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New audio interview with Conrad Pope, talking about the music and the legacy of John Williams, the art form of film music and his life and career in the Hollywood film music community. It’s a fun one! Hope you all enjoy! https://thelegacyofjohnwilliams.com/2019/04/26/conrad-pope-interview/

I understand the wish not to spoil things with a tracklist. But I find the track titles for both this and Infinity War very annoying. A track title should allow you to connect a cue to a scene in your memory after one viewing of a film IMO.

Avengers: Endgame - Silvestri Ferdinand - John Powell Chicken Run - Powell & Gregson Empire of The Sun - John Williams - First time listening all the way through. Genius. Imaginary Air Battle had more of an effect on me, then I expected it to. Such a great uplifting piece, and The Return to the City, wow, that piano!

This is a twofold question. Do I have to see the film first to appreciate the score? No. At least not most of the time. In fact, I have tons of soundtrack CDs where I've never seen the film the music was written for. In quite a lot of cases, I'm interested in seeing the movie at some point, but by far not in all, and when I am, it's mostly because the music and/or the track titles have triggered my interest in the story, not because I want more context for the music. But, as I've said before, I've come to consciously enjoy first experiencing a score to a long expected film in the film. Mostly because it heightens the impact of the film, but also because it can do that for the music, if it's a film I'm really interested in. First hearing the history of the Ring motif while seeing the words "The Lord of the Rings" appear on screen after feverishly waiting for it for years was a stunning moment. And I can barely imagine what it must have been like to sit in a theatre in 1977 and hear that opening blast of the Star Wars main title. No. There are plenty of cases where I did *not* like the film, or parts of it, or at least not nearly as much as the music. If the music is good, I don't have to think of the film while listening to it. There are even cases where I appreciate the story the film fails to tell well, because the music does it so much better. Case in point: The Omen. Not a bad film, by any means, but I've always though it doesn't live up to its potential. But the music does. It actually sometimes makes me long to see the film again, and when I do watch it, I'm reminded of why I'm always somewhat disappointed by it - because it doesn't do the story justice on the same level the music does. If that made me appreciate the music any less, a significant number of my favourite scores wouldn't be favourites.

RotS just lazily tracks and loops The Arena twice.

Of course they did, that's a given. But do you realise you just wheeled out the oldest internet strawman in the book? It's like me sayin', "well the latest X-Factor winners song is about to go to number one in the charts and the ratings for the show are great, so Simon Cowell knew exactly what he was doing." Yeah these entertainments make a shit ton of cash, but it basically speaks fuck all about the quality of the content.

Well Endgame is about to be the highest grossing film of all-time. So the producers knew exactly what they were doing. Its why the MCU has been so successful all these years and DC failed to copy them. It’s because it was deeply seeded from the start what the plan was. How each film would fit in place in the larger puzzle. Audiences eat it up.

Yeah, I've seen the bloody thing twice and I still can't make anything out of most of these..

An oldie but a goodie.

Or just don't bother.

I too would prefer to re-watch the Lord of the Rings

Yo here's my review of the movie currently showing in theaters titled Avengers: Endgame.

Honestly, I think it's better if we just settle on it representing that a 70-something year-old man could still create music so rock-hard and ball-slamming.

I think the one real prerequisite is Infinity War. The rest are not really needed but do help I suppose, especially in the middle section. Edit: oh and definitely the first Captain America too.

Going off of what several others such as Alex and Steef were saying, I think there are definitely times when associating the music with its intended context--there's that word again--can hurt the music, or at least your perception of it. I don't listen to much film music, but even with someone like John Williams, with a more rarefied selection of films than some other film composers...do you _really_ want to imagine, I don't know, Kevin Costner sitting on a bench with Donald Sutherland when you listen to something as profoundly stirring as "Arlington"? In fact, on some level, I wouldn't be surprised if it's one of the reasons all of us are attracted to Williams' music: being the real composer he is, I suspect that after he gets the general feeling and timing for a scene down in his head, he turns off the film in a sense--that context-- and just writes music with those abstract goalposts somewhere other than the very front of his brain. And of course there's all the concert suites he writes. Really think Williams could write such a full-bodied, melancholy powerhouse as "Reflections" by just sticking with scenes of Christopher Walken hunched in a bar?

I think Endgame will make more money than Rise of Skywalker, but yeah Disney will make all the money at the box office

Some gorgeous stuff from Silvestri in the final act of Endgame. I immediately thought of Cast Away when this piece started in the cinema. I love his sombre yet heroic Avengers theme on brass playing behind the strings at 3:34, and also before when the main melody turns atmospheric and innocently child-like at 2:32 as if the musician is playing glasses of water with their fingers. And that guitar is so melancholic and cliche, but so damn beautiful.

Originally it was a set piece theme, a march to underscore the initial fight with the beasts in the arena in Episode II. Only when Lucas dropped it from the arena scene for the most part and then tracked a segment of it in RotS people came to associate with the clone army. I believe it didn't have any more far flung thematic meaning to it, sort of like the fugue march in Belly of the Steel Beast from The Last Crusade where Williams builds everything around the oppressive musical idea for the lumbering tank. If you want to assign a name to it call it the Arena March or something similar as that was its original intention and it doesn't appear anywhere else as written by Williams.

It's for the arena scene in Episode II and was then repurposed for clone-related scenes in Episode III. It was never meant to underscore anything with the clones as far as I know.

WALL-E by Thomas Newman Continuing a brief ride on Newman's unmistakable style, WALL-E sees fantastical moments right through to the somber ones, all the while holding on to that Finding Nemo-coined sound. The first act is bursting with cool ideas, from the eerie mystery of 2815 A.D. to the playful innocence of WALL-E's entrance cue, this score hits all the marks. Newman also gives us a glimpse of sci-if writing, but in a very keeping sort of way, holding true to the core of his style. It's quite a fun album, right down to the source music. RATING: **** out of ***** A lot of fun, maintaining Newman's style while being a tad more experimental, progressing on other Disney ~ Pixar works. The Death of Stalin by Christopher Willis For a 30 minute album, you'd suppose that there wouldn't be too many revelations after as many listens as this brilliant OST has warranted from me this past week (6 times now). This flew completely under the radar for me, as Willis isn't exactly the biggest name in the film music industry. Nonetheless, he proves his worth here. The first thing that comes to mind is Shostakovich. Willis appears to pay homage to him in every delectable track, imitating his captivating voice without appearing too on-the-nose and unoriginal. In fact, while I hear this as an ode to the Russian maestros of the early 20th century (chiefest of whom is Shostakovich here). The main theme is delightfully good, and for a classical fan this is a must-listen score, in my opinion. Back from the Gulags employs a piano to variate the main theme many octaves up from its original statement, with a tip of the cap to Shostakovich's piano concertos, especially the first movement of the premier composition. A Comedy of Terrors (End Titles) takes on the role of a neo-classical string serenade, before relying on some powerful brass to, in hindsight, illustrate the musical tendencies of, say, Prokofiev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov, and of course Shostakovich, with the former three holding fast in slight nuances as opposed to grand over-arching structure, which belongs to the latter. RATING: ***** out of ***** It's a must-listen for any film score and classical music fan who can appreciate a Shostakovich-esque tribute of sorts.

Not really. For scores to movies I haven’t seen, I listen to them purely as a separate work of music, free from the context of the film.

Qui-Gon's Noble End?

So clearly there's a lot of back and forth on this new Avengers movie, but all I want to know: can we refer to the previous MCU movies that are essential to its plot as Avengers: Pregame?

Side effects may and often include successive priapisms.

What's the cue when Antman first enters the Avengers compound? I am specifically talking about the music when he is explaining quantum physics to Widow and Cap?

The whole point of the MCU is that each movie is connected. This has been going on for 11 years, not sure why it’s a surprise all of a sudden.

Yeah, they're not standalone at all but not a straightforward single narrative either. Pretty much like the comics where many different storylines run in parallel and cross over at specific points, affecting all.

Well The Avengers isn't its own series at all but the culminations of the "phases" of Marvel movies where everyone comes together and what they achieved in that phase factors in somewhat. Roughly. Kinda.

"The Real Hero" made me shed a few tears, not just for the melody, orchestra and composition, but also the sequence it portrays, climaxing in a long pan back shot that is perhaps my favorite shot in the entire film, maybe in the whole Infinity Saga. I was not expecting it; it was really powerful.

Infinity War remains tops but generally dug this and will probably see it again in theaters or Bluray, either of which would join it with IW and the Raimi Spider-Mans in rarefied Marvel company for me. Held together pretty well for 3 hours, liked the slow start and made me lol a lot as it got going. Teared up a bit over ol Iron Man, nice death scene. Action was just ok, Cap on Cap and Hawkeye in Japan fights were rad, final battle was a little bleh-looking but since they kept it focused enough on highlighting personalities and was about as short as they could have possibly achieved it went down ok. Silvestri did alright, noticed the Infinity War reprises and walked out humming the Cast Away knockoff so that’s something. And while I never thought much of the Avengers tune originally, it has sort of effectively smashed me into feeling sentimental about it. Also I’m not sure when it was that Chris Hemsworth became MVP because he barely registered for me as Thor in the first few movies but he is so damn good and I am all in on Guardians 3.

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Yes. There has been debates on if Borodin is human.

Avatar OST

I have to agree, this was an incredible episode. I'd even go as far as this being the best episode of the show yet. Visually this went above and beyond... and I thought the Kaylon 2-parter was VFX-heavy. McNeely's score did give me some Williams vibes here and there, but it still felt fresh... great action music! Oh man, I SO hope this show gets many more seasons.

So the The Bangles Forum is going to be a thing? Cool!

I want Marvel to give us the origin film for the real hero of Endgame. Without whom none of this would have been possible.

I always watch the movie muted with subtitles first, so I can score it in my head. Then I listen to the lesser, pathetic score and make critiques and comparisons.

No, but I guess it would be kind of unfair to the composer to say the OST is 'bad' if you don't like it listening to it without context because it might work well within the movie. However it's something I have done a lot, particularly if the movie itself doesn't interest me very much but the composers work does (e.g. JNH).

The last film was just the screen hopping from character to character, watchable mostly because of Brolin's Thanos. Everyone has some personality again in this one.

If only the show writers had as nuanced a view on Westerosi politics as you did Gloin...it would probably make a far more interesting show!

You would love the german dubs then, where they speak thrice as much as in the original (often you could see that the actors aren't even moving their lips). The verfremdungseffekt reaches delirious heights here, when the main dude grossly insults everyone around him for no particular reason.

Guess I'm in the 'free' now, so the following will contain spoilers. Read only after you've seen the movie (or if you don't care about spoilers). First of all, there were many confusing elements in the film to me, because I haven't seen films like CAPTAIN MARVEL and ANT MAN AND THE WASP, for example (at least not yet). These characters are introduced without any explanation, and requires that you've seen movies like that beforehand (well, the film really requires that you've seen 75% of all previous MCU films). When Captain Marvel "saves the day" in the beginning of the film -- the predicament that Tony Stark is in at the end of INFINITY WAR -- I had no clue who it was, LOL! Is it Wonder Woman, I thought, but then she isn't Marvel, is she? The film is surprisingly low energy/reflective on quite a few occasions, which I really like. The decision to have Thor delve into a deep depression, turning fat and desillusioned, also allows for some humourous moments. But then towards the end, it also has the battle of all battles with practically every Marvel MCU hero we've seen so far involved. Even nods to the TV stuff, like having Jarvis from AGENT CARTER in a brief cameo (although, in a way, he's also part of the film series as the voice of the Stark's computer). There is -- as you would expect -- a lot of timejumping in the film, which is always tricky to pull off. They make sure to point out this, "meta-style", in several references to time travel movies, but I'm not sure they pull it off completely. BIG spoiler now: Two Marvel heroes die in this film -- Iron Man and Black Widow. But nothing in this universe is final, of course. Even if Downey now steps down from the role, for example, others may step in. Captain America also 'departs', in a way, as he decides to stay in the past to live out his life with Agent Carter. I found the film very uneven. Liked the reflective moments, less enthused about the CGI mayhem, as I've been with all Marvel movies I've seen. It's simply not something I connect to anymore, like I did in my childhood and teenage years. As I said in the other thread, Silvestri's score was also uneven. There are references to Captain Marvel, Captain America, Ant-Man, Black Panther themes. And one by Giacchino I've forgotten from glancing through the end credits. Maybe a few more. Don't know if all of these references will be on the soundtrack album.

I very rarely play whole albums anyway. I've always been a cherry picker.

I would be very very on board for Peter Jackson to work with Samuel L. Jackson, though. I think they would actually mesh surprisingly well together. He's our most taken-for-granted actor working today due to his ubiquity. I've been realizing more and more lately how extraordinary he really is as a performer.

That's sad