Finally got to see Rogue One the other day after a hectic holiday. I'll need to see it a couple of times to really feel it out but it did have two immediate impacts. One, it's a really beautiful looking movie (duh) that did a great job of capturing the lived-in look of A New Hope. The filmmakers clearly put a lot of love into making this movie. And two, it made me realize that Star Wars doesn't really feel like Star Wars without John Williams.
Michael Giacchino makes background music. Dull, lifeless, disposable background music.
John Williams' music is completely different. It seamlessly integrates into the films. For me, Williams' music is evocative and becomes the touchstone for this or that scene, to the point where all I need to hear are a few strains of his score, and I'm
instantly transported in my mind to that scene. I can picture
everything, and what's more, I can
feel it.
Giacchino, on the other hand, might evoke emotion in this or that moment, but there's zero way I'll remember it later.
Now, some of that may be because he hasn't quite found someone who'll create a movie that's up to his talents. Or maybe his talents aren't up to the films he's scored. But I gotta say, his work has been mightily unimpressive to me, with the absolute worst example being his score for Star Trek '09. Mike Verta actually had a very incisive criticism of Giacchino's score for ST09, in that it basically just plays the same brief theme only louder or softer, depending on the needs of the scene.
I will say that R1 shows a marked improvement for him, and that I did get choked up a few times during the film (mostly because of the relationship between Jyn and her father, and thinking about my own daughter), but his music was good enough that I could feel that in the moment. So, hey, maybe he's getting better and/or getting better material. But he has a long way to go before he'll fill the Grand Canyon sized shoes of John Williams.
One final note: I thought they absolutely nailed that last scene with Vader. That's the nightmare boogeyman that terrified me as an 8 year old in 1977 (hey, it was a simpler time!). And as he slashes his way down the hallway and the camera swings to the close up of that one rebel soldier who lets out a blood curdling scream, it actually gave me a cold shiver.
Yeah, I really appreciated that sequence. Vader was terrifying in that scene, and appropriately so. Although I'm still annoyed that the Tantive IV was there at all, and that we didn't see him carving a swath through ranks of troopers headed to a different ship altogether, which in turn beamed the plans to Leia's ship just before it jumped to the Tatooine system.
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