So a friend recently bought this to my attention:
This is of course, Across the Stars, Anakin and Padme's theme composed by John Williams for the Star Wars prequels.
This is Bronwyn and Arondir's theme from Rings of Power.
Listen from 17 seconds, then tell me if you noticed what I noticed.... if I am right I cannot believe the audacity of McCreary.
I always find myself liking this sort of overlap between cinematic tools, including music, not vice versa. You can definitely hear notes from Across the Stars here, but it is more than that. Bear McCreary is famous for writing the (absolutely mesmerising, in my opinion) soundtrack for Outlander. And there is also some similarity with the music from the Scottish seasons. In the beginning there is a theme (the violin, I think?) that is so reminiscent of Claire and Jaime’s theme.
And I don’t think that it’s bad that he did this. First of all, because I agree with Tarantino. Paraphrasing, he steals something from ‘every single movie ever made’ and that’s what he likes about his work. ‘Great artists steal, they don’t do homages’. I’m not sure about the generalisation but in the end the beauty of cinema, to me personally, comes from this constant recreation of themes and scenes; one is inspired by the other, the other was inspired by someone else. Some new director ‘steals’ from Tarantino, who ‘stole’ from Kurosawa, and so on. But the new project is new, it’s still original, because additionally to the stolen scenes there is a personal viewpoint. So Bear McCreary creating a soundtrack that is reminiscent of one of the greatest love soundtracks ever written, and yet adding his own style to it, is a great reference to me, not disrespect to the viewers or John Williams, or anybody else.
Secondly, I directed a short film this year, and I had a very clear set of references for it. There were specific songs I wanted to use, because they fit the scenes perfectly. But I couldn’t, because those songs were obviously copyrighted. So I contacted a composer and asked him to write me something as reminiscent as possible to the original songs. I’m not comparing myself to McCreary here, it’s just I understand this inspiration that he could have gotten, perhaps. The feeling that part of Across the Stars would fit perfectly, so he rewrote it. And created a beautiful soundtrack at that.
This is coming from someone who hasn’t even seen Rings of Power, because I do not like the style or the ideas, or just the way Tolkien’s world is remade in the show. But I really love McCreary’s work, both here and in other shows.