The New Yorker: My favorite film of 1977 was not “Star Wars” but “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” Steven Spielberg’s U.F.O fantasia. Notwithstanding the fact that I was nine years old, I considered “Star Wars” a little childish. Also, the trash-compactor scene scared me. “Close Encounters,” on the other hand, drew me back to the theatre—the late, great K-B Cinema, in Washington, D.C.—five or six times. I irritated friends by insisting that it was better than “Star Wars,” and followed the box-office grosses in the forlorn hope that my favorite would surpass its rival.
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Watching the newest Star Wars movie in theatre actually brought quite a few revelations about the intricacies of film making I don’t normally notice. Normally if you ask me at the end of the movie about the soundtrack I can usually form an informed opinion based on what I remembered from the film. Watching star wars however I found myself noticing the soundtrack as I was watching the movie. Often the best sound design is the one that we don’t notice but I don’t think this was the case for The Force Awakens. I was struck as we watched Rey slide down the sandy slope by the fact that I noticed the music had changed. It wasn’t the grand orchestral gestures of the originals and prequels, it fit, but like the rest of the movie it signified a change, the start of something new. A new generation of characters and the continuation of a story that is loved by so many.
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