Composer Michael Giacchino Says 'Rogue One' Is Like "A Really Great World War II Movie"

Even with industry respect, plenty of experience, an Oscar on his shelf for “Up,” along with a nomination for “Ratatouille,” composer Michael Giacchino still likely had to be a bit nervous when he signed up to replace Alexandre Desplat and score “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” With the film going through extensive reshoots in the summer and still aiming to make its release date next month, the clock was ticking, and Giacchino did the one thing that made the most sense: He simply rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

“…literally the last thing I expected I’d be doing this month would be this. I mean we were literally planning a vacation when I got the call asking if I could come and talk to them about it. At the time, it left me with literally four and a half weeks to write,” he told EW.

“It’s not really [enough time]. But you work with the time you have. And 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. 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,” he added.

So yes, Giacchino has already seen “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” and it’s interesting to note his feedback on the film. Much of the chatter around the time of the reshoots was that Disney was a bit concerned about the war-movie direction Gareth Edwards had taken with the spinoff. And while the tone might have morphed, it seems the basic concept of ‘Rogue One’ still remains.

“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,” he said. “I love working on projects that have an emotional center to them — and not manufactured emotion either, even though, you know, [laughs] it’s a weird thing to say because literally that’s all we’re doing, manufacturing emotion.”

Giacchino has plenty of experience scoring war-themed projects, having created the music for video games like “Medal Of Honor” and “Call Of Duty,” and while he was given complete creative freedom to pretty much come up with whatever he wanted, the composer couldn’t help but nod to the franchise’s longtime musical guide, John Williams.

“I think absolutely there are a couple of times when you want to hit upon something that was from the past. For me, even as a fan, it was about going, ‘Oh, this particular idea would be great if we did it here. I would want to see that if I were watching a Star Wars movie.’ As a kid who grew up with John’s music and who was catapulted in this direction because of what he did, I had a very specific idea of what I wanted to use and how I wanted to use it,” Giacchino said. “That being said, I’d say the score is 95 percent original but with little moments [of Williams’ classic score] here or there to accent. If I were sitting in that seat and I heard that, it would totally raise the hairs on my neck.”

With “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” out on December 16th, maybe Giacchino can finally take that vacation, and we certainly can’t wait to hear what he came up with for the film.