‘Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker’ Score Length May Hint At Film’s Runtime
John Williamsis probably the most well-known composer and conductor of motion picture scores. With credits under his belt likeStar Wars, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Harry Potter, and plenty more, he’s crafted some of the most famous movie themes of all time. But John Williams also has a brother with some musical talent as well, and he just so happens to have the inside track on some details about theStar Wars: Rise of Skywalkerscore that might hint at the film’s overall length.
Last week, the Academy of Scoring Arts hosted a “score study” ofJurassic Park(via theStar Wars Leaks Reddit), and John Williams' brotherDon Williamswas on-hand for the event. Don Williams is a conductor, arranger, and composer too, but he’s gotten more recognition for his work as a percussionist, having toured with the likes of Bob Hope, Tom Jones, The Supremes, Diana Ross, Sammy Davis Jr., and Burt Bacharach, not to mention working on stage shows such asCats, Phantom of the Opera, EvitaandAChorus Line. And since John Williams needs good percussionists, Don Williams has occasionally played on film soundtracks likeJurassic Park, and now he finds himself playing in the orchestra forStar Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
During part of the discussion, Don Williams opened up about working on theStar Wars The Rise of Skywalkerscore without even being asked about it. Here’s a video of the information in question being revealed:
As Don Williams explains in the video:
“John’s started up on another Star Wars. We started on it last week. He’s got 135 minutes worth of music to write, so that kind of tells how long the film is. It is top to bottom music. We’ve done four days and we just scratched the surface. I think we’ve got something like 34 minutes in the can at this point.”
So that’s 2 hours and 15 minutes worth of music that John Williams is writing forStar Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and it sounds like Don Williams is maybe performing with the orchestra on this one too. That makes sense sincethis is supposed to be the last full scorethat John Williams will write for aStar Warsmovie. However, while this does give us some idea of how long the movie will be, it’s not necessarily representative of the movie’s length. Here’s how theStar Warsmovies break down when you compare the length of the film’s soundtracks to the length of the films (rounded to the nearest minute):
Looking at each of the scores compared to the length of the film, it appears that there’s usually roughly one hour less music than film footage. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll be getting aStar Warsmovie that’s 3 hours long, and there’s a chance that not all the music being written for the movie actually ends up being used in it. Furthermore, the score used in the film usually differs somewhat from a film’s given soundtrack release. But Don Williams did say this particular movie will have “top to bottom music,” which would makeThe Rise of Skywalkerstand out from the rest of theStar Warssoundtracks a bit. He also added this little nugget of information:
“Every theme that you ever heard is going to be compiled into this last effort. Every one. Leia, Yoda, The Phantom, Darth, all of it’s gonna be in there. And in his usual style, he hides them. You gotta go look for them. You’ll find them, but you gotta go look for them.”
The mention of Yoda’s theme and what seems like a reference toThe Phantom Menacewould have been quite the reveal. But when Don Williams says he’s hiding some of these themes within the score, it may not be quite as big of a deal as we think. Plenty of motifs from John Williams' previousStar Warsscores have been used for little musical moments here and there. We’ve heard Darth Vader’s theme (or rather The Imperial March) used several times during moments with characters from the dark side, so the presence of Yoda’s theme doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll see the spirit of the Jedi Master return. But with Mark Hamillreturning as the spiritof Luke Skywalker, it’s not out of the realm of possibility either.
We’ve still got a long way to go before theStar Wars The Rise of Skywalkerscore is finalized, so the amount of music used in the movie could change. But for now, it sounds like the final chapter of the Skywalker saga will at least be 2 hours and 15 minutes long when it hits theaters onDecember 20, 2019.
