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| Rogue One. Courtesy of Starwars.com |
When I went to watch Rogue One in theaters for the first time, I was only disappointed by one thing. The music. Don't get me wrong, it's an incredible score. But at the time, I didn't think composer Giacchino did it... right. Since then however, I've watched the film more and become familiar with the ins-and-outs of the music.
Long story short, I think it's amazing.
Before I dive into the music, let's talk about the background of this score. It was originally going to be scored by Alexandre Desplat, a successful French composer. However, after he had scored the movie, most of the movie was redone, and they needed him to come back. However, due to his busy schedule, Disney turned to one of my favorites: Michael Giacchino. Because of rough deadlines, Giacchino only had four weeks to score the whole movie (that's less than half of normal). Disney made it very clear before and after the film's release that the movie was totally a standalone. That's why, to my disappointment, we didn't get the normal Star Wars opening or music. Anywho, back into the review.
Giacchino is more than familiar with using themes and leitmotifs in his scores. This was more than obvious with this movie. For starters, I'll briefly talk about some of new leitmotifs he's made for this movie.
Jyn Erso has a theme, and I believe it's the most widely used in the movie. We first hear it when her mother gives her the necklace at the beginning of the movie, and hear it for the last time as she's hugging Cassian before getting Death Starred. It's really emotional, and also represents hope. I won't explain how I know this... but it might have to do with the track being named "Jyn Erso and Hope Suite" on Spotify.
Like any Star Wars movie, it has it's own bad guy theme but that's really self explanatory.
Also, Giacchino alludes to a really.... really old piece of music called Dies Ires several times (it's a really old Gaelic chant that translates to Day of Wrath). It's the equivalent to a Wilhelm Scream only way more serious. It's basically the entire score for the third section of movie.
Now for the juicy part... the leitmotifs from the old movies. Giacchino was really careful to not overuse the themes for the other movies. Only when the two storylines overlap did he use music from the other storyline. For example, the classic "Force Theme" is only heard twice, once when Organa appears, and again when he is talking about Obi-Wan.
The Imperial March is only heard two or three times, and only when it's necessary. The big surprise for me is the distant lack of the Rebel fanfare. It's heard a few times, but the entire movie is still about the Rebel Alliance... Shouldn't we have heard it more than that? Maybe that's just me, but I would really have loved so see a few more allusions to that as well.
In general, I'd have to rate this score a solid B+. It won't be on the top of my list for scores in general, but I really loved seeing it come of Giacchino. As the only composer to have scored a movie from all four branches of Disney, I think it's great to see all the different genres he can compose for. However, I felt that some of his new leitmotifs and themes were a little bit underdeveloped. This likely has to do with the fact that he only had four weeks for whole thing, and it's really hard to get a perfect theme in that time. Trust me, I've been working on two different leitmotifs for about three months now.
Anywho, that'll be it for this post, and I can't wait to see what score comes next.
Giacchino is more than familiar with using themes and leitmotifs in his scores. This was more than obvious with this movie. For starters, I'll briefly talk about some of new leitmotifs he's made for this movie.
Jyn Erso has a theme, and I believe it's the most widely used in the movie. We first hear it when her mother gives her the necklace at the beginning of the movie, and hear it for the last time as she's hugging Cassian before getting Death Starred. It's really emotional, and also represents hope. I won't explain how I know this... but it might have to do with the track being named "Jyn Erso and Hope Suite" on Spotify.
Like any Star Wars movie, it has it's own bad guy theme but that's really self explanatory.
Also, Giacchino alludes to a really.... really old piece of music called Dies Ires several times (it's a really old Gaelic chant that translates to Day of Wrath). It's the equivalent to a Wilhelm Scream only way more serious. It's basically the entire score for the third section of movie.
Now for the juicy part... the leitmotifs from the old movies. Giacchino was really careful to not overuse the themes for the other movies. Only when the two storylines overlap did he use music from the other storyline. For example, the classic "Force Theme" is only heard twice, once when Organa appears, and again when he is talking about Obi-Wan.
The Imperial March is only heard two or three times, and only when it's necessary. The big surprise for me is the distant lack of the Rebel fanfare. It's heard a few times, but the entire movie is still about the Rebel Alliance... Shouldn't we have heard it more than that? Maybe that's just me, but I would really have loved so see a few more allusions to that as well.
In general, I'd have to rate this score a solid B+. It won't be on the top of my list for scores in general, but I really loved seeing it come of Giacchino. As the only composer to have scored a movie from all four branches of Disney, I think it's great to see all the different genres he can compose for. However, I felt that some of his new leitmotifs and themes were a little bit underdeveloped. This likely has to do with the fact that he only had four weeks for whole thing, and it's really hard to get a perfect theme in that time. Trust me, I've been working on two different leitmotifs for about three months now.
Anywho, that'll be it for this post, and I can't wait to see what score comes next.
