After all, we know that (spoilers for A New Hope, a movie which you’ve probably seen anyway) they eventually succeed and the Rebellion gets to destroy the Death Star. The story of stealing the plans for the Death Star is without a doubt one of danger and cautious optimism.
There’s no doubt that this fits this film, which has been described as a gritty war film which will directly tie into A New Hope. The iconic Binary Sunset, which has become the theme for hope in the Star Wars saga, is heard a few times throughout the soundtrack, giving us the feeling that despite all the horrors of war, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. However, sometimes you can hear short hopeful or heroic themes. Most of the tracks on the first half of the album have either or even both of those moods. The album opens with the track He’s Here For Us, which sets a clear mood: a sense of danger and sometimes even urgency. Imagine what a daunting task that would have been: Giacchino not only had the challenge to compose the score to an entire film in such a short time, he also had to compose a score that would do the saga justice and wouldn’t stand in the shadows of all those iconic Williams scores, which have embedded themselves in pop culture for a very long time.
Reportedly, Giacchino had only four and a half weeks to compose the score to the first Star Wars anthology film. Desplat however, who worked with Gareth Edwards before on Godzilla (2014), left the project because of scheduling issues, and Giacchino took his place. The result is a score that sounds both familiar and different.īefore Giacchino was assigned to the task of scoring Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Alexandre Desplat was the one to give us the first non-Williams Star Wars score. Just like with Jurassic World, Giacchino takes some of Williams’ themes and gives them a new spin. Now, with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, that little dream has come true. I have always thought that Giacchino would be perfect for a Star Wars film if Williams wasn’t going to do one for once. I find myself listening to his scores for Up, Ratatouille and Tomorrowland from time to time. I personally really love some of Michael Giacchino’s scores.