Alexandre Desplat was hired to compose Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’s score, but he suddenly departed the project due to apparent scheduling issues. Given the widely reported behind the scenes issues with the movie, chances are it probably had something to do with creative differences, but no one was upset to learn that Michael Giacchino had replaced him!
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the Doctor Strange composer explained the challenges of joining the project at such a late stage and the impact that had on his work.
“I’m not a person that has a bunch of other composers working for me, so it’s just me sitting up here in this room doing it,” he explained to the site. “But I’m pretty good at focusing and getting down to business. I saw the film and I really, really, really enjoyed it, so there was no lack of ideas or inspiration, that’s for sure. The only worry the whole time for me was just the schedule. But I mapped it out and I thought, okay, if I do this much a day and I get this done that will leave me time to go back and improve if I need to before having to orchestrate.”
Given the aforementioned rumours about some big behind the scenes changes being made, fans have worried that Rogue One has been toned down and lost many of the darker war movie elements we heard about when it was announced. Luckily, it doesn’t sound like that’s the case as Giacchino went on to explain how he perceived the movie after watching it.
“It is a film that is in many ways a really great World War II movie, and I loved that about it. But it also has this huge, huge heart at the center of it, and that was the one thing I just didn’t want to discount. Yes, it’s an action movie, and it’s a Star Wars film, and it has all the things that you would come to expect and love about that, but I didn’t want to forget that it was also an incredibly emotional movie as well. That was what really pulled me in.”
More comments from the composer can be found by following the link below, as he also talks about being inspired by John Williams and the chances of us hearing the Imperial March!
