By James Newton Howard

Disney Records

A different kind of Star Wars score for a different kind of Star Wars movie.

The composer of many TV and movie scores including the theme tune to ER, most of M Night Shyamalan’s output, and the Fantastic Beasts series, brings his pen and baton to a documentary about the creation of Industrial Light And Magic and the effects in the Star Wars films.

Being a documentary, it doesn’t feature any of the music or themes from the franchise, nor does it really carry the same feel in any of its tracks. The opening track, “Light & Magic” sounds like the opening of a Christmas-themed family comedy, while “Team Assembles” is a rather bland piece really marked out only by the squeeze-box suggesting a continental element. “The Paintings Inspired Me” is light and quick but remarkably bland, sounding like pretty much any anonymous lightweight upping the pace sequence from a family adventure.

There is a sense of epic scale for a brief moment in “1000x Exciting” which is all too welcome, and a very nice thoughtful orchestra and piano piece making up the first half of “I Wasn’t Invited To Go”. Things get a little quirky with the use of the theremin in “Not Happy,” while the most engaging and original track may well be “Potatoes,” which for at least two-thirds of its length has an aural mix of burgeoning epic that speaks of ingenuity.

For the most part, however, pretty much the whole album is running at the same five-beat temp with thoroughly inoffensive piano melody sometimes switching over to more sparkly synth of the same notes. In other words, it really sounds like it belongs in a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie, and really doesn’t say either Star Wars or “here’s an insight into some amazing creativity,” though it does have character motifs, which in this case are for the more frequent interview subjects, though they’re not listed as “whoever’s theme” on the tracklist.

Verdict: It’s not a bad listen per se, but it doesn’t really carry the flavour of the subject, and feels like fairly unmemorable library music. 6/10

David A McIntee