WatchMojo's Top 10 Movie Sci-Fi Scores

[chuck 154]

You can guess the number 1 is...

 

 

[Jay 37,289]

3,694 posts and no avatar?

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

5 minutes ago, chuck said:

You can guess the number 1 is...

The Force Awakens? 

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Sunshine? Stargate? Ugh.

[Loert 2,510]

No Contact?

And how could they mention Stargate but not Independence Day?

[JoeinAR 1,949]

I don't want to watch, anyone want to list the 10.

 

if this board picked it #1 would be ESB, and E.T. #2.

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

And that's what's wrong with this board!

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

3 hours ago, loert said:

No Contact?

 

Or Planet of the Apes, Solaris (the Artemiev), Interstellar or The Day the Earth Stood Still...

 

I mean 12 Monkeys? It's not a bad score and it's a nice left field choice, I suppose, but hardly a great.

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

In the interest of maybe stirring up some real discussion, let me play devil's advocate even more than usual.

 

Not only are E.T. and ESB not great scifi scores, they're not scifi scores at all.  The films they accompany are not what I would most purely call science fiction, and in neither case do the scores themselves offer anything that can be identified as staples of science fiction music.  They are both grandiose, hyper-romantic, operatic - none of which are qualities of true science fiction, in musical form or in cinematic form.

 

And with that in mind, only a few of the choices on this list should be there at all.  Much too broad a definition is being used here.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

28 minutes ago, TheWhiteRider said:

And that's what's wrong with this board!

I was going to ask but then I read what you wrote so I am not asking. They are science fiction. They are science fiction score of the utmost quality.

 

They may not fit your very narrow definition but it doesn't matter as in the broad sense they are exactly that.

But if you want to tell us it's Hanz Zimmer in Interstellar and Inception please proceed. I am open to him or someone else.

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

As I made clear, my point in saying so was to try and nudge something a little more substantial out of you or any other takers than "you're wrong."  Tell me why my definition of science fiction doesn't matter and yours does - Wikipedia genre classifications or "what most people think" do not count.

[Romão 2,274]

I would also hardy consider ET or any of the Star Wars scores to be Sci Fi. Even Jurassic Park is a stretch. But genre definitions are inherently volatile

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

Jurassic Park fits in better than the family adventure romp with an alien thrown in that is E.T. or the obviously its-own-beast (space opera, if you will) Star Wars.  But JP still doesn't meet many of the aesthetic conditions that I'd consider integral to true science fiction, even if some of the themes are sort of there.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

E.T. is about a alien on earth, seems like science and fiction. 

I don't consider 2001 as having a score. Just a soundtrack of often ill fitting classic music. 

Robocop...great BP score but it's another dystopian future which seems to be all the rage in science fiction. it needs a remake, another remake with some needed teen angst.

Back to the Future is sciencey and fiction but the score ins't in STTMP's, ET, Star Wars, JP's league, IMHO of course.

T2 isn't much more than a beefed up Terminator score with a bigger budget. 

 

i need Linus to define Science Fiction I guess. 

[publicist 4,643]

Less a definition of science is needed than a more diverse committee of people selecting the titles. Maybe then it would include more than the expected fanboy choices from guys who grew up in the 80's.

[chuck 154]

Some of the comments on the section was making my eyes roll, like this one:

 

Kameron Woodall1 hour ago

 

Michael Giacchino's Star Trek scores are better the Goldsmiths. And I love Goldsmith as a composer

 

 

 

[Quintus 5,399]

4 hours ago, TheWhiteRider said:

the family adventure romp with an alien thrown in that is E.T. 

 

With this kind of when it suits you flippancy though (one of your characteristics) you're not really playing devil's advocate for the sake of 'real discussion' at all, you're playing fool. Hence why you won't be taken seriously on this. 

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

No, there's no flippancy or fool-playing, and I regret that you see it that way.  That may be an extreme way to describe the film, but it isn't really wrong, and makes the point I wanted to make.

[Quintus 5,399]

I think you're confusing narrative and themes with genre. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

He's just being a conniving little toss-pot!

 Neo-JWFan, where E.T., film and score, are second rate works of limited interest.

[A24 4,326]

9 hours ago, TheWhiteRider said:

  Much too broad a definition is being used here.

 

If the definition is too well-defined, only a handful of movies would be eligible to be labelled Science Fiction. 

[Quintus 5,399]

1 hour ago, Stefancos said:

He's just being a conniving little toss-pot!

 Neo-JWFan, where E.T., film and score, are second rate works of limited interest.

 

Did you know that Close Encounters of the Third Kind is just a movie about the breakdown of the family unit after a midlife crisis with aliens thrown in? It's a standard Mike Leigh domestic drama with added alien abductions and flying saucers.

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

I mean, you can be a cunt about it if you want, but I genuinely wasn't. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

You obviously were!

[Biodome 714]

Personally, I wouldn't categorize Star Wars as science fiction. More like space fantasy, perhaps. There really isn't any science in there. It's like the epic fantasy of Lord of the Rings, but just in space.

I know that generally people call any space movie about aliens science fiction, but I think that the term would be more useful when applied to movies that are grounded partly in actual science, and partly in futuristic science, like Interstellar, for instance. When I look for science fiction movies, I am actually looking for something that resembles science.

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

Prepare to be hated, my friend!

[Wojo 2,453]

If science fiction is baking soda while fantasy is vinegar, Star Wars is a noisy bubbling mess. 

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

On 24/05/2016 at 3:13 AM, TheWhiteRider said:

But JP still doesn't meet many of the aesthetic conditions that I'd consider integral to true science fiction, even if some of the themes are sort of there.

 

Could you be more precise? Like a lot of sci-fi JP draws on the old man-as-God narrative inherited from Shelley's Frankentsein and Ovid's Promethean myth. You could also feasibly place it within the realm of environment science fiction, along with Silent Running, with its themes of conservation and the ethics of bringing back extinct species. And the score itself has its share of otherworldly moments.

 

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

What is a "Science-Fiction score" anyway?  

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

20 minutes ago, Sharkus Malarkus said:

 

Could you be more precise? Like a lot of sci-fi JP draws on the old man-as-God narrative inherited from Shelley's Frankentsein and Ovid's Promethean myth. You could also feasibly place it within the realm of environment science fiction, along with Silent Running, with its themes of conservation and the ethics of bringing back extinct species. And the score itself has its share of otherworldly moments.

 

 

I don't disagree. and the score sure does have some otherworldly moments, some of John's best.  I guess the sort of science-fiction aesthetic that I'm very puritanically looking for has a more distant or sterile feeling than the film conjures.  The wonderment and awe is more upfront than you might expect in this one, is maybe a way of putting it.

 

You mentioned Solaris, the original, and that's a great example of what I think of as the "real" scifi feeling, and obviously Kubrick is there too, as probably the inventor of its cinematic form.  A film has to feel the same as reading Clarke or Asimov, for example, to really capture the genre for me.

 

 

20 minutes ago, Not Mr. Big said:

What is a "Science-Fiction score" anyway?  

 

Well, to attempt some clumsy musical generalizations, I'd say it's a score with an emphasis on modernist or minimalist idioms, which handles color and texture in certain "spherical" ways as pub and I would put it, which may but doesn't have to include electronics, and which is primarily concerned with ambience and mood and the ethereal. 

 

Prime examples according to my definition: A.I., Interstellar, Blade Runner, Tron: Legacy, Under the Skin, Planet of the Apes, Minority Report, The Matrix, Inception, Logan's Run.

 

Then there are scores like Alien, ST: TMP, CE3K, Jurassic Park, Man of Steel, The Abyss, and Sphere, which have elements of sci-fi but are grounded in other areas.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

I know what you mean. I've been restrained so far in eschewing predictability by not mentioning Rosenman's Fantastic Voyage, but what the hell.

 

[Quintus 5,399]

Of course "sci-fi" is an extremely broad umbrella term which covers many subs, but as much as it may irk the pseudo purists of JWFan that such a bothersome all encompassing definition exists, they ultimately just have to suck it up and accept that they can't bend the meaning of established terminology to their will just because their vanity strives to create a contrived and vainglorious distinction between "truer" Nolan science fiction movies and "family" Steven Spielberg ones, as they see it. As much as it pains you people, "Science Fiction" covers it all. Sorry.

 

Btw, JP is a science fiction adventure movie. 

 

Here's some more helpful tips: 

 

Event Horizon is a science fiction horror movie. 

 

Species is a science fiction thriller movie.

 

Starman is a science fiction romance movie.

 

Etc etc.  

 

Lonnegan - who likes to use the term "Hard Sci-Fi" to describe more heavyweight fare such as 2001 A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner. 

[A24 4,326]

5 hours ago, Not Mr. Big said:

What is a "Science-Fiction score" anyway?  

 

 

Anything featuring a theremin!

 

 

 

 

 

[Romão 2,274]

Then Ed Wood is a great Sci Fi score

[JoeinAR 1,949]

12 hours ago, TheWhiteRider said:

 

I don't disagree. and the score sure does have some otherworldly moments, some of John's best.  I guess the sort of science-fiction aesthetic that I'm very puritanically looking for has a more distant or sterile feeling than the film conjures.  The wonderment and awe is more upfront than you might expect in this one, is maybe a way of putting it.

 

You mentioned Solaris, the original, and that's a great example of what I think of as the "real" scifi feeling, and obviously Kubrick is there too, as probably the inventor of its cinematic form.  A film has to feel the same as reading Clarke or Asimov, for example, to really capture the genre for me.

 

 

 

Well, to attempt some clumsy musical generalizations, I'd say it's a score with an emphasis on modernist or minimalist idioms, which handles color and texture in certain "spherical" ways as pub and I would put it, which may but doesn't have to include electronics, and which is primarily concerned with ambience and mood and the ethereal. 

 

Prime examples according to my definition: A.I., Interstellar, Blade Runner, Tron: Legacy, Under the Skin, Planet of the Apes, Minority Report, The Matrix, Inception, Logan's Run.

 

Then there are scores like Alien, ST: TMP, CE3K, Jurassic Park, Man of Steel, The Abyss, and Sphere, which have elements of sci-fi but are grounded in other areas.

Mainly because that 2nd group is better films.

Except MOS which is totally shit. 

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

You think Sphere is a good film?

[Jay 37,289]

Where's the hot chick that was in your avatar yesterday?

[A24 4,326]

1 hour ago, Romão said:

Then Ed Wood is a great Sci Fi score

 

 

Of course, it refers to his classic Plan 9 From Outer Space.

[Wojo 2,453]

So science fiction scores use science fiction instruments and science fiction sound effects? 

[A24 4,326]

5 minutes ago, Woji said:

So science fiction scores use science fiction instruments ? 

 

Psst ... if it exists then it's no longer science fiction. 

[Wojo 2,453]

You know what I mean. Synthesizers, theremin, things that create cliché sci fi  sounds not generally found in a band or orchestra's wind, brass, and string sections. 

 

Hell, science fiction movies and books exist, so they are no longer science fiction.

 

Folks, we've just destroyed science fiction by causing it to exist. 

[A24 4,326]

All that sci-fi stuff only exist in movies, wojo, not in the real world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alex - explaining the basics to wojo

[Wojo 2,453]

I don't see a wojo here. Shall I explain reading? 

[A24 4,326]

Imagine if I suddenly would call myself Alexcrimers. Sounds silly, right? So, yes, you will always be wojo to me. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Indeed! This name changing fad is ridiculous!

[Wojo 2,453]

10 minutes ago, Alexcremers said:

Imagine if I suddenly would call myself Alexcrimers. Sounds silly, right? So, yes, you will always be wojo to me. 

 

How sad. Sigh. 

[JoeinAR 1,949]

We could call you Rick?

[Jay 37,289]

27 minutes ago, Alexcremers said:

you will always be wojo to me. 

 

Same.

[Wojo 2,453]

No, you may not. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Rich!