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Which original album do you find the least representative of the score?


Bespin

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For my part, I never get used to the original Return of The Jedi album... Too much action cues... and the unforgivable missing of the Death of Yoda and the Final duel!

 

What's yours?

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I think you mean "least" not "less" in your thread title.

 

Assuming you do, my picks are

 

A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Return of the Jedi

Temple of Doom

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Star Trek Into Darkness

Gremlins

 

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As far as Williams scores go, KOTCS definitely comes to mind. ROTS, too, to a lesser degree. There's a lot of good stuff missing from the album, some of which is quite unique.

 

Outside of Williams' work, I think the score for The Lion King was criminally underrepresented on its OST, since so much time was allotted to the wonderful songs and their silly Elton John versions.

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36 minutes ago, Jay said:

A.I. Artificial Intelligence

 

Well the three acts of this masterly score is certainly impossible to resume on a single album!

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Most people just haven't figured out the artistry of album production and absorbing the music in a completely different way.

 

I love a complete and chronological score as much as any, but when an album is done like RotJ and ToD, it's a different experience. Not better or worse, just different, and just as valid.

 

I'm finding more and more that film score fans are dogmatically rigid in their listening habits and demand for "more, more!" regardless of flow or pacing.

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I can't really think of one. It would need to be one of those albums that had mostly songs, and then just a score track or two when the score was -- in actuality -- far more extensive than that. But right now, I can't think of any such albums. Even JFK and BORN ON THE 4TH OF JULY had extensive and (IMO) representative score selections, even if at least half the album was made up of songs.

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Born on the 4th of July and Return of the Jedi I think are the worst.  In my opinion, the best pieces from each were left off the album.  Revenge of the Sith had a lot left off the album release, but unlike the first two I mentioned, it's not so much a matter of leaving off excellent cues as much as there being too much great music to fit onto one album.

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Temple of doom was mentionned, but personally I think that's Last Crusade that lacks the most of great cues, especially those at the end of the movie.

 

1 hour ago, Shatner's Rug said:

Still not understanding why ROTJ is such a bad album to so many people.

 

No Yoda's Death and no Final duel. Congrats for the "spoiler free" tracklist... But we needed less disco and more pathos!

 

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It just occured to me that the original albums for TOM SAWYER and GOODBYE MR. CHIPS (which I'm currently looking for over at the marketplace) weren't representative of Williams' original material. So I would pick them.

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If I could turn back time (oh I've heard that before...)

 

Return of The Jedi - The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

01 Main Title/Approaching the Death Star

02 The Return of The Jedi

03 The Emperor Arrives

04 The Death of Yoda

05 Parade of the Ewoks

06 Luke and Leia

07 The Forest Battle

08 Final Duel/Into The Death Star

09 Leia Breaks the News/Funeral Pyre for a Jedi

10 Ewok Celebration and Finale

 

Total Time : 45 minutes

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2 minutes ago, Jay said:

Into The Trap is an essential ROTJ cue!!!!!

 

There will go your post!

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10 minutes ago, TownerFan said:

 

The Final Duel is one of the musical highlights of the trilogy, so I say, yes, the OST needed it.

 

Would this not have interrupted the flow that Williams very carefully considered when he created his album arrangement? Perhaps he felt that this music slowed the pacing down?

 

2 minutes ago, Bespin said:

If I could turn back time (oh I've heard that before...)

 

Return of The Jedi - The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

01 Main Title/Approaching the Deathstar

02 The Return of the Jedi

03 The Emperor Arrives

04 The Death of Yoda

05 Parade of the Ewoks

06 Luke and Leia

07 The Forest Battle

08 Final Duel/Into The Deathstar

09 Leia Breaks tghe News/Funeral Pyre for a Jedi

10 Ewok Celebration and Finale

 

Total Time : 45 minutes

 

Where's Lapti Nek?

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Just now, Shatner's Rug said:

 

It's an essential break from the main orchestral body. Helps make the album more interesting.

 

It never has the potential of the Cantina Band.

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21 minutes ago, Thor said:

It just occured to me that the original albums for TOM SAWYER and GOODBYE MR. CHIPS (which I'm currently looking for over at the marketplace) weren't representative of Williams' original material. So I would pick them.

 

That's not the same thing.  I think that these two where well representative as they contained both the highlight songs of... a musical comedy.

3 minutes ago, Shatner's Rug said:

I think it's better.

 

Yes, I think it's why it has been covered so many times since 1980.

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17 minutes ago, Shatner's Rug said:

 

But Lapti Nek wasn't done until 1983.

 

Sorry, the 3 doesn't work on my keyboard!

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2 hours ago, Bespin said:

 

That's not the same thing.  I think that these two where well representative as they contained both the highlight songs of... a musical comedy.

 

They were representative of the songs, yes (containing, well, ALL the songs), but not the original score. But yeah, not exactly the same as a purely instrumental Williams score, I guess. But it's the closest I can get to any response in this thread. I basically think all original albums are great representations of the score.

 

As far as I can remember, Williams has never really had a 'songtrack' released that just had one score track or two.

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On 12 juni 2016 at 7:26 PM, Shatner's Rug said:

Most people just haven't figured out the artistry of album production and absorbing the music in a completely different way.

 

Agreed! I'd like to put Home Alone 2 in the spotlight... There's a cut-and-paste job if there ever was one (although not missing any major cues), but a helluva good listen thanks to good album production.

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I love the TPM ost, but the presentation itself is just bizarre. There's no cohesive order, just a bunch of random cues mixed together. Not to mention a lot of that music wan't even in the film, and a lot of the main film music was missing.

 

TPM Ultimate Edition is almost as bad, although at least everything isn't out of order.

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But TPM still was unnecessarily jumbled and favoured filler music (often as long first or last part of more unified material). In short, it's a dream come true for the little album producer in all of us, ironing out the shitty edits, making new ones.

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47 minutes ago, Shatner's Rug said:

An film score album doesn't necessarily need to be presented in chronological film order to make sense.

Well, for a film score it would make the most sense to have most everything in order. The editing done on that album was unnecessary.

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TPM is a fantastic OST -- perfectly arranged for listening!

 

I don't care for the Ultimate Edition, of course, but it surprises me that 'expansion fans' don't either. I know there's something about 'film edits' or whatever, but even after repeated efforts at explanations, I still don't quite understand why this isn't exactly what C&C fans crave. Maybe I'm stupid or unable to enter your mindset, but it doesn't seem like much of a difference from other C&C releases to me.

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12 minutes ago, Thor said:

I know there's something about 'film edits' or whatever, but even after repeated efforts at explanations, I still don't quite understand why this isn't exactly what C&C fans crave. Maybe I'm stupid or unable to enter your mindset, but it doesn't seem like much of a difference from other C&C releases to me.

 

You answered your own question by referring to film edits. They're jarring, unmusical and interrupt the flow. People want what Williams intended for those scenes, not how they were edited to serve Lucas' pedantic last minute slicing.

 

For example, I'd be breaking things if LLL released Independence Day with film edits. The film version of the end titles takes a snippet from Base Attack, whereas the recorded version has a softer rendition of the flyers' theme. The film version of Evacuation loops moments to accommodate some inserts. And so on.

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OK, thanks. I guess my confusion stems from the fact that I've always thought C&C fans want all the music from the film, exactly as it appears in the film. Hence I've been unable to see much of a difference between this and that.

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Williams is usually very good at arranging his OSTs. Of course there are exceptions, so some albums are less successful than others. As for leaving out some killer cue (the above mentioned Final Duel from ROTJ, The Helicopter Sequence from Superman, David and the Specialist from A.I., Father and Son from Jaws come to mind), my hunch is that it's mostly because he probably thinks the cue is not "interesting enough". We know the man is very humble and self-deprecating when it comes to his own stuff :)

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1 hour ago, TownerFan said:

Williams is usually very good at arranging his OSTs. Of course there are exceptions, so some albums are less successful than others. As for leaving out some killer cue (the above mentioned Final Duel from ROTJ, The Helicopter Sequence from Superman, David and the Specialist from A.I., Father and Son from Jaws come to mind), my hunch is that it's mostly because he probably thinks the cue is not "interesting enough". We know the man is very humble and self-deprecating when it comes to his own stuff :)

 

For ROTJ, as the third and last Star Wars, Williams may have received a specific directive that the track list have to be "spoiler free".  So it can explain the deliberate absence of some important cues like "The Death of Yoda" and "Final Duel".

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Also the 45 minute LP length of the OST might have something to do with it.

 

And with the Phantom Menace you can see Williams' modesty at work as he is obviously focusing on the new material very obstinately even, seeming almost embarrased to present cue containing the older material/themes. This might in part explain why some of the absolute highlights were left off the album. He was always quick to point out how little, 10%, there was of old themes in the new score.

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5 hours ago, Thor said:

OK, thanks. I guess my confusion stems from the fact that I've always thought C&C fans want all the music from the film, exactly as it appears in the film. Hence I've been unable to see much of a difference between this and that.

 

God no!  No one wants film edits!

 

How has it taken you decades to realize this?

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