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Michael Giacchino's War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)


Max

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27 minutes ago, KK said:

It also just struck me that "Exodus Wounds" is a neutered take on "Anakin's Dark Deeds". There seems to be a fair bit of possible temp-track love here.

 

Anakin! You're breaking my heart!

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I concur. But then, he makes up for it with interesting textures. The lack of themes, or the fact themes are being being simplistic, doesn't really bother me in either of Giacchino's scores. In other franchises that would have been a problem but Planet of the Apes series is well served by it. Goldsmith's work didn't really showcase any long-lined melodies and neither of the follow-ups changed that. Even Elfman's work was based on collection of repeating simple motifs. And it makes complete sense.

 

Karol

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Oh, I'm sure the music itself will work mighty fine in the film (just like the Dawn score), and it is indeed perfect for the franchise itself, but if you're gonna give a 75 minutes long album, I need a bit more than that to hold my interest.

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18 minutes ago, Sharky said:

 

The key difference with the original score is that 70-80% of the film's underscore is just inversions, retrogrades, retrograde-inversions, transpositions and aggregates (chords) of a single 12 tone row. That gives the score a thematic unity that is extremely subtle (and barely perceptible to the average listener) but hard to beat. 

Yes, of course. I just meant it in a way that general public perceives music.

 

Karol

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Because of the hype I was waiting for something "big" to happen, but it never came. Some neat thematic ideas though.

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Wow, War is far better than Homecoming! Some standout tracks and a nice development of the material from the last film, and making me look forward to seeing this conclusion to the trilogy (which the music seemed to wrap up well).

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Very high praise from these two critics for Gia's score. They compare it to Mica Levi's Under The Skin which for modern critics is what Williams' Stars Wars is for Jwfan. So that qualifies as high praise indeed.

 

Score discussion starts at about 4:30.

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1 hour ago, TheUlyssesian said:

 

I don't know what people here think of that score but film critics lost their shit for it.

 

I thought it was interesting and certainly appropriate for that crazy fucking movie.  But yeah not something I'm putting on a lot.  OTOH, I had already been a big fan of Mica's experimental, strange, but oddly compelling pop music for many years before her entry into film scoring!!

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From the RogerEbert.com review of the film:

 

Quote

The second is bringing on the great composer Michael Giacchino, who arguably does the best work of his career here, recalling both war films and great blockbuster scores of the ’70s and ‘80s with compositions that become essential to the overall success of the film. A stunning amount of “War” is silent—more than any blockbuster I can remember—so Giacchino’s score becomes as important as the compositions for pre-sound films in the way it conveys emotion and even internal conflict. It’s phenomenal.

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/amp/war-for-the-planet-of-the-apes-2017

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That joke never gets old...

 

Some good writers at that site.

 

It's funny, for there being a "stunning amount" of silence in the movie, it sure is a long OST....

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Lots of names have been mentioned here already. Broughton, Horner... When I hear cues like Exodus Wounds, I can't help myself but think of John Barry's Black Hole.

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3 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

That joke never gets old...

 

Some good writers at that site.

 

It's funny, for there being a "stunning amount" of silence in the movie, it sure is a long OST....

 

I think by silent they mean dialog free. Which would give Gia the opportunity to shine. 

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I need to listen to this, haven't checked it out since my initial listens on Friday.  I keep listening to Spider-man instead!

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I was planning to see it today, but just checked the local cinemas, and NOT ONE of them has it in 2D. Every single bloody showing is in 3D! When did 2D disappear? I can only stand 3D when the film is in space or something, like Star Wars/Trek etc.

 

As Mr. Plinkett says; "FUCK MOVIES!"

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Almost every single review I've read of this movie has a paragraph similar to this.

 

Quote

There's another member of the crew whose contribution to War for the Planet of the Apes is so outstanding, I paid close attention to the credits to learn their name. It turned out to be an artist I know well; Michael Giacchino, the composer of The Incredibles, Inside Out, and the recent Star Trek reboot. He also wrote the score for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, but his work on War seems even more grand and epic, even more effective in evoking the emotions of its simian protagonists with unusual instrumentation like tribal drums. This is one of the great recent movie scores.

http://screencrush.com/war-for-the-planet-of-the-apes-review/

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1 minute ago, Disco Stu said:

These are the type of critics of think a score is incredible if they notice that a movie has one at all.

 

Yep.

 

1 minute ago, Disco Stu said:

But that's kind of good news, that Reeves has apparently actually given some space in the sound of the film to the music.

 

Well, he did let the score shine in some scenes in Dawn already. And I'm sure it shines here too. Now, is it in such a way that it makes it sound like a freakin' masterpiece? That remains to be seen...

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Or heard...

 

Most critics have mentioned the score positively, but that's just standard film criticism where they're doing the rounds of patting everyone on the back to fill a word quota. 

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7 minutes ago, BloodBoal said:

 

Yep.

 

 

Well, he did let the score shine in some scenes in Dawn already. And I'm sure it shines here too. Now, is it in such a way that it makes it sound like a freakin' masterpiece? That remains to be seen...

 

Heh, this is where I finally admit I've never watched Dawn!  I saw Rise in theaters and thought it was just ok so I never rushed out to see Dawn.  I did listen to the score a bunch back when it came out, just because it was Gia.

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Dawn I think was an improvement over Rise, but at the same time I came away as if I left my emotions at the door only to pick them back up afterwards, and realising that I didn't have any emotional investment in this film at all - Rise had some emotional core with Ceasar and the guy with Alzheimer's, what's-his-face?

 

The good reviews for War seem like this could be rectified.

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I loved Rise. It was flawed but its heart was in the right place. Dawn was just relentlessly a dour, sentimental and formulaic piece of crap, with the only memorable thing being Gia's score.

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