‘Star Wars’ Composer John Williams At Work Scoring Film No. 8

Famed Star Wars composer John Williams is working on the music for the upcoming eighth installment in the Star Wars series. The five-time Oscar winning composer has worked on all seven previous Star Wars films.

Over the weekend, John Williams made a surprise revelation to an audience as he conducted an orchestra in Boston. John told those in attendance that he has already viewed a sneak peek at the upcoming Star Wars VIII, Massive Live has reported.

Williams explained to the spectators that he chose to score yet another Star Wars film because he really likes the new character of Rey, played by Daisy Ridley, and wants to be the one to write the music for her.

So, he will be back for Episode 8 along with the starring cast, including Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher. But not Harrison Ford, as Han Solo got bumped off by his own son in The Force Awakens. If you did not know that yet, then you obviously do not care about Star Wars anyway — but maybe Ford will do some flashback scenes.

Williams, 84, led the Boston Pops on Saturday as their conductor in a performance of a number of his most famous pieces from the Star Wars universe. His performance included renditions of “Princess Leia’s Theme,” “The Asteroid Belt,” “The Imperial March” and the well-known finale.

John performed for about 30 minutes.

The composer, who won five Oscars for movies including Star Wars and even Fiddler on the Roof, said that he will soon be headed into the studio to begin the actual recordings for the as-yet-unnamed Star Wars 8. What we do know is that it will be officially called “Episode VII” with some sort of subtitle.

You know the ones! These are the tunes that people can’t stop humming or get out of their heads for the past 40 years.

Let’s see there’s ” da, da, da, da-da-dah, da-dah-da-du.” That’s what is played every time Darth Vader comes on the screen.

Then there’s, “da-da-da-da-dadadadu-dum-dee-dum.” That’s the general Star Wars theme music. This may not be the official way of writing a musical score, but it’s how we all go over the music in our heads.

And if it sounds familiar, it’s because Williams is not just responsible for the great Star Wars music. Williams also composed the music for such hit movies like the first Superman series, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and the Indiana Jones movies.

In fact, according to the movie database IMDB, Williams has been credited as the composer on no fewer than 142 different movies and television shows.

These movies include 1991’s Hook, Steven Spielberg’s Munich (about the hunt for the people responsible for the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games), Saving Private Ryan, The Terminal, Amistad, Catch Me if You Can, and Schindler’s List. Williams has scored so many of Spielberg’s films that he could even be described as the director’s personal composer.

Williams also composed the music for Jaws, Jaws 2, ET, and the first Jurassic Park movies.

The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, Home Alone and JFK were all Williams’ movies, too.

As for television, John Williams got his start back in the 1950s working on classic shows like Wagon Train. And believe it or not, John also worked on both Lost in Space and Gilligan’s Island back in the 1960s. Yes, that Gilligan’s Island!

He has also won four Golden Globe awards and three Primetime Emmys.

Judging from the last installment in the series, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the main score will hopefully be unchanged from all of the previous films. So, all that really needs to be written is the incidental music for all of the action sequences and, possibly, romantic interludes.

Who knows? Maybe Rey and Poe Dameron will be the next Han and Leia? Or Rey and Finn? Or even Finn and Poe? Why not?

As for fight scenes, every second person on the planet is looking forward to seeing to some sort of confrontation between Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren. Every other person on planet Earth is praying for a lot more screen time for Mark Hamill, as Luke Skywalker only showed up at the very end of The Force Awakens and had no lines.

He has also composed the score for the much anticipated first stand-alone film in the Star Wars series titled Star Wars: Rogue One, which is due out on December 16. That movie will take place between Star Wars Episode III and Episode IV. It is said to be about what happened after the fall of the Republic.

It will star Felicity Jones, Ben Mendelsohn, and Riz Ahmed. Jimmy Smits is expected to reprise his role as Bail Organa from the Star Wars prequels, and James Earl Jones will be back as the voice of Darth Vader. Oscar winner Forest Whitaker will also appear in the movie.

As for Star Wars Episode 8, it finished filming in July and is now in post-production, which for a movie like this with all of the special effects takes a while, and is why it is not due to be released until December of 2017. John Williams certainly has his work cut out for him.

[Photo by Ming Yeung/Getty Images]