When I grew up, I was one of the Trekkies. I loved anything and everything Star Trek but I had a respect for Star Wars and the world and characters that George Lucas had created. This year brought the series back to life with the latest (and greatest) in the Star Wars story, The Force Awakens. Having not watched The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi, I was missing pieces of the story and worried I wouldn’t be able to follow it. Thankfully, The Force Awakens was easy to follow, had a collection of fantastic characters and locations, and a plot that kept me guessing what was going to happen next. Most of all, I was impressed by John Williams new score. There were many times while watching where I was actually drawn to listen closer to his compositions and found them stunning and beautiful.
Star Wars is typically a very brassy soundtrack with lots of action points as there are many battles and shootouts happening. While these are exhilarating and often fun, they become very individual to the scene that they are written for. I’m moved much more by the soft and mysterious pieces that often accompany settings where mood and characterization are at its highest. In The Force Awakens, many of these pieces occurred while the characters, Rey and Kylo, were on screen and fit them both perfectly. Today I’ll be sharing three different tracks from The Force Awakens with you along with a brief description of what I see while listening to them.
The Scavenger: The day starts before the sun rises. In the darkness, she finds her shoes, left at the edge of the bed like always. She pulls the laces taut and gropes on the cold cement floor for her weapon. It’s all she has, the only possession she can truly call her own. Nothing here is hers. It belongs to others, the ones in control, the ones she was left with. Every day, she carves out something new in the endless pit of sand, something left behind long ago that will belong to them eventually. She buys her freedom one piece at a time, a barter that barely keeps her alive. But someday, things will change.
Rey’s Theme: Carried on the wind, twirling against the azure sky. The feeling of lightness, the feeling of escaping gravity’s clutches. Soaring higher and mingling with the clouds, feeling the vapor on your wings. The land blends verdant and chocolate, hazed over the higher you climb. How amazing it is to feel so far away from earthly concerns. Up here, you can go in whichever direction you want and have no limitation, no consequence. That freedom is inextinguishable.
Snoke: If smoke had a sound, rising up from the darkest chasms in the ground, surrounded by dust and darkness. Primal and ancestral and underlying with pain and guilt.
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~KSilva
The Kat At Night 