Tag Archives: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Star Wars: The Last Jedi “A New Alliance” (2017)

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Three years after it came out, Star Wars: The Last Jedi continues to polarize fans of the galaxy far, far away. While this will likely remain true for many years to come, there’s no denying that The Last Jedi has its fair share of awesome musical moments. One of my favorites comes late in the film when Kylo Ren brings Rey before Supreme Leader Snoke in his throne room on the Supremacy. This piece is called “A New Alliance” and covers a critical part of the story, when Kylo Ren seemingly turns to the light and kills Snoke.

There are some interesting moments in “A New Alliance” and I’ll highlight a few of them. First of all, the piece starts with what sounds like a brief reprise of “Snoke.” This continues as the tension builds in the music until suddenly at 1:07 the music “explodes”, corresponding with the shocking moment when Rey’s lightsaber ignites, cutting Snoke in half.

Another significant moments comes seconds later at 1:17 when we hear a reprise of “the Force” theme, heard when Rey calls the lightsaber to her and she shares a moment with Kylo Ren before they team up to take out Snoke’s Praetorian guards. This is the big moment that gives me goosebumps, since the tone of the piece flips from tension to shock and surprise almost instantly.

The remaining music focuses on Rey and Kylo’s fight with the Praetorian guards. If you listen carefully, around 2:25 you’ll hear a reprise of “Rey’s Theme” fittingly played as the scene focuses on her own fight.

I chose this piece because I wanted to show that good film music can be found in many places. It’s true, you don’t hear a lot of this because there’s a massive lightsaber battle raging at the same time. But despite that, John Williams took the time to craft this theme together, and it is one of my favorite musical moments in all of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Let me know what you think about “A New Alliance” in the comments below and have a great day!

See also:

Star Wars: The Force Awakens “Kylo Ren’s Theme” (2015)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens “Rey’s Theme” (2015)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens “Snoke” (2015)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens “March of the Resistance” (2015)

Star Wars: The Last Jedi “The Spark” (2017)

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker “Kylo Ren’s Theme (Redeemed Version)” (2019)

Film Soundtracks A-W

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Star Wars: The Force Awakens “Snoke” (2015)

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This particular theme in the Star Wars: The Force Awakens soundtrack means a great deal to me, because it helped spawn a theory that took four years to be proven correct. Remember how Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker revealed that the Emperor had been alive all this time? Well, even before that reveal, I half-suspected that something like this might happen, and the “Snoke” theme in Star Wars: The Force Awakens had a great deal to do with it.

Listen carefully to Snoke’s theme below and then I’ll explain what I mean.

You hear all of that? Snoke’s theme is pretty ominous; a droning male choir, the smallest hint of a dark melody, the entire thing reeks of tension and pure evil. In fact, it sounds like a close relative of the Emperor’s theme (as heard in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi), in spirit if not in actual musical relationships. And that is what really drew my attention: this theme for Snoke sounded so much like the Emperor’s theme that, combined with the fact that Snoke was based on concept art for Palpatine, that I could only draw two possible conclusions:

  1. Snoke was Palpatine, just in a different form
  2. Snoke was Palpatine’s puppet/mouthpiece

Time would eventually prove me somewhat correct on the latter conclusion, and it’s all thanks to the music. There’s also the fact that John Williams is not the type of composer to craft a character’s theme a certain way for no good reason. If one theme resembles another, it’s not unreasonable to say that character (in this case Snoke) might be connected to another (in this case, Palpatine). I’ve said it many times, you should always pay attention to the music if you want to get hints about the true identity/true nature of a character. Four years before Palpatine was revealed to the world, John Williams created a theme hinting at the Emperor’s continued presence (there’s an even more blatant hint in The Last Jedi but I’ll discuss that another day).

Let me know what you think about “Snoke” (and whether you drew similar conclusions) in the comments below and have a great day!

See also:

Star Wars: The Force Awakens “Kylo Ren’s Theme” (2015)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens “Rey’s Theme” (2015)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens “March of the Resistance” (2015)

Star Wars: The Last Jedi “The Spark” (2017)

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker “Kylo Ren’s Theme (Redeemed Version)” (2019)

Film Soundtracks A-W

Become a Patron of the blog at patreon.com/musicgamer460

Check out the YouTube channel (and consider hitting the subscribe button)

Don’t forget to like Film Music Central on Facebook 🙂

Star Wars: The Last Jedi- The Bad

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Today I’m going to look at parts of The Last Jedi that I considered “bad” (but not infuriating, that comes later). This likely won’t be a comprehensive list, but I’m hoping to hit the major points. Off we go!

  • The entire Canto Bight sub-plot: Part of what really bugged me about The Last Jedi is that, compared to other Star Wars films, we don’t really go anywhere for 90% of the story. Instead we spend the majority of our time in a slow-motion chase with the First Order patiently waiting for the Resistance fleet to literally run out of gas. So when Finn and Rose come up with the plot to get a hacker from Canto Bight, I was excited because we were finally getting away from skipping back and forth from the fleet to Ach-To. And while I don’t deny the planet is beautifully rendered and the chase scenes with the animals are good too, it’s all ultimately meaningless. Think about it: the entire point of bringing in a hacker was to break into Snoke’s mega-destroyer to disable the tracking system so the fleet could jump to hyperspace without being followed. Not only are Rose and Finn caught before they can do this, but the Resistance ultimately abandons their fleet to escape to Crait before squeezing onto the Millennium Falcon to finally get away. So there was really no point in Rose and Finn going to Canto Bight because we’d have arrived at the same end point regardless (in simpler terms: the Canto Bight story is pure filler to add time to the story).
  • “Holding for General Hux.”: This is just barely on the “Bad” list because I did find Poe’s teasing of the First Order funny the first time, but then the joke kept going (with Hux literally saying words to the effect of “Can you hear me now?”) and I found myself squirming with impatience (and not in a good way) for them to get on with the story. I don’t mind humor in a Star Wars film but this went on a few beats too long.
  • Captain Phasma: Is it just me or is the chrome-plated Phasma notably absent from most of this story? When they first introduced her in Episode VII, I was excited to see where they would go with her. And then this movie comes out and we get ONE fight scene; a cool glimpse at an eye under her helmet and then…does she die?? Just like that? There’s not even a shock factor because she appears in the trailers for the movie so we knew this moment was coming.
  • Luke Skywalker for most of the movie: I’m probably going to get grief for this but I had a hard time with Mark Hamill’s performance for a good chunk of his scenes. I don’t know if this is “bad” so much as it “royally subverted my expectations” but at any rate how I feel about it isn’t good so it’s on this list. It started when Luke received his father’s lightsaber, we all held our breath in anticipation of what he’d say…and then he tosses the lightsaber over his shoulder like it’s nothing. Of all the things I was expecting, it wasn’t that. I could also mention how his “training” of Rey really wasn’t what I was led to believe it was based on the trailers but that’s another argument for another list. Note though, that I say “for most of the movie” because by the end (i.e. his appearance on Crait) I’m in love with how he’s acting.
  • Where are the Knights of Ren?: Considering Kylo is considered “Master of the Knights of Ren”, you’d think we’d have seen them by now (or at least heard from them). But as of yet, except for that brief scene during Rey’s vision in The Force Awakens, we have not seen a trace of these “Knights of Ren” and now only a single film remains for them to be properly introduced and made use of. That doesn’t seem quite right to me, especially since the film seems to hint that some of them were fellow Jedi trainees at Luke’s school (he did say that Kylo didn’t kill ALL of the students).
  • The Rey/Kylo visions: On one level, this was really cool, but for the most part this came across as super AWKWARD. The one conversation where Rey is distracted because Kylo is shirtless had me groaning because it sounded like two teenagers having a telephone conversation (I mean, Kylo and Rey aren’t supposed to be teenagers…are they?). I understand the plot purpose of doing this, but there were some moments where it just felt wrong.

And those are the highlights of what I thought was bad about Star Wars: The Last Jedi! Did I leave anything significant out? Do you agree/disagree? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Become a Patron of the blog at patreon.com/musicgamer460

Check out the YouTube channel (and consider hitting the subscribe button)

See also:

Star Wars: The Last Jedi: The Good

Star Wars: The Last Jedi-The Ugly

A Random Thought on “The Force Awakens”

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, My Thoughts!!

Don’t forget to like Film Music Central on Facebook 🙂

Star Wars: The Last Jedi: The Good

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I have been trying for a long time now to gather my thoughts on Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which says a lot about the film given how I was able to gush over Rogue One pretty easily. I’ve finally decided on a way to get my thoughts out there: rather than dumping everything into a single post (which is my usual method), I’m going to break this review up into what I liked (the good); what I didn’t like (the bad); and what downright infuriated me (the ugly). So this post will be highlights of what I liked in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

  • The return of Yoda: I LOVED this scene! When the camera panned over to reveal a familiar set of pointy ears with a familiar blue haze, my first reaction was “OMG yes it’s YODA!!” Somehow I just knew that we would see the deceased Jedi Grand Master before the movie was over (and for the record, I did not know about Frank Oz talking about the film before release, this was a complete surprise to me). This scene, combined with Luke’s reunion with R2-D2 were the two times I really felt like the “old” Luke from the original trilogy was back. The way he griped to Yoda like a pouting child, only to be whacked on the head with Yoda’s cane was just priceless! Bringing in Yoda was an excellent decision on Rian Johnson’s part.
  • Rey+Kylo+Throne Room = EPIC: Leaving aside what happened immediately before this scene, the fight between Kylo and Rey and the Praetorian Guard was absolutely beautiful. It’s kind of scary how well those two work together on short notice (if Rey ever did align herself with Kylo they might just be unstoppable). This is one of those scenes that helps to make Star Wars so special.
  • Luke’s final stand: In hindsight, I should have known that Luke wasn’t actually on Crait. All the hints were thrown out there beforehand: Kylo and Rey can see each other when they aren’t really there, they can even touch and it feels real. Not to mention Kylo’s ominous hint that “the strain (of projecting yourself) would kill you.” But I was so caught up in the moment of seeing Luke Skywalker, the legendary Jedi Master, walking out to face the First Order that I really didn’t think about how he got there or when. I just assumed that (off-screen), he’d thought about Rey’s words (and Yoda’s), raised up his X-Wing and hotfooted it to Crait where he could sense everything going down. One big clue that this was an illusion? Luke’s appearance is identical to how he looked on the night Kylo destroyed the new Jedi temple. That alone should have told me something was up (at the time I assumed that Luke had cleaned himself up before heading out). Even when the First Order fired on him at point blank range, I still didn’t get it. I just thought “Well he’s a Jedi Master, he can dodge and deflect anything.” It was only when Kylo went to slash Luke through the middle, clearly made contact, and Luke was still standing that I realized it…he wasn’t really there, he never had been. And I don’t feel disappointed by this revelation (because some have told me that this ruins the last meeting between Luke and Leia because Luke “wasn’t really there.”) I disagree; Leia knew the whole time (I’m sure) that Luke was only an illusion, but that didn’t matter. She could see him, and touch him, and it was their way of saying goodbye. And speaking of goodbyes…
  • Binary sunset: The revelation that Ach-To has twin suns like Tatooine was unexpected, momentarily confusing, but ultimately satisfying. Luke’s face as he took the sunset in said it all. In that moment, he was thinking back over everything: the sunset he saw on Tatooine the night before his life changed forever; saving Leia, destroying the Death Star, going to save his father, it all flashed through his mind. And then…with his work done, he vanished. This moment destroyed me, as I’d dared to hope that we’d sidestepped seeing Luke die when it was revealed that Luke wasn’t really on Crait. It didn’t help that Carrie Fisher had passed away the year before (so after her death and watching Han and now Luke die onscreen, it was pretty emotional for me).
  • The Supreme Leader is dead (?): Finally, I have to share my thoughts on the scene when General Hux discovers that Supreme Leader Snoke is (apparently) dead. He seemingly accepts Kylo’s version of events (that Rey killed him when it was really Kylo) and begins to lament that the Supreme Leader is dead, they have no leader now, when a furious Kylo seizes Hux with a Force choke and queries “The Supreme Leader is dead? Catching on, Hux chokes out “Long live the Supreme Leader!” I liked this scene because of how it played out. Hux is oblivious to the fact that Snoke’s death (his apparent death anyway) means that Kylo is now in charge. I’m calling it now: Kylo and Hux will come to blows before Episode IX is over, especially if Hux figures out that Kylo is the one who killed Snoke.

And those are my highlights for what was good in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Of course there was more that I liked than this, but if I listed everything the post would be several thousand words longer!

Which parts of Star Wars: The Last Jedi did you think were good? Let me know your thoughts (on the good only) in the comments below!

Become a Patron of the blog at patreon.com/musicgamer460

Check out the YouTube channel (and consider hitting the subscribe button)

Don’t forget to like Film Music Central on Facebook 🙂

See also:

Star Wars: The Last Jedi- The Bad

Star Wars: The Last Jedi-The Ugly

A Random Thought on “The Force Awakens”

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, My Thoughts!!

Star Wars, the one that started it all! (1977)

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983), the saga concludes (or does it?)