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Art of the Score

Episode 15: The Force Awakens - Part 1

Art of the Score

Nicholas Buc

Education, Tv & Film, Music

5624 Ratings

🗓️ 3 April 2018

⏱️ 91 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In Episode 15, we return to the galaxy far, far away and take a look at how the musical landscape of Star Wars changed between the almost 40 years between A New Hope and The Force Awakens. In the first of a two part episode we look at Rey’s Theme, Kylo Ren’s motifs, and The March (or is that the fugue?) of the Resistance. Recorded last year in eager anticipation of The Last Jedi, we’re finally getting this episode to you just in time for its release on Blu-Rey (see what we did there?), so sit back and enjoy our return to perhaps John Williams’ greatest musical franchise. Episode notes: 0:00 – A disclaimer (and possibly an apology!) 5:15 – Dan is writing a book about Star Wars 7:51 – The weight of expectation for The Force Awakens 10:00 – The legacy film 16:30 – The return of little-known composer John Williams 17:35 – Rey’s theme 22:40 – Rey’s riff 26:32 – Rey eats her lunch, on solo flute 30:41 – Rey’s abduction 33:11 – Rey’s impassioned bridge 36:15 – Comparison to other John Williams work: Potter and The Terminal 44:35 – Williams bringing Rey and The Force together in the end credits 46:40 – Rey’s theme – the dance remix 49:10 – Musically, Rey is a Jawa 50:33 – Kylo Ren’s theme 55:50 – The Kylo Ren B motif – the call of the dark side 1:00:00 – Ren and the Imperial March 1:01:45 – The March of the Resistance 1:04:51 – The March or the Fugue? 1:10:00 – Poe’s theme 1:16:39 – Finn’s rhythmic motif 1:19:00 – The mixed-meter Falcon theme 1:28:10 – John Williams as the bloodline of Star Wars 1:29:34 - …and more to come in Part Two! We love to hear from our listeners – get in touch via Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and if you like The Art of the Score, please take a moment to subscribe, rate and comment.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi, it's Andrew Pogson here with Art of the Score with a little disclaimer. We don't normally

0:05.1

start an episode this way, Dan. It's true. But we thought that we needed to on this one because

0:10.6

we actually recorded these next two episodes in December of 2017 just before the Last Jedi came out.

0:21.3

And Nick, we make some wild predictions.

0:24.4

And we are here to apologize.

0:25.9

Yeah.

0:26.4

Because I think pretty much everything we predicted musically and in the film,

0:30.6

we were either wrong about or happened in some other way.

0:35.2

Yeah.

0:35.3

So I think it's probably given that this is, you know, these episodes are airing

0:40.0

well and truly after The Last Jedi has come out that, you know, listen to our analysis

0:45.4

and trying to remember what it was like before December when the movie came out.

0:50.6

But anyway, I think these next two episodes are a lot of fun.

0:53.8

I think you're going to really

0:54.5

enjoy them. And let's get on with the show.

1:21.2

Welcome to Art of the Score, the podcast that explores, demystifies and celebrates some of the greatest soundtracks of all time from the world of film, TV and video games.

1:22.4

I'm Andrew Pogson.

1:35.4

And in each episode, we'll be joined by Daniel Golding and Nicholas Buck as we check out a soundtrack we love, break down its main themes, explore what makes the score franchise, Star Wars, The Force Awakens,

2:02.1

directed by J.J. Abrams and score by the little-known composer John Williams.

2:07.1

For this epic score, we're going to cover the music over two parts this time.

2:11.6

This, of course, being part one of two.

2:14.6

Now, J.J. Abrams had the monumental, almost impossible task of not only regaining the

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