Poor Disney. You know, despite the fact that I realize that they’re a gigantic media conglomerate that no one’s really supposed to root for, I can’t help but feel for them. Opening an in-person Star Wars attraction had to be very high on their list of reasons to purchase Lucasfilm outright; after all, Star Tours had been doing fairly brisk business since the 1980s. Surely an entire Star Wars theme park would be the most obvious money-maker in the world for Disney – never mind movies and merch, Galaxy’s Edge would probably make back most of the astronomical purchase price of Lucasfilm by itself. And then COVID happened and emptied it out. And then they overcompensated and overshot the mark with the far-too-expensive-for-most-fans Galactic Starcruiser attraction, which remains perennially underbooked. Just as the sequel movies made depressingly clear that our beloved space heroes could find no lasting peace, this chain of real-world events just underlined that you can’t have nice things in the Star Wars universe.
But hey, let’s talk about this soundtrack’s very, very good reason to exist: we get to hear Star Wars a la Bear McCreary, which is the kind of thing one hears is the stuff of days long remembered. McCreary, of course, made his very splashy entry into the ears of genre soundtrack fans with the early aughts revival of Battlestar Galactica, to which he brought a pan-cultural sensibility that was telegraphing, from the first season, what the story eventually told us at its end: these people from other worlds are where all of our world’s music comes from. So yes, you do, in fact, hear every Earth culture in there. In a lot of ways, honestly, McCreary’s scores for each episode told the story more succinctly than the scripts did. He’s since put his very audible musical stamp on such things as Outlander, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Walking Dead, Lord Of The Rings: The Ring Of Power, and Foundation, as well as modern big-screen revivals of Godzilla, Child’s Play, and more. McCreary builds worlds in his music, sometimes better than the scripts that inspire his music.
When Disney bought Lucasfilm and made it clear that more Star Wars was on the way, of course we expected John Williams to return for the sequel movies (and he did, for all of them). But then side-story movies started happening, and it became clear that Williams’ presumptive absolute lock on the franchise’s musical sound was on the verge of expiring. Rogue One went through two composers, meaning that movie has an entire Alexandre Desplat score we’ve never gotten to hear. Solo was an odd musical duck: an experienced composer, new to the franchise, under the obligation to refer to a freshly-penned Williams theme for young Han Solo (an arrangement also in place for the more recent Obi-Wan Kenobi streaming series). But after Solo, and mere weeks before The Rise Of Skywalker, came The Mandalorian, with a very clear musical vision and a very clear message: John Williams does not have to be the only one who can do this.
But the moment that other composers started entering Williams’ well-constructed sandbox, with its established classical/romantic lexicon, I started wondering when McCreary might enter the chat. One of my other picks, Michael Giacchino, landed a Star Wars assignment almost instantly, replacing Desplat’s Rogue One score. But – allowing for the fact that his schedule with TV and movie projects alike keeps him incredibly busy – when would McCreary get to play in that sandbox and bring his impeccable sense of musical world building with him? The answer came in late 2021, at a time when Disney – trying desperately to keep Galaxy’s Edge alive as its own brand at a time when it still wasn’t the greatest idea to actually go there – created a virtual reality universe built around the Galaxy’s Edge storyline. Now you could stay home and explore that world without paying travel expenses or contracting a deadly disease. This was not only its own new product, but was also served as a promo piece for the “real” Galaxy’s Edge. And would it have its own soundtrack? Oh, of course it would – even Williams had contributed a symphonic suite for the opening of the attraction itself.
But other composers would be devising the music for the VR attraction – enter the very interesting combination of McCreary, Joseph Trapanese (Tron Legacy, Tron Uprising), and Danny Piccione (sound designer for a previous Star Wars VR game). McCreary is an obvious composer to bring to the Star Wars party; the lengthy opening track reveals that he’s adept at honoring Williams’ musical lexicon while also bringing more modern sonics into play. (If you found the synths in The Mandalorian’s early episodes off-putting, this will probably be more to your liking.) “Tara Rashin” not only sees McCreary bringing his trademark thundering percussion to the table, but also a theremin-like synth. More woodwinds, percussion, and a mysterious sound accompany the “Guavian Death Gang”, characters glimpsed briefly in The Force Awakens, who I always assumed probably killed people by pushing a button and burying their victims under an avalanche of fresh guavas. Hell of a tasty way to go. “Baron Attsmun” is also swathed in mystery, but has more string-driven grandeur. “Dok-Ondar Treasures” is very much a throwback to the style that won McCreary so many fans in the Galactica days; it’s safe to say that if you know Bear chiefly from Battlestar, you’ll be pleased with his contributions here.
But wait! Joseph Trapanese is also here. He did a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes for the Tron Legacy score attributed to Daft Punk (and then proved, by effortlessly scoring the animated spinoff series Tron Uprising, that he was deservedly the co-author of Tron Legacy‘s sound). His first three tracks bring something of the “big wall of ominous brass and pulsing synth notes” feel of his Tron work, though obviously without using the exact sounds so closely associated with that universe. It’s definitely a more synth-oriented approach.
Danny Piccione takes up the middle of the album, offering up shorter selections with more of a pop music sensibility; you could dance to this stuff, though he’s clearly trying to go for the “unconventional used of earhly instrumentation standing in for alien instrumentation” feel of, say, the original Cantina Band music. All five of his tracks tend to top out at around the three minute mark. These are all fun in-universe listens, not a million miles away from the “previously unreleased Cantina Band music” remit of the two Oga’s Cantina: R3X’s Playlist albums. “Azu Ragga” is the best of these tracks, succeeding in hitting an otherworldly but still tuneful balance.
Trapanese returns for five more tracks, including the album’s longest, “IG-88”, clocking in at over 15 minutes; again, appropriately enough for a bounty hunter droid, the technological precision of his Tron work is a useful frame of reference for what to expect here. A more orchestral tone is struck with “Life Wind” and “Sacred Garden”, which is the closest that Trapanese gets to the Williams wheelhouse of most prior Star Wars music. “Patience” sees the return of the slightly-reminiscent-of-Tron synth work, while “Fountain – The Message” does away with pulsating synth bass lines.
McCreary brings things to a close with three final tracks, “The First Order” giving the sequel era’s big had a theme that isn’t borrowed from previous iterations of the franchise. “I Would Do It Again” strikes a much more hopeful note, and by the time the end credits wrap up, you’ve heard a whole hour and a half of Star Wars music without a single Williams theme.
In the interests of full disclosure, I haven’t played Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge itself. I’m going entirely by how enjoyable its music is. Kind of a weird way to judge a soundtrack, sure, but if the music does anything, it actually makes me want to play the game (you know, if I owned any VR gear). Surely it’s quite an experience if it merits the considerable talents of these three composers. Also, let’s set these gentlemen loose on some movies and streaming shows. Because they just spent the running time of this album proving that any one of them is worthy of the task. And because this taste of Star Wars a la Bear McCreary is an indication that we could have a whole feast.
- Batuu Wilderness by Bear McCreary (11:05)
- Tara Rashin by Bear McCreary (02:55)
- Guavian Death Gang by Bear McCreary (07:48)
- Baron Attsmun by Bear McCreary (06:49)
- Dok-Ondar Treasures by Bear McCreary (03:31)
- Age of Jedi by Joseph Trapanese (03:33)
- Shadows by Joseph Trapanese (04:59)
- Ady’s Theme – Hyperdrive by Joseph Trapanese (02:51)
- Pinteeka Dub by Danny Piccione (02:37)
- Desert Dance by Danny Piccione (02:33)
- Ghenza Shuffle by Danny Piccione (03:04)
- Cyinarc by Danny Piccione (02:25)
- Azu Ragga by Danny Piccione (03:09)
- IG-88 by Joseph Trapanese (15:25)
- Life Wind by Joseph Trapanese (02:55)
- Sacred Garden by Joseph Trapanese (04:07)
- Patience by Joseph Trapanese (01:54)
- Fountain – The Message by Joseph Trapanese (01:27)
- The First Order by Bear McCreary (02:49)
- I Would Do It Again by Bear McCreary (03:18)
- Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge End Credits by Bear McCreary (02:37)
Released by: Walt Disney Records
Release date: December 3, 2021
Total running time: 1:31:40
