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Michael Giacchino's SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (2017)


Damien F

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11 hours ago, thestat said:

Giacchino is okay as the composer for this - he can do good, flexible fun as in Speed Racer. Themes are also great now that Marvel has decided to pay attention to this angle. But two things make him one of the worst composers out there:

 

1. The silly recording quality on album. Yes, he grew up in the early 70s when everything was mono and closemiked. Does it mean he has to keep victimising the huge orchestras he commands with the same limitations nowadays - not in the films, on cd? Seriously, his work sounds like utter shite because of the recording quality. Check out the piece he did for Cloverfield that was not constrained by the mania of his usual sound enforcer - great sounding stuff

 

2. Action music. He does well on this front and I used to love a lot of his VG work. Nowadays, it gets into that repetitive, dry groove that Brian Tyler does endlessly, and Harry Gregson-Williams used to do. It just sounds like dry stale bread, and it actually hurts my teeth, like chewing metal. It would be great if MG would let Chad Seiter write some of this stuff - give him a cocomposing credit. He is so much better at it as can be seen with his Recore score which kicks all MG out of the water outside of the very early Medal of Honor stuff.

 

Giacchino does well but he seems to be a bit lost amidst his success. He has folks like Tilton and Seiter by him. Let these guys get some of the credit. And I am not one of these guys!

I disagree with both of your points, it just sounds like salty, undercooked criticism. Chad Seiter's work on the ST VG's was bland as fuck, it didn't have the punch that MG's scores have.

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Themes are also great now that Marvel has decided to pay attention to this angle.

 

When didn't they? It stands out now, after all this time?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Interesting reprisal of the old 60's theme... I'd bet this particular presentation plays at the start of the credits, like Courage's Theme in Star Trek.

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Stuff like this makes me sorta dismiss all the complaints around these parts of Gia taking these franchises. He's like the only composer willing to take the piss and embrace the silly self-referential novelty of these things. He's good for them.

 

Yeah, sometimes I wish he'd push his boundaries more and take himself a little more seriously because he's too talented to keep falling back on the gimmicks, but on the other hand I like this kinda goofy musical persona he's fashioned for himself.

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Oh come now, the original series main theme is easily the least of all the main Star Trek themes (outside of the Enterprise opening credits which I'm pretty sure violate the Geneva Conventions)

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3 hours ago, BloodBoal said:

Maybe as presented in its cheesy 60's form, but definitely not in more proper arrangements. It's a great theme, much better than Gia's.

 

Where's @Stefancos when you need him?!

 

I agree. Gia's Trek theme is easily one of his most grating.

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3 hours ago, BloodBoal said:

Maybe as presented in its cheesy 60's form, but definitely not in more proper arrangements. It's a great theme, much better than Gia's.

 

Where's @Stefancos when you need him?!

 

I'm far from the greatest fan of the Alexander Courage theme, but its far far far better then that shite Gia wrote!

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On 9/12/2016 at 11:56 AM, BloodBoal said:

You had to watch an analysis video to realize that? Come on crumbs, you're worth better than that!

 

Right from the start, with the first few Marvel flicks (Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk...), you could tell the look of these movies was generic.

 

Thank you Mr Gunn!

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This looks awesome, and Gia is indeed perfect for the MCU.  What's most frustrating about Marvel music isn't the lack of quality themes; it's the filmmakers' inconsistency and amnesia in applying and referencing them. 

 

The themes are almost never bad; they're just too numerous.  We've had three wildly different Iron Man themes (two of them decent, IMHO), only one of which ever appeared in a non-Iron Man score (and even then, it was the merest of fleeting references by the same composer who wrote it!).  It's been more or less the same deal for Captain America, despite two composers (Silvestri and Jackman) getting a second shot at composing for the character. 

 

Ironically, the best custodian of prior themes (arguably and by a narrow margin) has been Brian Tyler, whose original Marvel themes have been some of the least impressive, but who brought back Silvestri's Cap march for a brilliant cameo in Thor 2 and made the aforementioned nod at his own Iron Man 3 theme in Avengers 2, while also maybe using some of Silvestri's Avengers theme in that second film (although I think all of the tracks that feature it are credited to Danny Elfman).

 

What's really vexing, though, is the way every couple of years, they seem to start caring about continuity, as in the two attempts (so far) at a Marvel Studios fanfare.  (Let's see if Gia's excellent effort breaks Tyler's record and makes it all the way to Spider-Man or Thor 3.)  The cameos are another thematic bait-and-switch.  Cap's march pops up in Avengers, Thor 2, and Winter Soldier, so maybe it still matters!  Wait, no.  Civil War comes and goes with nary a note of it, despite ample opportunities for heartbreaking variations or breakdowns.  Ditto the Avengers theme, which showed up in an admirably evolved form in Avengers 2 and cameoed delightfully in Ant-Man, but again vanished completely in a story devoted to breaking up the very team it represented, in first fun then tragic fashion.  Think of the wasted musical possibilities.  (Silvestri also whiffed on what could have been several showcase moments for Patrick Doyle's triumphant theme from the first Thor.) 

 

If the reports are true that Silvestri is coming back for Infinity War, I'm guessing we'll finally get a nice return of the Cap march (but probably in a funereal setting, alas) and maybe a reversion to the original Avengers theme, which would be a loss in my book, since Elfman's update was both musically satisfying and thematically appropriate for a the newish team roster.  But I have very little confidence that Christophe Beck's great Ant-Man theme, any of the Iron Man or Thor themes, or even the Guardians theme will show up in Infinity War.  (Actually, Guardians would be easy, since it's such a short phrase, but I'm still betting it won't happen.)

 

Which brings us back to Giacchino, who is the arguably the best deployer of other composers' themes in the business (Lost World, Death Star, and Imperial motifs, anyone?).  I'm desperately curious to see how he chooses to represent Tony Stark in Spider-Man, and I frankly wouldn't complain he were scoring Infinity War rather than Silvestri.  Silvestri may have written two of the MCU's best themes, but at this point, Giacchino has the better track record when it come to reusing them. 

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26 minutes ago, igger6 said:

I'm desperately curious to see how he chooses to represent Tony Stark in Spider-Man

 

Does Stark have more of a role than just that scene from the trailers? It seems like just a cameo in which case there may be no call for a thematic reprisal.

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On 19/5/2017 at 11:10 PM, BloodBoal said:

I like it.

 

Would be cool if this was the actual theme for the character in the film too, and not just a one-off rendition of the original theme song.

it would be nice.

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9 minutes ago, alan1984 said:

If you look at the conductor's screen, it looks like they might be recording this for the opening Marvel logo!

 

Good catch!  That's definitely the Marvel logo.

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Wow, that clip is really fun! Didn't even realize it was the old theme until someone mentioned it. 

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38 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

 

Fascinating.  Tell me more.

 

I responded to a post from like 7 pages ago, thinking it was the most recent post, and I couldn't delete my post so I just had a period.

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19 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

 

Fascinating.  Tell me more.

I thought he was responding to Will's bizarre statement that he didn't recognise the Spider-Man theme until someone pointed it out. Words couldn't describe the banality so a single period fills that void!

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13 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

Perhaps Will didnt grow up with the theme?

Neither did I, yet it's in most Spider-man adaptations - making cameo appearances in the Raimi films, the cartoons, "Spider-pig" from The Simpsons Movie.

 

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Getting older is weird.  I'm in a community band with amateur musicians ranging from 10 to 85, and I made a "more cowbell" reference at a rehearsal recently and every teenager in the band just gave me a blank look.  I thought more cowbell was universal!!!

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Well, I actually haven't watched a single Spiderman film, so my only experience with that theme has been when Spiderman fans used to occasionally sing it when I was little, and things like that. 

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10 hours ago, Will said:

Well, I actually haven't watched a single Spiderman film, so my only experience with that theme has been when Spiderman fans used to occasionally sing it when I was little, and things like that. 

Wasn't a sleight against you, Will. You haven't seen any of the Raimi films?! Just not interested?

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