Datameister

Cutthroat Island comes to mind. It's got some great themes, and it's beautifully recorded, but it's just. Too. Much. You've got thickly layered fortissimo strings, brass, winds, percussion, and choir up the wazoo—and that's just the first cue! I enjoy individual tracks but I absolutely cannot enjoy the whole album, despite years of trying. I was really lukewarm on Star Trek TMP for a long time, but I finally "got" that score eventually.

Yep. Complete programs for the prequels would be pretty easy. Complete programs for the sequels … oof. Nightmare. (But one I still fervently hope happens during my lifetime!)

@mosabri2 I think you're vastly overstating HZ's pianistic deficiencies. Your point would make more sense if you were talking about, like, the E.T. end credits or the solos in Snowy's theme—something that could only be written by someone intimately familiar with the repertoire and with the sounds an excellent pianist can produce. But the feather theme is super simple. Totally diatonic, not fast, with easy pop chord changes and a melody consisting of three-note scale fragments and basic arpeggios. It's great because of its simplicity. Silvestri didn't need to be a virtuosic pianist. He "just" needed to be really, really great at a much rarer skill: the ability to craft a tune that sounds totally inevitable, that gives the right feels, and that lingers in your ear and heart. And I'd argue that HZ has written some tunes like that as well, albeit very different in style.

Really puzzling allegations here. HZ got his start as a keyboardist. He may not be a world-class virtuoso, but I'm sure he could get his fingers around something basic like the feather theme. (It's a great theme, but not remotely difficult to play.) And I believe Djawadi started with guitar, graduating summa cum laude from Berklee, so he's probably not the world's worst musician either.

I definitely like both. But to me, the original flows better. The redo feels a little choppy as it tries to navigate the happenings on the screen. It mostly feels like a chopped-up version of the original. (That being said, I really like the few passages that are unrelated to anything in the original version.) Ultimately—pun intended—I'm just delighted to have them both complete and with pristine sound quality!

If we're talking trailers for which JW wrote bespoke music, options that come to mind are: Nixon HPSS POA Hook TFA 1941 Any others? Of those, HPSS is probably my favorite. Least favorite is 1941, which lacks the zany exuberance of the score proper. (Although I admit I'm not familiar with Nixon.)

6 episodes in, I have such mixed feelings about it. The ideas themselves are really interesting, but I feel like the tone is all over the place. There's kind of a YA melodrama tinge to a lot of the writing and acting, but then suddenly there's full-frontal nudity, or a character dropping the C-word a few times per episode, or a mass casualty event that's as creative as it is unflinchingly gory. CW meets HBO. Anyway, I will certainly be finishing the first season and awaiting the second, and there's a good chance I'll read the books in the meantime. I'm probably just spoiled as I'm still coming down from the high of finally finishing Better Call Saul, which did the unthinkable by really giving Breaking Bad a run for its money. Jesus, I was sad to see it end—and delighted to see it end as well as it did.

I certainly did until this thread was so rudely bumped …

Classic Jedi hubris.

I wish I could remember. I guess his Trek theme's use in TNG would have been an early one; I didn't see TMP until a little later. I did see Planet of the Apes as a kid but the music didn't make much of an impression on me at the time. (Don't worry, I love it as an adult!) Soarin' Over California definitely caught my attention, as did his Universal logo. And I did have a compilation album that included Alien and Gremlin. I probably didn't realize how much standing JG had with fans until I joined this community in the mid or late aughts. From there, my appreciation slowly grew, although there's still a large portion of his work I haven't heard. Oh, and for the record, I do not view the TMP theme as a Star Wars knockoff in any way. It conjures very different emotions/images for me, and I can't point to any objective commonalities beyond "loud orchestral main theme in one or more major keys, featuring trumpets or violins on a triplet-heavy melody." That's hardly unique to SW.

No, he's saying it was the Force's plan. It wanted Vader to catch Luke. In the fourth trilogy, the Force itself will be revealed as the true villain behind everything bad that's ever happened in SW. The peoples of the galaxy will have to rise up and go to war with their own midi-chlorians. (That end battle was sure tricky to shoot, back in 2018.)

Zekeckis is an akazing kan, omay? Don't kame fun.

@Mattris Copy that. Looking forward to that midi-chlorian trilogy bringing us to your plane of enlightenment, God whilling.

If Zekeckis ever sells BTTF to Disney, we could make a Disenchantment Under the Sea Thread... EDIT: Well that's just too funny a misspelling to correct.

Just to make sure I'm tracking … you're suggesting that this isn't made clear by Yoda in that very scene? "Through the Force, things you will see. Other places. The future, the past. Old friends long gone. … It is the future you see."

I've always assumed one of the source cues from SS or POA.

He owns JoAnn Kane Music Service, arguably the biggest name in music preparation for films. (Music prep is the process of rapidly creating the finished sheet music based on what the composer, arranger, or orchestrator provides. In the olden days, that meant handwriting the conductor's score and every player's part. Now it's accomplished with software like Finale or Sibelius.)

I gotta admit, this is one of Mattris's less entertaining detours. I expect better.

https://wondermark.com/c/1k62/

"You catch on pretty quick." -Ric Olié Ironclad confirmation that most Star Wars fans understand exactly what Star Wars is about. The literal words have definitions, and the definitions come together to create meaning, and the meaning is irrefutable fact.

Dude … props to you for your craft. Working the common misuse of "comprised" into a holier-than-thou lecture on paying attention to the definitions of words? Masterstroke.

This is so cool. Notice that JW does call for "drs", i.e. drums, i.e. snare or field drums, along with the timpani. I always wondered about that, since you pretty much just hear timpani in the ANH recording. There isn't any (audible) snare drum until later recordings.

LiTeRaL cOnTeNtS

How wonderful would it be to get an album of JW's Star Wars music written or adapted for the parks? You could include: Star Tours 2.0 queue (Ross) Star Tours 2.0 queue (Giacchino) Original Star Tours ride music (Bellis) Original Star Tours exit music (Bellis) Hyperspace Mountain (Ross) Galaxy's Edge (JW's suite) Galaxy's Edge lightsaber building music (Ross) Galaxy's Edge entrance music (Kerber) Any other Galaxy's Edge recordings by Ross (e.g. for the rides and show moments) Disneyland Band SW medley There's got to be more. Maybe the main theme excerpt as recorded for Remember...Dreams Come True? Anyway, I'd buy it!

My current theory: Mattris still hates Disney-era Star Wars and the people behind it, just like he talked about in the pre-TROS days. At some point he just decided it would be more fun to troll everyone by caricaturing the folks he'd probably describe as Lucasfilm apologists. You know, offer the most deliberately far-fetched ideas with an air of enlightened superiority, in order to lampoon those who defend the ST.