Balancing the necessity to deliver a new but familiar sound to Star Wars whereas additionally enjoying within the footsteps of John Williams’ legendary music for the saga is a challenge for every composer who joins the franchise. Few have confronted it as usually because the Kiner household—composer and father Kevin, alongside his kids Deana and Sean—whose work has come to outline a brand new technology of Star Wars music throughout Clone Wars, Rebels, Dangerous Batch, and now Ahsoka. However even then, some moments will at all times discover a option to current new challenges.
Such was the case this week for the Kiners once they needed to rating a short, shocking second for this week’s penultimate episode of Ahsoka: the return of Anthony Daniels as C-3PO. Racing in—nicely, as quick as these goldenrod droid legs will carry him—to offer a message of clemency from an absent Senator Leia Organa to avoid wasting Hera from the wrath of a New Republic disciplinary tribunal, 3PO’s transient second in Ahsoka’s narrative is a touching hyperlink between the occasions of the franchise’s streaming TV universe and the broader Star Wars film mythology. Nevertheless it was additionally a second the place, as Ahsoka’s composers, the Kiners discovered themselves grappling with the concept of enjoying with the long-lasting motifs of John Williams.
“Actually, not placing in any music [at first],” Deana Kiner—who, alongside her father and because the music group Kiner Music along with her brother Sean, has helped rating Star Wars Rebels, the seventh season of the Clone Wars, The Dangerous Batch, and now Ahsoka—stated reflecting on the method of scoring Threepio’s arrival.
“Initially, that scene performed utterly dry till we realized it was enjoying too empty,” Sean added. “After which the music got here very, very naturally as a result of we had license to make use of these themes, [but] that’s simply the way it was noticed,” he continued, referring to the stage of the composing course of the place the footage is appeared over to see how and the place the composers’ scores might be most successfully positioned.
“It’s a powerful scene, however I feel that was the quickest cue—when it comes to writing—for the whole season,” Sean stated, when the composers finally determined to highlight Threepio with a second that blends Ahsoka’s thematic work for the New Republic with parts of a few of Williams’ most iconic items from the movies, the primary Star Wars fanfare and, after all, Leia’s incredibly touching theme. “That got here out in beneath an hour, I imagine. That’s manner sooner than something we’ve ever written. However we had been simply channeling John a bit bit, and it was simply pure to comply with when it comes to leitmotif for this. Once you see C-3PO, you simply get these chills. ‘Oh man, there’s the man I’ve been watching since I used to be a child,’ you recognize? He’s speaking about Leia, and Leia’s pulling a baller transfer saving Hera from these politicians. All of it simply felt very pure.”
“I personally have been working 17 years attempting to refine what it means to sound like Star Wars with out aping John Williams, with out being Mini Me John Williams,” Kevin—who has been part of Star Wars since scoring Clone Wars nearly twenty years in the past—stated of the push and pull between incorporating parts of Williams’ iconic music and charting his personal sonic path within the galaxy far, far-off. “And so they [Deana and Sean] have been spending 10 years on the similar time. And it’s actually robust. It’s an excellent, tremendous nice line since you need the sensation of… the very first cue on [Ahsoka’s] soundtrack begins out with this Japanese percussion, type of woody percussion, however then it goes type of just like the Star Wars sound. With the New Republic [scores], I’m fairly pleased with the very fact many of the suggestions I’ve obtained has been constructive. So I feel we’ve been profitable in not simply rehashing, or no matter you need to name it—we attempt to give it the Star Wars sound, the sound John Williams used.”
“A part of our method is to construct on what influenced John, so by principally constructing on our grasp’s grasp. Like, classical items he was referencing, items he would draw from, we’d additionally take a look at these items,” Deana added. “We discover that implementing these and using them might be simply as efficient to make it really feel extra Star Wars.”
“Just a few instances we stunned Dave [Filoni] by placing the Drive theme in,” Kevin continued. “One time he modified it and stated, ‘No, let’s do it on this different scene,’ however more often than not if we’re going to make use of a John Williams theme, Dave has the concept to make use of it. And out of 5 hours on the soundtrack, there’s most likely a minute and a half of John Williams’ themes. Nevertheless it speaks to how highly effective these themes are, that you simply bear in mind on the finish of episode 4 [when Anakin appears], and swiftly a part of the Imperial March kicks in. Oh boy, thumbs up!”
“We attempt to deal with it just like the strongest spice in our arsenal. We don’t need to put an excessive amount of of it, as a result of in any other case it’ll begin to lose its efficiency. Similar to cooking, actually, the place we all know how impactful it will likely be when you simply get a small style of it and it hits you at simply the appropriate second,” Deana mirrored. “That’s how we attempt to method it, utilizing it as tastefully as we are able to.”
“The cooking reference is, we’ve been cooking with this stew for a very long time. It’s type of ingrained within the pot,” Kevin concluded. “So now it type of comes naturally that when it’s time to sound like Star Wars, we sound like Star Wars. It’s our sound, and but it harkens to what John was doing, as nicely.”
Keep tuned to io9 for extra from our chat with the Kiners quickly.
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