Story Smack is a podcast about storytelling, but I must admit we talk quite a bit about movies. Today, however, we’re going to talk about a movie maker. In fact, the most Oscar-nominated movie maker on Earth. Actor? Director? Nope — orchestrator and conductor John Williams.
I know you love John Williams’ work. I know I love the Star Wars score, and the Indiana Jones score. Those are both his. But so many others you know and love are also John Williams’ work. You’ll be amazed at how much of the score to your own life is lifted from work he’s done.
FAMOUS MOVIE SCENES WITHOUT MUSIC:
- JURASSIC PARK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRwd1zYZEAU
- THE FORCE AWAKENS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIVpbS18oJQ
- ROCKY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5iuHCjnkzA
Don’t see a “play” button above? Click here to download. This episode sponsored in part by our “Stamps.com promo code” page.
If John Williams’ movie scores move you with all the grand and sweeping sound, trust me when I tell you that you will totally love GALACTIC FOOTBALL LEAGUE the series by #1 New York Times bestselling author Scott Sigler. It’s got everything: humor, tragedy, galactic politics, criminal intrigue and hard-hitting alien American Football action all come together in a series described as STAR WARS meets THE GODFATHER meets THE BLINDSIDE. Start your grand adventure with THE ROOKIE, Book One.
Just adding my two cents, which is basically what you all said…
we had the record (yes, LP) of the Star Wars soundtrack when I was a kid, and my brother and I would just sit and listen to it — I remember it bringing back all the same feelings the movie did. so, imagine an 8 year old and an 4 year old just sitting and listening to instrumental music, yeah, we did that 🙂
Christopher: I did not know that! I didn’t really pay much attention to the score, and maybe the lack of Williams is why. Here’s an article on what happened: https://www.bustle.com/articles/199625-why-didnt-john-williams-do-the-music-for-rogue-one-the-composer-is-in-high-demand
I think a good two-word argument for Williams’ impact on Star Wars is “Rogue One”. Title page, opening crawl etc… the thing that was most noticeably missing from that movie was John Williams. Arguments could be made about the content of the film itself, but the score was flat out boring. You could taste a bit of Williams’ influence here and there, but it just wasn’t Star Wars without him.