The reader of the John Williams Fan Network attended a John Williams concert and he stopped before playing a bit of Star Wars music to tell the audience:
“We’re about to play Star Wars [audience interrupts with cheers] and each time we play it, I’m reminded of the first time we played it decades ago. Neither I, nor George, nor anyone else involved thought this would go far or in a few years there would be a sequel and I’d have to revisit the themes…and years later another trilogy. Now we’re hearing of a new set of movies coming in 2015, 2016…so I need to make sure I’m still ready to go in a few years for what I hope would be continued work with George…[more cheers].”
It’s still a ways off and Williams is getting up there in age, but I certainly hope he can stay lucid and healthy long enough to give us more Star Wars. It’s hard to imagine Star Wars without him, though Kevin Kiner has been doing a fantastic job incorporating his themes into The Clone Wars in a new and fresh way.
John Williams is a grand old man of film score composition, scoring 5 Oscars and countless nominations. Let’s hope he gets more nominations for Star Wars since the Academy quite stupidly ignored his expert work on the Prequel Trilogy.