John Williams: Unpopular Opinions

[Tom 4,640]

His concertos and larger symphonic works are as good as his best film music (and they are both great). 

[Romão 2,274]

Sleepers is absolutely a top JW score

[Naïve Old Fart 9,508]

Right back a' cha, dude!

[Brundlefly 2,385]

48 minutes ago, Romão said:

Sleepers is absolutely a top JW score

Don't forget Presumed Innocent. But when you listen to both, one after another, you get depressions.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

6 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

Don't forget Presumed Innocent. But when you listen to both, one after another, you get depressions.

 

Johnny's misery is my pleasure.

[Arpy 4,145]

8 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

Don't forget Presumed Innocent. But when you listen to both, one after another, you get depressions.

Catch Me If You Can (partially), Presumed Innocent and Nixon are gloomy listens, although that darkness that Williams captures so well in those scores is what makes me want to listen to them over and over again until I start seeing dead bodies everywhere.

[crumbs 14,305]

How dark and hellish TLW gets towards the middle is one of its greatest strengths.

[Quintus 5,399]

Presumed Innocent is a bloody good score, I always think of it as an alternate soundtrack to Blade Runner.

[publicist 4,643]

Like a lot of the quieter scores of that period, it has a great main theme and then just dies on the spot. The Varése is 45 minutes and there are so many repetitions it becomes really a chore to sit through.

[Quintus 5,399]

I don't mind the repetitions, it makes for nice lounge music on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

[Bilbo 3,709]

On 27/7/2017 at 11:01 PM, Disco Stu said:

He's a serial liker.  I only post here for the Bilbo likes.

 

Facebook and twitter have me ruined. I do it without thinking now!

[publicist 4,643]

36 minutes ago, Quintus said:

I don't mind the repetitions, it makes for nice lounge music on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

 

Sure but it's not exactly musical tree hugging. Which makes the labe 'bloody good' seem a tad overstated.

[Quintus 5,399]

Hey, I held off the"great" tag at least. People seem to like dishing that out here. Besides, I was talking about the central theme more than anything. Used liberally throughout the album. I like it.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

21 minutes ago, Quintus said:

Hey, I held off the"great" tag at least. People seem to like dishing that out here. Besides, I was talking about the central theme more than anything. Used liberally throughout the album. I like it.

 

I think there's a linguistic difference between actual great and casual great.

[Brundlefly 2,385]

6 hours ago, publicist said:

 

Sure but it's not exactly musical tree hugging. Which makes the labe 'bloody good' seem a tad overstated.

It's bloody good, because all repetitions distort gradually and become more and more uneasy, until that culminates in Barbara's Confession.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Spoilers!

[Ricard 2,244]

2 hours ago, Stefancos said:

Spoilers!

 

Fixed.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Are we censoring track titles now? I suppose Qui-Gon's Noble End is next?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Yes!

[Ricard 2,244]

Sorry I forgot it was a track title.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Lol.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I wish he would compose more "emotional" music. And I don't mean love themes. I'm talking about stuff like Ray and Rachel and Refugee Status from War of the Worlds, highly underrated material from that score. He just doesn't do it very often. Horner did it plenty. So did Goldsmith. Barry, all the time. With Williams, you get it every now and again, sometimes in spades in a score like Revenge of the Sith. But it's not enough. Even his dramatic scores haven't featured this sort of thing for a long time. It's like he's not...emotionally invested in his job.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

He seems to exist somewhere between Zimmer's braun and Horner's sensitivity.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

"With Malice Toward None" is incredibly emotional.

 

I would also say that "Farewell and the Trip" is some great emotional writing.

 

And War Horse.

 

Basically, you're wrong.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

With all this criticism toward Williams' failures limitations as a composer or dramatist, this leads to a big question that would probably make a decent thread of its own.

 

When does John Williams fanboyism go too far?

 

In my experience, its when people become so attached to his scores to older films in franchises, their judgement becomes clouded by nostalgia. Take Man of Steel and BvS for example. I know people who lament that Williams' 1978 Superman theme should have been used in the recent Snyder movies, even citing YouTube mashup videos to back themselves up, but those videos only serve my arguement that the 1978 score doesn't tonally suit the newer movies. But nope! They won't see past it. "Williams is God! His Superman music should be used for all movies featuring the character from now on!" is all I hear from them.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

No, they're hollow. I'm talking more elegiac. TFA did contain a bit of this.

 

Basically, I'm right.

[publicist 4,643]

I also wouldn't label that a Williams 'problem'. Even a cue like 'The Captain's Counsel' expertly mines that bumbling tune for sadness and regret. 'War Horse' is full of that kind of writing, 'A. I.' overflows with it, 'The Terminal' has that breezy finale. 

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I wish he would score more depressing films.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Just now, Evil-Lyn said:

Basically, I'm right.

 

[publicist 4,643]

1 minute ago, Evil-Lyn said:

No, they're hollow. I'm talking more elegiac. TFA did contain a bit of this.

 

What? Even a dud like 'The Book Thief' is elegiac to the hilt.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

It just didn't do it for me.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

The problem with A.I. is that the emotional parts of the score within the film feel dishonest because I don't believe in David's 'love' for his mother, let alone the fake mother at the end.

 

As opposed to the swelling Hansenesque emotion in E.T., where I truly feel the bond between the boy and the alien.

[publicist 4,643]

4 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

It's bloody good, because all repetitions distort gradually and become more and more uneasy, until that culminates in Barbara's Confession.

 

Your ears probably wore a huge magnifying glass to find that.

Just now, Sally Spectra said:

The problem with A.I. is that the emotional parts of the score within the film feel dishonest because I don't believe in David's 'love' for his mother, let alone the fake mother at the end.

 

And James Horner's scores feel true and deserved? I mean, come on.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

6 minutes ago, publicist said:

And James Horner's scores feel true and deserved? I mean, come on.

 

Williams' score is screaming at me to feel something for this robot boy, who I just never believed in because the direction of the film feels completely different to what Williams is trying to accomplish. No amount of sad and emotional music from Williams is going to make empathise with these characters. A.I. works better on album.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

5 minutes ago, Sally Spectra said:

The problem with A.I. is that the emotional parts of the score within the film feel dishonest because I don't believe in David's 'love' for his mother, let alone the fake mother at the end.

 

As opposed to the swelling Hansenesque emotion in E.T., where I truly feel the bond between the boy and the alien.

 

You're really going against the status quo around these parts. I agree to an extent, but A.I. is still superior to most of Williams' output since, even if disc 1 can get pretty boring. But I was bored with most of his dramatic stuff in the last 17 years or so and really only warmed up to the Harry Potter and Star Wars prequel scores. Hardly anything else gets any airtime in my world. They were a one-and-done or, sadly, a "When is this going to be over?"

[publicist 4,643]

But is this due to a lack of 'emotion'?

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I don't know, that's why I come here to confide in you all.

[publicist 4,643]

Some of his later adagios feel a bit fake, probably because that's what they are: make believe. But when he's called for a juicy emotional Hollywood^tm moment, i. e. 'War Horse' or Potter, he delivers. 

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Yet, it's rarely on the level of The Death of Yoda or even Remembering Petticoat Lane.

[publicist 4,643]

Two selections i find rather curious, but anyway: what are cues by the aforementioned gentlemen you like better?

[MrScratch 294]

On ‎7‎/‎26‎/‎2017 at 5:16 PM, Loert said:

 

ToD is my favourite score but I'm not crazy about that track either. To me it sounds like Williams going "Alright, listen up chaps, you hear that field drum? That's right, you're about to watch a very important scene in this film. Are you all sitting comfortably? Good, I present unto you...my Slave Children's Theme!" In other words, it's a tad obnoxious.

 

I love Slave Children's Crusade.  The only thing I don't like about it is the name of the concert arrangement it was given.  "Parade of the Slave Children"?  Slave children on parade, John?  Really?

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

It was a different time.

[Bilbo 3,709]

1 hour ago, Disco Stu said:

"With Malice Toward None" is incredibly emotional.

 

I would also say that "Farewell and the Trip" is some great emotional writing.

 

And War Horse.

 

Basically, you're wrong.

 

Normally I'd like this to signal that I agree with this. I can't do that now because ye were laughing at my liking. 

 

So, I agree!

[Disco Stu 15,495]

47 minutes ago, Bilbo Skywalker said:

 

Normally I'd like this to signal that I agree with this. I can't do that now because ye were laughing at my liking. 

 

So, I agree!

 

If I'm not gettin' those Bilbo likes why am I even posting here?

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

My favorite track on the Far and Away OST is Book of Days.

[Bilbo 3,709]

4 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

 

If I'm not gettin' those Bilbo likes why am I even posting here?

 

I can't answer that question for you. 

[Quintus 5,399]

All of this mention of War Horse, it always reminds me how unsatisfying that album was. Not a single standout recording of the beautiful main theme, one of John's sweetest in recent years. If ever a theme was crying out for a concert arrangement, it's that. Such wastefulness.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

17 minutes ago, Bilbo Skywalker said:

 

I can't answer that question for you. 

 

For the love of God, I need somebody to tell me why I'm here every day.

[Bilbo 3,709]

14 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

 

For the love of God, I need somebody to tell me why I'm here every day.

 

and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

5 minutes ago, Bilbo Skywalker said:

 

and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

 

Well I've decided to dick around with douchebags all day!