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Michael Giacchino's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) - 2022 Expanded Edition now available


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10 minutes ago, Will said:

 

ROTFLMAO

 

Yes. Actually, there's a tendency nowadays to call any piece that contains a repeating low string melody a fugue. 

 

Woah. I've wanted to see Empire of the Sun for a while but have never gotten around to ordering it from the public library. I'd better do that tonight. That scene was absolutely amazing. The lighting...

 

 

It's a great movie and a transitional one for both Spielberg and JW.  Also a text book case of sound design.

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On 21/09/2016 at 0:26 AM, publicist said:

Which more or less coincides with Goldsmith's death.

So The Matrix trilogy and LOTR killed film music? That makes them the opposite of Star Wars. People said they've had enough of this pompous nonsense! ;)

 

Karol

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In a sense that Shore's music is often referred to as a masterpiece, it finds its way into top of so many lists, there are countless concerts around the world... And yet it never made much of an artistic mark within its field.

 

Karol

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Does this mean you disregard it's supposed brilliance?

 

I certainly don't consider that a conformation of brilliance, how many times it's been imitated. 

 

There's nothing particularly singular or unique about the musical style LOTR. Large symphonic with lashings of choir, vocal solo and ethic instrumentation. What sets it apart it Shore's own musical voice. Which is rather singular and hard to replicate.

 

 

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7 hours ago, Will said:

 

ROTFLMAO

 

Yes. Actually, there's a tendency nowadays to call any piece that contains a repeating low string melody a fugue. 

 

Apparently something is absolutely hysterical about it (I'm afraid I don't get much musician's/film score humour), but are you saying that the opener to that Gia MoH piece could never in a million years be thought of as the intro to a full bodied fugue - say for example under the pencil of a different and more capable composer? 

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That depends if you are an ass about it. Wiki says: 'a fugue is a contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject (a musical theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and which recurs frequently in the course of the composition. A fugue usually has three sections: an exposition, a development, and a final entry that contains the return of the subject in the fugue's tonic key.'

 

Giacchino manages to fulfill the basic needs but Bach has no need to worry (development!). For great fugal writing in film music, we have the more playful Williams scherzi-cum-fugues ('Jaws', 'Black Sunday') but also very elaborate ones in Franz Waxman's work or Goldsmith's 'Blue Max' ('Attack'/'Retreat').

 

Problem nowadays isn't that new-ish composers couldn't but that it's feeble: you are not gonna hear it in the movie and it probably would be thrown out for being overwhelming. Williams doesn't use this technique either.

 

 

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He did sort of hint at this type of writing in March of the Resistance. But that was supposed to evoke his style of old.

 

And no, Stefan. I'm not making comments in regards to quality of music. But to be iconic, as many people seems to say it is, it would need to inspire something.

 

Karol

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I would say the music of LOTR has inspired people. But perhaps not in creating imitations.

 

Also, again. What is it about LOTR music you would suggest people should aspire to imitate? What aspect? And perhaps they have, but the imitations werent really identified as such. 

 

 

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LOTR? That's easy, the aesthetic. Especially the boy soprano stuff, the massive mixed choirs, the special eye on seldom-used ethnic instruments (hardanger) - there isn't much beyond that would qualify as that distinctive.

 

(E. T. probably like other Williams'ses of the period in its expansive operatic orchestral setting, but then composers back then were given much more leeway in doing it their own way, like Bruce Broughton or indeed, James Horner, David Shire and so on)

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I guess it's not so much about the style itself but the whole approach to scoring. What was amazing about Shore's music is world building and intellectual concepts. Love them or hate them, But there was at least some kind of thinking behind them. It might be inspired by other things bit at least it feels like a complete thing. And has more than one layer of meaning. It was never a patchwork of other people's ideas. And yes, I'm not talking specifically about composers or their styles. And it never caught on.

 

Karol

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Ok, but how does that make it less iconic? 

 

The fact that this was attempted, and that its actually successful in my opinion makes it more iconic rather then less. Since we know now how hard it is to do. They couldn't quite pull of the same trick with The Hobbit. Gabriel Yared tried something similar with Troy, but was ousted by American focus groups.

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5 minutes ago, crocodile said:

I guess it's not so much about the style itself but the whole approach to scoring. What was amazing about Shore's music is world building and intellectual concepts. Love them or hate them, But there was at least some kind of thinking behind them. It might be inspired by other things bit at least it feels like a complete thing. And has more than one layer of meaning. It was never a patchwork of other people's ideas. And yes, I'm not talking specifically about composers or their styles. And it never caught on.

 

Karol

 

Maybe it's interesting that it didn't become an immediate influence but there's still time for all that. The kids and teenagers for whom LOTR will have been a musical touchstone are just now entering their 20s and 30s.

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18 minutes ago, publicist said:

Who said it wasn't?

 

Karol seemed to somewhat question the iconic status of the LOTR scores because uline his beloved Zimmer scores like Gladiator, The Dark Knight, Inception etc and the Bourne scores they didnt become the flavour of the month that everyone else copies.

 

Of course how many of these scores that used stylistic elements from these scores are actually held in high esteem today?

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Exactly. Just like how it's actually very hard to do a musically sound copy of John Williams. You would need to be one heck of a composer to be able to do that. And the really good ones probably arent that interested in providing an imitation.

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55 minutes ago, gkgyver said:

That LotR is not directly copied has more to do with Shore's absolutely unique style and thematic brilliance than anything else.

 

It's simply not easy.

 

In that case i'm thankful as i always found his concepts much more convincing than the actual execution.

5 minutes ago, Nick1066 said:

So do you guys think Gia is intentionally trying to copy Williams (whether he's succeeding or not) or is Williams simply one of his inspirations? 

 

An educated guess: there will be a handful of themes making an appearance, the rest will be easily identifiable as by the composer who wrote 'John Carter' et al.

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A collage of basic orchestral sounds, reasonably pleasant to the human ear by virtue of being inherently inoffensive. 

 

Or "astoundingly brilliant music, just phenomenal!" in the ears of the other half of JWFan. 

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7 hours ago, Quintus said:

 

Apparently something is absolutely hysterical about it (I'm afraid I don't get much musician's/film score humour), but are you saying that the opener to that Gia MoH piece could never in a million years be thought of as the intro to a full bodied fugue - say for example under the pencil of a different and more capable composer? 

 

I'll admit that I didn't listen very closely the first time. Yes, I suppose maybe that could be considered a fugue (I'm not very musically knowledgeable so I can't say for sure). I dunno.

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6 hours ago, Quintus said:

If we're speaking about aesthetics, LotR (which I was funnily enough listening to yesterday in the car for the first time in years) is one of the most aesthetically distinctive scores I've ever heard. Along with, funnily enough, Davis' marvellously unique Matrix score. Nothing else sounds like those two in movies. 

 

Yes.  Both composers have particular musical tongues that are generally not informed by the classic Hollywood influences - i.e., the "high romantics."  And so you get very distinctive scores from them.  Thankfully, especially in the case of the Tolkien films, since a more standard approach would have robbed the films of a good chunk of their effectiveness.  

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7 hours ago, Stefancos said:

 

Karol seemed to somewhat question the iconic status of the LOTR scores because uline his beloved Zimmer scores like Gladiator, The Dark Knight, Inception etc and the Bourne scores they didnt become the flavour of the month that everyone else copies.

 

Well, more like "flavour of a decade or two". And that's a lot.

 

But hey, people were writing John Williams-like scores in the 1980's and everybody loved them. Or were they " flavour of the month" to you as well?

 

Karol

 

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5 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

 

Who was writing them? I can't recall any immediate examples.

 

Wasn't Star Trek: The Motion Picture's score inspired by Star Wars?

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3 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

Sounds suspiciously like a Goldsmith score to me.

 

Still was influenced by Star Wars' music. Take a look at the 2-disc Director's Cut of the movie, I believe he mentioned it there.

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Of course. Star Wars was huge and they wanted a big heroic theme like in Star Wars. But that doesnt mean TPM actually sounds like Star Wars.

Like I said, I can't think of a single, well known/respected score from the 1980's by a well known composer that really sounds a lot like John Williams apart from the fact it's orchestral and has a bunch of big themes.

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You got your Ps and your Ms the wrong way round there :P

 

You do have a point there, but let's be honest, John Williams composes his music in a certain way that makes it easily identifiable. After the successes of Star Wars, other composers clearly tried jumping on with that style of scoring, whether on their own volition or whether instructed to by a director. Some met with more success than others.

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Bot other then the general simularity of being orchestral in an old fashioned "Hollywood" way how many 80's scores are really Williams-like? 

 

Even an Indiana Jones copy like King Solomons Mines or a sidequel like Supergirl weren't particularly Williams-like.

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On 9/19/2016 at 3:53 PM, Will said:

 

I've never even heard anything by him.

 

I think if Giacchino's Rogue One is well received he'll do Solo. It's abundantly clear now that a director picking their usual composer buddy probably isn't going to cut it. Higher-ups make the decisions. It seemed like they weren't when Desplat got hired since he was obviously Edwards's pick, but of course it was not to be. This is also the reason there is zero chance Williams won't get to score a SW film he wants to score, no matter who the director is. JW negotiates directly with KK and agreed informally with her to do all three in the sequel trilogy way before the 8 and 9 directors were announced (and presumably those directors were hired around that time). 

 

Lucasfilm/Disney will choose someone well known by the fans.

 

Actually, just realized that we can't even be 100% sure Williams is safe, since he wrote and recorded with orchestra two options for TFA teaser 2 and they were both rejected. Although I guess that's different since because it was just a trailer Disney could keep it hush hush and most people assumed Williams wrote it anyway, which is what the fans wanted. And of course the actual score was JW so everything was fine. 

 

But with an actual film score if they didn't want JW they'd have to announce Williams wasn't doing it and the fans wouldn't be too happy, presumably. Even if the fans hadn't really liked the previous JW sequel trilogy scores they'd surely still want him back.

12 hours ago, crocodile said:

He did sort of hint at this type of writing in March of the Resistance. 

 

Yeah, that was great. It was never a full-blown fugue (always just a brief bit to heighten the anticipation for something else) but the middle of the concert arrangement and the film cue for when they're discussing Starkiller attack plans at the Resistance base were absolutely marvelous.

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14 hours ago, crocodile said:

I love both but it's interesting they never really "inspired" a lot of imitators.

 

Wasn't LOTR extensively copied for a while? By Shore himself (A History of Violence) but others too - parts of Stardust were clearly temped with it, and JNH's King Kong finale also always seemed like a LOTR pastiche to me.

 

The Matrix (great as it is) was, on the one hand, not quite as unique as it sounds. Take Adams and Kernis and Glass and you have many of the building blocks of the first score. The orchestra/techno fusion of the sequels might, to my knowledge, be more original. But more importantly, when the first film came out, people kept mentioning how great the music is - and they meant the songs. Sad as it is, I fear the general public actually didn't notice the score very much, so nobody thought of putting the same stuff in other films.

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Sure, we can hear those folks in Davis' music, but the point is that where else do you hear such influences prominently in film?  Same with Shore.  One can trace his language back to some interesting and rather obscure places, and so no, it didn't come out of nowhere, but it's essentially unique in the world of scores.

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4 hours ago, Gistech said:

 

Wasn't Star Trek: The Motion Picture's score inspired by Star Wars?

 

In some ways, yes.  Remember, Star Trek resurgence owes its existence to the success of Star Wars.  Paramount looked into their properties and felt Star Trek would work.  Rather than making Star Trek phase 2 (the TV show that was in pre-production), they went for a big budget extravaganza that was supposed to be more like 2001: A Space Odyssey mixed with Star Wars adventure.  They brought in the special effects team of 2001 and an old and highly respected director rather than the New Wave directors (the young guys making a name for themselves in the late 1960's and 70's...Coppola, Spielberg, Lucas, Altman, Brian De Palma, Terrance Malick, Martin Scorsese, etc.).  One thing that Jerry Goldsmith struggled with was coming up with a memorable theme.  Robert Wise wanted a Star Wars style old fashion theme.  Goldsmith struggled with this creatively and was probably heading down a more experimental approach sounding something like Rosenthal.  After several versions were rejected for not being thematically memorable or fit the style enough, Goldsmith started doubting his skills and told the director if you don't like any of my thematic attempts, maybe I am not the right guy for this type of score.  Luckily, Bob Wise persisted and the classic score is what resulted.  The famous theme was of course reused in several more movies and TNG opening theme. 

 

More here:

 

Though not in the video clip, during the 30th anniversary of the film, it was screened at the Arclight with several members of the music crew, David Newmann (who played violin in the sessions), the blaster beam guy with his cute daughter, music editor, a few others and they recalled that the shadow of Star Wars loomed large on the production and thematic elements.  Remember, Star Wars was the biggest film ever at the time and had a tremendous impact on pop culture, films, and scoring approaches.  The film has an overture like the old style films, an ilia theme which was modeled to be a concert suite like Princess Leia, etc.

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18 minutes ago, TheWhiteRider said:

Sure, we can hear those folks in Davis' music, but the point is that where else do you hear such influences prominently in film?

 

As I said: I believe most people simply didn't notice the score. Hence little demand to have something similar for something like it in more films.

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4 hours ago, Stefancos said:

Bot other then the general simularity of being orchestral in an old fashioned "Hollywood" way how many 80's scores are really Williams-like? 

 

Even an Indiana Jones copy like King Solomons Mines or a sidequel like Supergirl weren't particularly Williams-like.

They were in broad strokes. That is what the producers asked for and what general public heard. When I talked about "imitators" I didn't mean literal copy, just "the type of score". Sorry if that wasn't clear. Maybe that wasn't a right word to use.

 

Karol

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That Howard Shore's works were greatly acclaimed and popular but never inspired a lot of following in the filmmaking landscape. That the operatic sophisticated film scores ceased to be as soon as those films left screens. In fact, this era ended as soon as POTC came up. Despite all the Oscars, millions of CD's sold, endless string of concerts... And then Peter Jackson must have felt the same way cause he treated the music in The Hobbit as another layer of sound design with no artistic or dramatic input.

 

So I'm not talking about imitating anybody's sound (although that too never really happened). I'm talking about giving a talented musician a way to express themselves on a grand scale and in their own voice. And see that it could make money too. But nah, never happened. Not with Shore, not with Davis (yeah, Marrian, I'm aware of his influences). Instead, it just got worse.

 

Or maybe you just caught me on a bad day. ;)

 

Karol 

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Film isnt really the format for such an expression as you describe, not on a frequent basis anyway. It depends on a certain composer showing a certain feel for the material and a certain film maker being willing and able to allow that sort of freedom. And even with LOTR there were restrictions and changes forced upon Shore's work anyway.

 

Such a thing is rare, great when it happens, but not actually required when it comes to making a good film or providing it with a good score. LOTR was never going to be a template to a new way of scoring films.

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1 hour ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

As I said: I believe most people simply didn't notice the score. Hence little demand to have something similar for something like it in more films.

 

Yeah I was making a separate point about "originality" I guess.

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20 minutes ago, crocodile said:

 And then Peter Jackson must have felt the same way cause he treated the music in The Hobbit as another layer of sound design with no artistic or dramatic input.

What? I'm not sure if PJ knew what he wanted, but it seems with all the tracking and references to LOTR he wanted something similar.

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