Acclaimed Star Wars composer John Williams is returning to the beloved franchise. The man responsible for the franchise's memorable music is returning to compose the theme for Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan Kenobi series.
Star Wars fans don't need to be reminded that Williams composed the score for each chapter of the Skywalker saga, starting with A New Hope and ending with The Rise of Skywalker. While Williams had also composed to theme for Solo: A Star Wars Story, John Powell took responsibility for the rest of the score while Michael Giacchino wrote the music for Rogue One.
By his own account, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker marked Williams' final bow as a composer for the Star Wars franchise, but it appears the maestro still had at least more tune in him. Variety reports that Williams recorded his theme for the Obi-Wan Kenobi series last week, as of February 18, with an orchestra based in Los Angeles under tight security. The outlet also notes that it's currently unclear if Williams wrote a brand-new theme for Obi-Wan Kenobi or if he reprised one of his themes from past Star Wars films. At this time, a full-time composer for the six episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi has not been announced, but recording is said to be taking place in London.
Williams' return for Obi-Wan Kenobi marks a rare contribution to television for the composer. While he has a tremendous amount of experience composing for TV, his last score for a weekly series was Amazing Stories in 1985. As far as feature films go, Williams is currently hard a work on the score for Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans, a semi-autobiographical film about the filmmaker's childhood. Although Spielberg and Williams have worked together on nearly all the director's films, The Fabelmans marks their first collaboration in a few years, as Williams opted to recommend composer David Newman and conductor Gustavo Dudamel to adapt the score for Spielberg's most recent feature, a remake of West Side Story.
Fans are excited about the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, even though The Book of Boba Fett left even admirers of the show a little underwhelmed. McGregor's performance as the Jedi is generally regarded as one of the few strength of the Star Wars prequels, so having his return to the role be accompanied by a score composed by Williams himself should only increase the hype for the series.
Obi-Wan Kenobi premieres on Disney Plus on May 25, 2022.
Source: Variety