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Posts posted by Henry B
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Really? Every musical person around here tends to get off on deriding its simplicity.
I like the theme a lot. I think the orchestration makes it work. Take "Hella Bar Talk" - basically two minutes of the same four-bar theme repeated over and over, but interesting nonetheless. Giacchino throws the theme around all the sections of the orchestra, adds and subtracts layers, varies the dynamics, introduces counter-melodies, lays down the drum track. Those are the interesting things. I think, on a basic level, that the theme has a cosmic quality, an excitement about the unknown that is crucial to Star Trek. Oh, it doesn't span an octave and a half like the Force theme does? It sits too often on the tonic note? Sure... whatever.
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OK, I know everyone is let down that the credits are just another rehash BUT...
Consider this: the shitty video sounds way more exciting than Dan Wallin's mix.
Listen to those drums! Now there's no telling how it'll all sound in the end, but at least the raw orchestra sounds nice.
I could swear the orchestrations are totally new. But maybe it's just the magic of a non-Wallin mix.
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Commercial for the upcoming Star Trek video game:
I love this.
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I am also tremendously grateful to have this new stuff (uncut "T-Rex Chase" and "Hungry Raptor"? Hell yeah!), but that's the biggest headscratcher for me: Not only are Intrada and Universal are working together, but they've been working on special titles in honor of Universal's anniversary, and Jurassic Park is one of their major classic blockbusters, celebrating its own anniversary. It seems like a no-brainer to be a full-blown comprehensive release from Intrada, and yet it's getting a digital release in this form with minimal fanfare (as far as I can tell). It makes even less sense that La-La Land has been releasing such titles with no problems (in the case of 1941, from Universal no less!). Is Williams somehow more "protective" of that early '90s period (hence Hook)? Is there a CD release forthcoming, and Williams wanted a chance to take a stab at the unreleased material in his own way for the mainstream re-release?
I don't get it.
You have to keep in mind that JP is a HUGE studio property and everything related to it in terms of consumer products is handled in a way that go beyond the niches. Also, anything that involves Spielberg and his own movies has further levels of approvals and so on.
This. Also, I suspect the suits at Universal now see iTunes/Amazon as more profitable than physical CDs, and for whatever reason the niche labels like La La Land can't yet cater to that. We're a board of soundtrack collectors who obsess over sound quality. It's easy to forget how few of us there are in comparison to general consumers. Remember: instant gratification. People are still trying to download music illegally, or they look for songs on YouTube or services like Spotify. A one click, instant download is perhaps the only avenue most record companies have at this point.
oesn't Universal Music put audible watermarks on their digital files, I've read elsewhere that these degrade the sound quality quite noticeably?
You couldn't be more wrong. Everything in the iTunes Store is encoded by Apple themselves from lossless files sent to them by the studio releasing the product. There is no DRM at all in the files, and they sound great!
Indeed. Guys, lossless/lossiness is only one aspect of a listening experience, and a rather small one at that. Compression has nothing to do with mic placement, mic quality, mixing, condition of material, or anything "real" about the recording. The fact that this release is remastered, and remastered quite well, means much more to me than the fact that it is slightly compressed to meet iTunes standards.
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I pulled this from the digital booklet:
20th Anniversary Edition Credits
Executive In Charge Of Music For Universal Pictures: Mike Knobloch
Music Business Affairs For Universal Pictures: Philip M. Cohen
20th Anniversary Edition Music Editor: Ramiro Belgart
20th Anniversary Edition Remastered by Patricia Sullivan at Bernie Grundman Mastering, Hollywood, CA
20th Anniversary Edition Special Thanks to: Doug Barasch, Celeste Chada, Chris Crichton, Jaime Feldman, Angela Leus, Monique McGuffin Newman, Meire Murakami, Eric Polin, Bruce Resnikoff, Jamie Richardson, Tom Rowland, Jake Voulgarides, Nikki Walsh, Todd Waxler, Steve Wengert and Allison Wood. -
Cool! I really like that unreleased cue where everybody gets into the jeep to tour Jurassic Park. (And yes, Jason, you can yell at me for not knowing the proper cue title.)
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I wonder if they made the new Uhura a "xenolinguistics expert" just to poke fun at that scene in ST6 where she fumbles through a Klingon-English dictionary trying to put a few short phrases together.
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Jason, maybe it's because Alice Eve's poise and expression seem to say literally nothing. It's like Abrams told her, "Your motivation for this scene is that we need to have a piece of meat in the trailer, so just stand there and look pretty for a second. Cut. That's a wrap for today. Tomorrow we'll do the dubbing sessions and get in a line about 'outnumbered, outmanned and outgunned.' "
Just a comment on the trailer, of course. I remain hopeful that all this stuff won't seem terrible in the context of the film.
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Well, the fact is that the script for the first Star Trek movie was written by Orci and Kurtsman, and the script for Into Darkness is written by them + Lindeloff. You shouldn't let the fact that Lindeloff worked on Prometheus make you assume Into Darkness will therefore not be as good, since Lindeloff has written good scripts elsewhere (and let's not forget Orci and Kurtsman wrote Transformers 1-3, some of the worst movies ever made!)
In fairness, Orci and Kurtsman bowed out after Transformers 2, basically admitting that they hated what the studio's interference had done to the script. Ehren Kruger wrote Transformers 3.
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Let's hope not.
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Today there are some diploma programs that allow students to earn an exclusively musical education with an emphasis on performance in lieu of a bachelor's degree. Maybe Williams went through something like that. More likely he simply dropped out of school for professional opportunities. I think the degree was less important then. Even today, I've met a couple college professors with only bachelor's degrees, or not even a bachelor's. Performance (or composition) is the most important credential, even though the master's and/or doctorate helps a lot.
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Let's also not underestimate Williams possibly using new musical ideas to update his sound. He already knocked over his traditionalist streak when he used a new fingerboard instrument called a Continuum in 2008 for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." It proved his astuteness to newer sounds and how it can keep him relevant in film scoring for at least another decade.
This really seems to miss the point. Williams has been using synthesizers for almost forty years, and the continuum fingerboard was nothing more than a new keyboard interface for the same old theremin sound. "Padmé's Ruminations" is a much more substantial embrace of new techniques. But I think the instrumentation debate is pointless. Williams uses almost the same essential set of instruments as Trevor Rabin or Hans Zimmer or Michael Giacchino or most others in the industry, which is massive symphony orchestra (large string and brass sections), synthesizers and sampled drums. The details are in the mixing, editing, and, most importantly, the actual composition.
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I would suggest they make Episode VII an interquel. Just to describe what happened between Episodes I and II. The time frame of the events happening in these episodes always was way to big compared to the time frame of the original trilogy. Consequently, Episode VIII could then be made as an interquel between Episodes II and III, Episode IX as an interquel between Episodes III and IV and so on.
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Well, while Blume's analysis of Williams' comments about Episode VII seems a tad bit harsh, it certainly does bring to light the sort of hero worship that goes on here. I mean, nobody is saying that John Williams is a horrible, ruthless, soul-sucking, opportunistic viper. But can't we acknowledge that he's a human being, at least? This idea that Williams has never done a selfish thing in his life is absurd.
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I heard this style made a triumphant return in Red Tails.
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Jay, what need would there be to lock a funny thread like this?
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True, they could transpose it from watching the DVD
Transcribe.
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"Who the hell are you?" I guess that rules out Gary Mitchell.
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There's a hell of a lot there.
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someone is over thinking here.
Miri is played by Kim Darby of True Grit fame. She was 19 years old at the time of the episode and to go towards the idea of pedophilia is twisted but not on the story's part HB. Kirk never took an interst in Miri other than concern. Young women being attracted to older men is not twisted or disgusting it's just the way of the world. I suppose Marsha Brady being attracted to Davy Jones was sick and twisted. Oh the pedophilia!!!!
Joey, the character of Miri is just hitting puberty, so I estimated her "real" age to be 10-13. Understand that I'm not getting up in arms about a TV episode that was filmed forty years ago. I just think that it was hilariously misguided writing.
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Star Trek TOS - "Miri."
When sampling TOS, I watched some of the best reputed episodes. I also watched the episodes that were said to be the worst: "The Alternative Factor" and "Spock's Brain." Little did I realize that this blind pick would be the most horrible of all! Oh, boy. Well, the cinematography is dull, and the action scenes are marred by shaky cam - that's right! - forty years before it became cool. The writing is redundant and confusing, with characters echoing each other needlessly and muttering statements that go unanswered. Sometimes it seems as if a scene begins in the middle of a conversation, or as if there's an edit that inexplicably cuts out an important piece of expository dialogue. Spock and McCoy sputter the silliest science I've ever heard from the show. For example, the deadly disease that wiped out all the adults, and which is automatically contracted upon reaching puberty (how?), was born out of an attempt to create eternal life by infecting humans with a never ending chain reaction of diseases. Okaaaaay! The climax of the episode, in which Kirk emotionally appeals to the children to give up their tribal ways and help him cure the disease, is rendered completely unnecessary because McCoy is found to have already formulated the vaccine. William Shatner delivers one of his worst performances, the stuff of ridicule, and the child actors are terrible. I suppose the girl who played Miri did a fine job. Miri is a strange character, though. For one thing, she and Kirk are written like a romantic pairing. The interest Kirk takes in this 12-year-old (technically 300-year-old because of the episode's Never-Never-Land conceit) is downright disturbing. He's such a predator that Rand even gets jealous. How on earth did the writer think that such pedophilia would be charming?
By the way, Rand - never a very interesting character to begin with - is at her lowest point in this episode, practically a misogynist's wet dream. Ravaged by a horrible disease, she peels open her shirt and asks Kirk to look at her legs, something which he was always keen to do. But tragically, her sex appeal has been destroyed by the mysterious disease. Oh, the naïve concerns of women! Speaking of misogynist wet dreams, Grace Lee Whitney was sexually assaulted and fired from the show following the taping of this episode.
The best part of all is that the Peter Pan child society discovered by the Enterprise lives on a planet which, although hundreds of light years from our own, is an exact duplicate of 1960's Earth - a fact that is never, ever explained!
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its much easier for me to find eastern music from eastern composers (Hisaishi, Watanabe, Kanno, Amano etc.), than it is to find eastern music from Western composers (I am not racist, I just want to hear more of a musical style I like)
Okay, my bad. Just calling it like I see it. It sounded like you had no interest whatsoever in the "real deal," but I was incorrect.
I guess I'm troubled by all the talk at this forum over the years ridiculing composers with "foreign sounding" names, e.g. Ilaiyaraaja, A.R. Rahman, etc., and the idea that they only win accolades for meeting some diversity quota.
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Faleel is acting like a big old racist. Let's face it. I could name a few Chinese and Japanese composers right off the top of my head that write the sort of lush, romantic music he is seeking, but he doesn't seem interested. I guess music with different modalities and East Asian instruments is great, as long as it's written by an American or European guy.
Michael Giacchino's Star Trek Into Darkness
in General Discussion
Posted
Well, to each his own. To me, there's a strong vibe of gazing at the stars, especially in quieter renditions like "Hella Bar Talk." We all hear different things.