Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
With The Last Jedi home release imminent, several behind the scenes clips and featurettes have been released. There’s an interview with Andy Serkis on Snoke at Entertainment Weekly; Oscar Isaac, Carrie Fisher and The Slap at People; Daisy Ridley and Rian Johnson on Rey at E!.
Despite some faint hopes, there were no real Star Wars surprises in the Oscar nominations. The Last Jedi is up for four: Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects and an Original Score nod for John Williams, his 51st.
Director Rian Johnson shared a video of Williams conducting the movie’s opening fanfare:
Continue reading “The Last Jedi gets Oscar nods for John Williams, VFX, sound”
In an interview regarding his Oscar chances this year, composer John Williams says that he’s already told J.J. Abrams that he’ll return for Episode IX. “I would very much like to complete that,” he told Variety.
Williams is eligible for both The Last Jedi and The Post this year. He’s received 50 nominations over his career and won 5, including one for the original Star Wars.
Before IX, Williams will be contributing a theme for Solo.
John Williams will be contributing to the Solo soundtrack. “The present plan is that I’m writing a theme for Han Solo, and John Powell is going to write the score, which he’ll do brilliantly,” he told Variety.
Powell was announced as the movie’s primary composer in July. He’s only the second non-Williams composer to work on a live-action Star Wars film, after Rogue One’s Michael Giacchino.
While the 40 years of Star Wars panel was light on news, it was fairly heavy on the feels. The much-vaunted surprises turned out to be George Lucas (as predicted,) Harrison Ford (who I don’t think anyone expected) and Billie Lourd, who took part in a truly epic tribute to Carrie Fisher.
I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house after the tribute video (above,) and it was only enhanced by the reveal of John Williams and the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra playing Princess Leia’s theme. They followed up with the Main Theme and the Imperial March, just in time to allow us to regain our composure.
The video does contain a look at Fisher on-set in The Last Jedi, but in the scheme of things that feels secondary. And while the panel did mainly focus on the first 6 films, it’s really only appropriate that it ended the way it did. Tomorrow, we’ll look ahead.
It seems that John Williams didn’t tell a Boston crowd that he was beginning work soon on Episode VIII, as earlier reports have claimed. Star Wars News Net has a video of his remarks regarding VIII, and he only mentions signing on and seeing a rough cut of the film “in a few weeks.” The conspiracy theorists can stand down – per usual, actual scoring is generally one of the last things to be done on a film.
Talking to Variety, composer John Williams says he has every intention of returning to score his eighth Star Wars film.
“If I can do it, I certainly will. I told Kathy Kennedy I’m happy to do it, but the real reason is, I didn’t want anybody else writing music for Daisy Ridley,” he quips.
Williams also says he has no intention of retiring. His next film, before VIII, will be Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One.
Williams received the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award Thursday night. The ceremony, which features Spielberg, George Lucas, J.J. Abrams, Harrison Ford and more paying tribute, will air on TNT June 15th at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT.
StarWars.com has put out a short video behind the scenes of The Force Awakens soundtrack with John Williams. He speaks specifically on Rey and Kylo Ren’s themes.
Now that the movie’s been out a while, here’s hoping for more short looks behind the scenes!
The Force Awakens received five Oscar nominations this morning, all in technical categories. John Williams got his 50th nomination for the score. ILM’s Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan and Chris Corbould are up for the film’s Visual Effects. Matthew Wood and David Acord are nominated for sound editing, with Andy Nelson, Christopher Scarabosio and Stuart Wilson for sound mixing. The biggest surprise is Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey for editing.
the 88th Academy Awards will be given out Sunday, February 28.
24violins.com does a cover of ‘Rey’s Theme’ from John Williams’ The Force Awakens score, using “only violin sounds and Native Instruments Maschine plus Komplete Kontrol.” They lost me at “only violins,” but I do know the result is pretty fantastic. (via)
You can download the track at Soundcloud.