who did avengers, captain america, back to the future, among others.

 

I have to second Michael Giacchino on these easily. His scores of the new Star Trek films are excellent and he is definitely capable of creating a score that would fit the Star Wars style. He's also already very familiar to Disney as he has scored several films for them and has a few more already in line.

I can't help but wonder also though if we may get a different composer for each spin off film in much the way we're getting a different director. It'd give each film it's own distinct feel. That may even serve to benefit the spin-offs!

 

Kevin Kiner or Michael Giacchino.

Something too unusual -- IE Daft Punk or even Hans Zimmer (although epic) -- could drastically disrupt the Star Wars "feel" IMO.

 

I'm probably going to be the "black sheep" here, but - I seriously wouldn't mind seeing Mark Griskey do some work for the franchise again, his work on Knights of the Old Republic II & The Force Unleashed games are, in particular, incredibly well done.

 

I like the great music of John Barry. He scored a few Bond films. I think he may of past away.
I will check.
The guy who did the music for www.IMPStherelentless.com was top notch, .
I'm not sure if they used film scores or music from other sources or if it was new but the composer really made it emotional.
Zimmer would also be a great pick but I think Disney has a few composers they like to use.

 

Alexandre Desplat.

I could easily see this as the Order 66 and fall of the Jedi.

 

I've liked Steve Jablonsky's work on Transformers. The music is better than the movie—has a lot of drive and emotion.

 

Whoever scores them, I think the spinoffs should not open with the main Star Wars theme. They should each have their own unique opening theme (possibly an existing Williams motif depending on who the movie is about). But the classic opening theme with crawl should be reserved for the core trilogies.

 

I disagree about not opening the spin-offs with the main Star Wars theme. The main theme and the opening crawl are more than just part of the core trilogies. They are what transport us into that world. You walk in off the street, sit down in the theater, the lights go down, and when that theme comes blaring out of the sound system and the crawl begins, it brings you right into that world, almost like a Pavlovian response. And dagnabbit, ain't that what we're payin' our dollar for?

While I dug the Clone Wars cartoons, I never liked the new opening theme. (And Rebels... does it even HAVE an opening theme?) But then again, the beginning of a Clone Wars cartoon wasn't drawing us into a two-hour epic, it was intro-ing a half-hour television program. I can see why they wouldn't want to spend a minute or two of their 22 minutes on an opening theme/crawl for that.

But for a two-hour movie... I say, use the classic main title to create that space for us, to draw us into that familiar old place that we've loved to go since we were kids. There's no reason to limit it to the core trilogies - it's the Star Wars theme, after all. And the spin-off films are Star Wars stories just as the trilogies are.

 

I couldn't agree more! This is what I always felt made Star Wars really work the way it did. As a kid, I was fascinated by the SW soundtrack albums (even though we got shorted pretty badly on the ROTJ album, music-wise.) John Williams was in his prime then, and the themes he came up with for those movies were a big part of what made the visual imagery and the dialogue resonate and stick with me the way it all did. The Death Star battle in the original movie was a perfect example. Williams didn't just score incidental "tension" music there, he took the musical themes he'd used throughout the film and meshed variations of them together in a way that built and built until eventually Han and Chewie came roaring out of the sun and saved the day. Look at that whole battle scene and tell me that it would have ever had the impact that it has on us if Williams hadn't so brilliantly incorporated leitmotif into his composition.

Or, if you want to go for something even more blatantly and brilliantly manipulative, try and envision "I love you/I know" from ESB without that soaring variation on the Han and Leia theme. Hell, I just had the hair on my arms stand up just thinking about it as I wrote that.

Conventional incidental film music doesn't do that. It doesn't create those emotional connections that skillful use of leitmotif does. And as you so rightly point out, Max... Star Wars NEEDS that. It's practically the life blood of the whole experience of watching a Star Wars movie.

 

"I'm right with ya, boss!"

It really is the nature of Star Wars as fantasy melodrama that lends itself to the leitmotif approach, and you're right... reliance on variations and intertwining of character themes might very well come across as a bit overwrought in another kind of picture.

But again, this is why it's so important that they find just the right composer for Williams to eventually pass the torch to. If they bungle that, if they hand the music off to somebody for any other reason than that they have the classical leitmotif style practically oozing out of their pores, Star Wars could very well lose something vital.

 

Michael Giacchino hands down he writes some truly great and memorable scores.

 

Marty O'Donnell !!!!