Well, I for one am pretty pissed right now >:-/ I was SO looking forward to Desplat's score. He is not only the much better composer of the two in my opinion, but also a much better fit for Star Wars regarding style and themes.

I know Giacchino has many fans, but he's merely decent in my book, with some rather good soundtracks while the other half is horribly unremarkable, bland, repetitive and forgettable. Compared to that, I loved almost everything that Desplat has done so far. Always hoped he would take over from Williams one day when the latter won't or can't do it anymore. Scoring Rogue One seemed to be the first step in that direction. Now if that role is going to Giacchino in the future, I don't think I'll be able to get really hyped about new music in this franchise ever again.

Huge disappointment. I have the feeling that, at least in part, Abrams had a hand in that replacement. Nepotism as always in the industry. I wonder if those few weeks are even enough to come up with something good. And it seems kinda odd and suspicious, because the schedules usually don't pop up out of nowhere but can be planned way beforehand. The decision to do the reshoots dates already back a few months. Some are speculating that Desplat has left behind an extensive scaffolding for Giacchino to work on, so that the final score would effectively be credited to both of them. I hope this is true, because it's already getting late.

And I wish for Desplat to get another go at this in one of the other Star Wars Anthology features. Btw., it's somewhat comforting to see I'm not the only one who is sad about Desplat's departure. From what I gathered before regarding Giacchino and Star Wars, I expected everyone celebrating this. Glad that's not the case.