We’re in the homestretch now. Maybe even the “Chewie, we’re home” stretch. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is only a few months away now, and we still have loads of questions. Will we learn more about Rey’s parents? Will Kylo Ren turn to the light side? Who stole Threepio’s golden arm? And on a macro level, we don’t know how long the movie will be. But now we have a pretty good guess on that front. During a talk about the Jurassic Park score at the Academy of Scoring Arts, composer John Williams’ brother, musician Don Williams, dropped some knowledge. John has written 135 minutes worth of music and he’s using every theme he’s ever written for the saga.
So at the very least, we know the movie is at least two hours and 15 minutes long. Surely it’ll be longer than that. But Don also said The Rise of Skywalker will be wall-to-wall score. As we suspected, the final movie in the Skywalker saga will revisit places and themes from the previous eight movies, hence the use of Williams’ past scores.
Certainly this means, in addition to some new music, Episode IX‘s score will act as a kind of Greatest Hits for John Williams and his work on Star Wars. Here are some of our favorites from movies past we hope to and are pretty likely to hear.
The “Imperial March” seems like a no-brainer, given how much the movie is using the imagery (and person) of the Emperor.
And on that epic and dangerous kick, we hope “Duel of the Fates,” the best piece of music from the prequels, reappears.
Since we know we’re going to see General Leia (for the last time, *SOBS*), we’re sure Williams will use “Leia’s Theme” but we also hope we’ll get to hear the beautiful “Han Solo and the Princess” theme from Empire.
No doubt “Rey’s Theme” will appear throughout.
On a personal note, I’d love it if the whole saga ended with the Throne Room fanfare from A New Hope. Utilizing bits of “Ben’s Theme,” it’s a raucous and rousingly triumphant way to end the first movie. Why not bring it all the way back for the end of all things?
There are so many more great pieces, and apparently they’ll all show up. The “Asteroid Field” theme, “Across the Stars” from Clones, the music that plays during the assault on Endor in Jedi; we hope they’re all there! And let us know in the comments what your favorite piece Star Wars music is!
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters December 20.
Featured Image: Lucasfilm
Kyle Anderson is the Editor at Large for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!
