While writing my last blog, which was about John Williams and his music, I thought about how it connected to my previous blog and Son of Skywalker's related blog. I almost included this thought in my last blog, but thought John Williams deserved the whole spotlight.

I realized that music is a pretty special thing in media. The Star Wars franchise has exploited all concievable avenues of entertainment. The Star Wars universe itself has been expanded most greatly through books and comics. But for all the hundreds of stories told in writing, none of them get music. They get other things, that's what Son of Skywalker's blog was about. But music is a powerful thing that they're missing out on, especially standing next to the movies.

Of all the Star Wars media out there, only the movies, videogames, and TV shows get the opportunity to take advantage of the music of Star Wars. And videogames are quite restricted in that regard, more so than you might think. Playing a soundtrack is one thing, but the real boon of music is the emotional impact, but videogames are interactive. You can't control the second-by second pacing of a player's actions, so you can't craft musical cues as thoroughly or perfectly as in movies.

You know, years ago, LucasArts actually pioneered music in games with iMUSE, a system that allowed the current background music in a game to change based on events triggered by what the player did. It also made smooth transitions between different tracks. That's a really important step. Developers will still never have the control that a director, a composer, and a script will, but using systems like iMUSE, (or whatever it is they're using now) is a really great step for drama in games.

Geez, it may seem like I kind of drifted off topic, but the videogame thing was really what got me thinking about this in the first place. And I can only wonder if it is coincidence that iMUSE was born at LucasArts.

Just something to think about. Music, a huge part of Star Wars, absolutely absent from a huge portion of the franchise as a whole.