First things first: I am a huge John Williams fan (I have a picture of him in my living room) – so I will try to keep this review unbiased… yeah right…
Being one of the most anticipated soundtracks for me during the 10’s I was eager to listen to this one as soon as it came out – this meant 08:00 on the subway on the way to work. When the first adrenaline rush had died down after the classic SW fanfare in “Main Title and The Attack on the Jakku Village” – I was not initially impressed. I think underwhelming is the word that closest comes to mind. The rhythmic strings in 1:43 are awesome – but other than that – I must admit i had a difficult time finding a common theme in the piece. But after I had listened to the entire soundtrack I realized that is the first track’s strength: it is the overture to the new trilogy! (The trumpet line in 3:42 gave me bad EpII chase through Coruscant vibes however…)
“The Scavenger” is basically “Rey’s Theme” with some elaboration. The theme is nice – and maybe it will be as known as “the Force” theme in the saga, but for now I will review it as just “nice”. I think the beauty of the piece will be heard in its variations and in the way it is tied in to the fate of the character – a good example of this is in the track “The Abduction” in 1:40 – gives me goosebumps every time!
If williamsy was and adjective, I might have used it to describe many of the tracks on the album. You can sometimes get too much of a Home Alone-vibe (no pun intended), but I am not complaining. The fanfare them in “The Falcon” in 1:00 references the original trilogy just enough to remember the Sail Barge Assault or Tie Fighter Attack. (Lando: “We’re on our way!”)
Kylo’s theme is basically 5 notes – and not so much a theme as a “bad omen”. It reminds me of the first 4 notes in Uranus by Gustav Holst. I just recently realized (and I’ll blame it on me being born in the late 80’s with all the OT movies already released) that the Imperial March (Darth Vader’s theme) is actually not introduced until the second movie in the trilogy. Perhaps JW is going for something similar here? Will we perhaps hear a more developed and complete theme in the next movie? I hope so.
“The Starkiller” has the same type of string progression as Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for strings”. It’s interesting how JW has chosen a rather painful theme instead of a more Imperial march “power”-theme. I wonder how Hans Zimmer would have scored that one…
I don’t have an opinion on “March of the Resistance”. Perhaps that says something in itself…
When I heard there was going to be an acapella male voice choir piece in the soundtrack I was really exited! (I am myself a male voice choir singer.) I envisioned some sort of Duel of the Fates, or Emperor Theme… little did I know “Snoke“ sounds more like a “who can sing the lowest”-competition than an actual musical theme. Sorry John, but that’s just my opinion.
“Scherzo for X-Wings” is an good piece – but I still hold “Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra” as his best Scherzo… Similarly I favor “Leaving Hogwarts” instead of “Farewell and The Trip”.
My favorite piece of the soundtrack is “The Jedi Steps and Finale”. It introduces a new theme (of something yet to come…) while at the same time building up to the Binary Sunset melody and the final reveal of Luke. It takes the whole soundtrack and wraps it up, makes sense of all the different themes (when you hear them for the second time), and embraces you in the familiarity of the SW music universe at the same time.
My verdict:
Stand-alone rating: 3/5 – I hope there is more to come…
Complementing the movie: 5/5 – Where would we be without JW?!
Total: 8/10
The Soundtrack 