Other than George Lucas himself, there may be no name more closely associated with Star Wars than John Williams. He has written the music for every trilogy the series has created, and when this one ends, he might be done too. In a recent interview, the man with the second most Oscar nominations in the history of cinema says that he looks forward to scoring Star Wars: Episode IX next year, but he seems to think that will be a good place to call it a day. According to Williams...
We know J.J. Abrams is preparing one now that I will hopefully do next year for him. I look forward to it, and we'll round out a series of nine that will be quite enough for me.
Of course, that won't be enough for Disney. John Williams goes on to say that the expectation is that Star Wars will go on for years, possibly decades, to come, and that's something he tells KUSC radio that he's very happy about, yet, he's also, apparently, more than happy to let some other composers handle the writing of music.
At this point, while we know that Star Wars will continue past Episode IX, we don't have any idea what form that will take. We know that Rian Johnson is working on a new trilogy that will be disconnected from the rest of the Star Wars movies we've seen. We know the pair behind Game of Thrones is working on new films. We fully expect to see more of the Star Wars Story spinoff films, but which movies will come first and when is totally up in the air. We also don't know if there will be any new films that follow directly on wherever Episode IX leaves things. If there ever is a fourth main trilogy, those are the films that we would expect to see John Williams compose, but it seems that even if they happen, and even if they happen soon enough that Williams could do it, he's not currently planning on it.
As difficult as it is to imagine a Star Wars movie without John Williams music, he, like the characters in the films themselves, has to say goodbye sometime. The end of the current trilogy is a point that makes sense. It is the end of the story in a major way. Besides, it's not like we'll never hear his music in Star Wars again. Many of his themes will continue to be used in Star Wars movies as long as they are being made.
We look forward to hearing the music of Star Wars: Episode IX when it is released December 20, 2019.
