What was particularly mind-blowing was Collins then flashing back to A New Hope and showing us a scene from Obi-Wan Kenobi’s residence and music playing, which Giacchino used as the basis for Jyn’s theme. Jyn’s theme’s opening sounds startlingly like that of “Across the Stars”, but, as Collins pointed out, that sort of sound is “more meant to point towards longing” in a general sense and not, specifically meant to point to Anakin-Padme’s relationship. In Jyn’s theme, alone, Dies Irae occurs three times. A Latin hymn formerly sung in Mass for the Dead, Dies Irae was “quoted throughout romantic period by composers wishing to communicate dread, macabre, and death.” It then “became a musical word for death or darkness”, which was “quoted commonly in film scores” as a “musical shorthand” for death. Rather, he said it was Dies Irae.Ĭollins then focussed on this musical concept of Dies Irae for most of his musical insights into Rogue One. He pointed out that there is “Hope” in different appearances throughout the movie, although it’s “not the biggest theme in Rogue One actually, it’s something that makes up several themes”, which, he said, was confirmed to him by Giacchino. Moving onto Rogue One, both musically and story-wise, Collins pointed out that “ Rogue One tells a different story”, not the least because there is no main title crawl, but also because it is thematically a different movie. Collins speaking about the music of Rogue One at Star Wars Celebration Orlando Hearkening back to Joseph Campbell’s idea of there being steps along the way for telling the story of a hero, Williams incorporated just that into that song, which is pretty incredible. As such, Williams told a story in the melody, specifically that of the hero’s journey. For instance, the main title theme of A New Hope, as described in Williams’ liner notes for the soundtrack was actually Luke Skywalker’s theme. Robert Greenberg called it, “The guerrilla in the living room.” This is, according to Collins, specifically referring to composers, and that “any composer worth their salt will take what came before them and also be true to their own voice.” This is especially notable for Star Wars, since, as Collins stated, “for the last 40 years, we have been graced by…the work of John Williams” and that “it’s impossible to overstate” his impact on the music.Īs to being a good storyteller, Collins mentioned that “all composers are storytellers”, with Williams being a paradigmatic example of this description. This is something that Collins mentioned as The Composer’s Conundrum, or, as Dr.
Incorporating and honoring the work of Williams is no small feat. Collins speaking about the music of Rogue One at Star Wars Celebration Orlando while playing a keyboard Wow! And, in that time, he, according to Collins, had to do three things: 1) Honor and incorporate the work of Williams, 2) He had to be true to himself, and 3) he had to be a good storyteller. The talk was an engaging multi-media presentation, involving both music playing alongside scenes from both Rogue One, as well as A New Hope, as well as him using a keyboard to aurally illustrate music.īefore Collins got into discussing the music of Rogue One specifically, he took a step back and said “You can’t talk about the music of Rogue One without talking about the original score,” and, referring to Rogue One composer Michael Giacchino, as well as John Williams, “you can’t talk about Giacchino without talking about Williams.” Collins expressed his utter amazement at how brilliantly Giacchino scored the film – and that’s without even mentioning the incredibly brief amount of time he had to write it: four and a half weeks(!). Collins, “The Music of Rogue One: Analysis with David Collins” was an entertaining and edifying way of appreciating some musical elements of Rogue One.
Collins speaking about the music of Rogue One at Star Wars Celebration Orlandoįor fans of both Star Wars and music, an insightful presentation was recently given at Star Wars Celebration Orlando.
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