Fan-favorite animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars returns for a 7th and final season starting tomorrow, February 21st, on Disney+. 5-time Emmy nominated composer Kevin Kiner shares details on the music for the new season and reflects on more than four decades of “Star Wars” in pop culture.

Jackson Murphy: What’s the earliest memory you have of “Star Wars” in your life?

Kevin Kiner: It’s going to the first movie, Episode IV – A New Hope when I was at UCLA. I heard the buzz about it, but I don’t think there was a Midnight showing of that one. I went to all the other Midnight showings. The memory is that the first spaceship… is seemed like the hugest, hugest, biggest ship you’d ever seen in your life – especially back then in the 1970s. We’d never seen anything like that and the rumble and the sound. “God – this is huge! There’s no way a spaceship is that big!”

JM: That’s really cool. “Star Wars” changed cinema forever. What was your initial reaction to hearing the news that “Clone Wars” was not only gonna get another season – a final season – but having it be on Disney+?

KK: I was so happy because we didn’t get to finish it. Disney purchased LucasFilm, and then we did “Rebels”, which I also scored. But it was such a bummer that we didn’t get to have our final season. And now we do. (Show developer) Dave Filoni told me about it and I was so enthusiastic to get going on it. You want it to take its proper journey and finish.

JM: I think many “Star Wars” fans out of the gate when Disney bought LucasFilm were a little concerned. “Are they gonna change things with the dynamic of the characters? Is some of the magic gonna be lost?” When did you first realize with Disney now on board with “Star Wars”: “Okay, things are gonna be fine.”

KK: A couple episodes into “Rebels” when I saw that everybody was letting us do what we do naturally. Nobody was messing with it. It was absolutely the same experience as I had had on “Clone Wars” with Dave Filoni and the whole group up there at LucasFilm. They know what they’re doing, and they had faith in me that I knew what I was doing. We were off to the races. And it continued to be a really pleasant experience.

JM: The Rise of Skywalker wrapped-up the third “Star Wars” movie trilogy in such a big, grand fashion. What were your goals going into this final season of “Clone Wars” in sort of making it like a big, grand finale?

KK: One of the things was to move the music forward a bit because it had been five or six years since “Clone Wars” had been scored. The world changes, and the zeitgeist changes, and my tastes change as well. I’ve been writing music now for… 37 years. In order to not get stale, I always challenge myself to try to be fresh and try to think of something new. I was really interested in moving the music along.

JM: I had the chance to screen the first two episodes of this new season of “Clone Wars”. And the three types of scenes I noticed where music is incorporated are dialogue scenes, when characters & machines enter, and big battles. Do you have a strategy in dividing and conquering these types of scenes?

KK: Yeah. With the dialogue scenes… Film Scoring 101 is stay out of the dialogue. And yet support whatever emotion or drama or whatever’s happening on the screen. You have to thin things out but not sacrifice the integrity of the composition and still write good music – and yet dialogue is king. You have to be very careful to not get in the way of the dialogue. That’s just part of the skill of scoring something properly. I’ve been doing it for a long time, so I think I’ve got a good handle on how to do that.

One of the new things we’re bringing in, especially with the battle scenes, is I think you’ll find more of a motor or percussive, electronic element in the score. I know once we get about halfway through Season 7, they really become more of a part of it – there’s more electronic elements. The orchestra’s always there, and it’s always gonna sound like “Star Wars”. But that’s one of the new things you’ll find in the soundtrack of Season 7.

JM: And of course John Williams scored the movies. How much of an influence does his music have on what you’ve been able to do with this show, with “The Clone Wars” movie and “Rebels”?

KK: John Williams, first of all, was my number one influence when I started scoring. And I believe that was part of the reason why I got the gig to do “Clone Wars” and that I was hired by George [Lucas] and Dave Filoni. I’d been studying John since the early ’80s. I revere his compositions and him as a composer. His sound is infused in who I am. I often will cite when I do a clinic or Comic-Con, I bring along an old score that I bought in the early ’80s of “Star Wars”. And if you look at it, it’s all dog-eared and really well used and it’s marked-up the way you mark up your textbook or how some people mark up their Bibles. I put my own notations of what I think John was doing. I really studied him from an early age.

What I tell everyone is I try not to imitate John Williams, what I do is I try to use my own voice. And I think through all those years of studying him, his style and his palette kind of infuses who I am as a writer. It’s gonna sound like “Star Wars” because I know how to do that. I know how to do his sound without just imitating him. I think imitation falls a little flat. I still need to move forward with my own voice and be my own composer and try to have my own really strong ideas.

JM: One of the most impressive things I noticed in watching the first two episodes is the timing of everything: the music coming in and out, certain sound effects and noises coming in and out. Is it tricky in what you’re doing and what the sound people are doing in making sure that timing is perfect?

KK: Yeah – super tricky. It’s funny, it’s like asking LeBron James, “Is it tricky making a 3-pointer with a 7-footer in your face?” It’s tricky, but he does it! The sound guys at Skywalker Sound are the best in the world and the best in the business. Dave Filoni is one of the best directors and creators in the world. If you’re gonna give props to the timing of things, Dave is really hands-on both at the beginning where we look and decide where music’s gonna go and where sound effects are gonna go – and also at the very end. When he has all the elements, he’s at the mix. I was just at the mix with him a few months ago of the very last episode of “Clone Wars”. We were, all day, just bringing things in and out, trying different things. He’s really, really hands-on and winds-up with a fantastic result.

JM: In Episode 2, someone… and I can’t say who for legal reasons… but someone admits that he is scared of heights. So Kevin, what’s scarier for you: heights or making sure that the music for a “Clone Wars” episode is perfect?

KK: (laughs) For sure… I would have to say… and I go back to when I first was hired by George Lucas, that that was way scarier than heights. And I’m pretty afraid of heights. George asked me to re-arrange the theme, and it’s the most iconic piece of music maybe in the world. I didn’t want to. I told him, “You know John did this properly the first time, right?” And George was like, “Yeah – I want something – big drums! Let’s do it!” And I was like, “Great. Ugh!” I was pretty terrified for a while. That was really, really difficult, man. That was tough. But I think the theme came out okay. We even talked about re-doing it for Season 7. Everybody finally decided that what I had done at the very beginning of Season 1 was better than anything else we could figure out. So we just kept that theme and arrangement. I’m still happy with that.

JM: In the last few months we’ve had this show, The Rise of Skywalker and The Mandalorian, which Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau are a part of. I gotta get your thoughts on the Baby Yoda phenomenon.

KK: (laughs) Being a fan of Star Wars, I know not everyone on Earth is as big a fan as some of us, and just to see the pervasiveness and to see it enter the public zeitgeist is really cool. I think it’s brought Star Wars into a lot of homes that it might not have as strong an influence as it would without Baby Yoda. I love Baby Yoda.

JM: He’s adorable. My hair stylist is obsessed with Baby Yoda. She thinks it’s the cutest little creature on Planet Earth. Could there be some little Baby Yoda reference in “Clone Wars” – something you snuck in at the last second to get in on this?

KK: Even if there was, I couldn’t talk about it. (laughs)

The final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars premieres tomorrow, Feb. 21, on Disney+. For more on Kevin, visit KevinKiner.com.

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Jackson Murphy

Jackson Murphy is a movie critic and entertainment columnist. He is the creator of the website Lights-Camera-Jackson.com, and has made numerous appearances on television and radio.

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