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The Phantom Menace vs. The Force Awakens


Josh500

The Phantom Menace vs. The Force Awakens   

62 members have voted

  1. 1. Which John Williams score do you like better?

    • Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
      43
    • Star Wars: The Force Awakens
      19


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2 hours ago, MrScratch said:

TPM is chock full of highlights, one after the next.

 

Back and back. Like water spilling over the tops of the Titanic's bulkheads, there's no stopping it.

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6 hours ago, MrScratch said:

I voted TPM. It’s not even close for me. TPM is chock full of highlights, one after the next.

 

Yes. TPM is in a league of its own. Looking back on the score 18 years after its initial release, there really are no boring moments in it. I enjoy every moment of it, even the quieter underscore.

 

I can't say the same thing about other JW scores.

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7 hours ago, Stefancos said:

TPM is great, but it certainly has its share of functional but uninteresting underscore.

 

Which TPM cues do you consider uninteresting?  There are some "uninteresting" cues in TPM, but not many in my opinion.  Some of the pre-podrace Tatooine stuff is meandering, as is some of the Coruscant/Senate stuff.  So maybe 6 cues out of the whole score?  What film score doesn't have at least that many low key merely functional cues in it? 

 

TFA has grown on me somewhat since it's release, but there are maybe 6 highlights of the whole score for me: Rey's Theme, I Can Fly Anything, The Resistance, Rey's Abduction, Torn Apart, Jedi Steps.  The rest of the score is functional but not too interesting.  The Scherzo is an incredibly dull action piece for me.  Any action cue from TPM blows it out of the water.

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Rey's Theme >>>>>Anything in TPM. Its not even close. Duel of the fates does not hold up well. Its too many false endings scream enough is enough.

And as always John Williams never wrote a score stupidly called A New Hope.

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16 minutes ago, MrScratch said:

 

Which TPM cues do you consider uninteresting?  There are some "uninteresting" cues in TPM, but not many in my opinion.  Some of the pre-podrace Tatooine stuff is meandering, as is some of the Coruscant/Senate stuff.  So maybe 6 cues out of the whole score?  What film score doesn't have at least that many low key merely functional cues in it? 

 

TFA has grown on me somewhat since it's release, but there are maybe 6 highlights of the whole score for me: Rey's Theme, I Can Fly Anything, The Resistance, Rey's Abduction, Torn Apart, Jedi Steps.  

 

The first track of TFA is a masterpiece, IMO. I fucking love it! I must have listened to it over 100 times by now. So vintage John Williams, vintage Star Wars! 

 

The tracks you mention are also great, yes. But TPM is a classic. TFA does never quite reach the heights of TPM.

 

 

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Since this seems like as good a place as any to bring up the subject, I just recently acquired the Ultimate Edition soundtrack of TPM, and I was just wondering; I understand it's not the full complete score from the film, but exactly how much music is missing from this edition of the soundtrack that is in the final film?

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I think TPM is the better score, probably, but both are really great!

 

Also, I completely agree with this:

 

On 10/14/2017 at 10:35 AM, El Jefe said:

Rey’s Theme > Any theme in the prequels.

 

And this:

 

On 10/14/2017 at 10:47 AM, El Jefe said:

Its hard to pick a winner until I can hear each score, complete, mastered and assembled properly as Williams intended.

 

And that's the biggest reason for me that it's truly quite hard to compare them.  Thanks to decades of video game and sheet music leaks, we basically know all there is to know about TPM and where all the music was supposed to go.  But TFA is this giant nebulous mystery.  It seems like it might be the score in Williams' entire oeuvre with the most amount of rewrites and inserts.  So until we can get the complete picture of what he was trying to do, its hard to fully compare it to other scores.

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28 minutes ago, JohnSolo said:

Since this seems like as good a place as any to bring up the subject, I just recently acquired the Ultimate Edition soundtrack of TPM, and I was just wondering; I understand it's not the full complete score from the film, but exactly how much music is missing from this edition of the soundtrack that is in the final film?

 

You hear everything that was used in the film proper. 

 

What's missing are alternates and unused cues/parts of cues.

 

IMO, the Ultimate Edition serves its purpose. And I love it because I love TPM soundtrack. You get great music that's not on the OST album. However, all the loops and microedits are included, which is unnecessary at best, and totally unacceptable at worst.

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33 minutes ago, JohnSolo said:

Since this seems like as good a place as any to bring up the subject, I just recently acquired the Ultimate Edition soundtrack of TPM, and I was just wondering; I understand it's not the full complete score from the film, but exactly how much music is missing from this edition of the soundtrack that is in the final film?

 

You have it backwards:  The UE release IS the music as heard in the final cut of the film (with a few exceptions), what's missing is A LOT of music that Williams recorded for the project that George Lucas axed from the final cut of the film, most of which wasn't on the original OST CD either.

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I want to use this opportunity here to mention on record that I find the following cues absolutely, mind-blowingly good!

 

"Fighting the Destroyer Droids"

"Fighting the Guards"

"Anakin is Free"

"Qui-Gon and Darth Maul Meet"

"The Tide Turns/The Death of Darth Maul"

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47 minutes ago, Jay said:

You have it backwards:  The UE release IS the music as heard in the final cut of the film (with a few exceptions), what's missing is A LOT of music that Williams recorded for the project that George Lucas axed from the final cut of the film, most of which wasn't on the original OST CD either.

That is about the dumbest concept of a score album I've ever heard. Who had that shitty idea?! I just never bought it, since it was said to have terrible sound quality and thousands of tracks split into tiny pieces, but this is madness!

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11 minutes ago, Josh500 said:

"The Tide Turns/The Death of Darth Maul"

 

The Tide Turns is a phenomenal, heart-racing cue.  TFA lacks this kind of action writing.  The triumphant Force Theme playing over the DOTF rhythm just knocks your socks off.  It's criminal that this was left off of the OST.  It would have made a great climax to that album.  But, Williams felt that hearing "Arrival at Coruscant" two times on the album was somehow a better listening experience than including this.

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The Phantom Menace is such a wretched film I cant find many kind things to say about evdn the music. But there is this its the only decent score of the 3 prequels. AOTC is JW hardly trying and thd only good music from Revenge of the shits is the real Star Wars music.

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1 hour ago, MrScratch said:

It's criminal that this was left off of the OST.  It would have made a great climax to that album.  But, Williams felt that hearing "Arrival at Coruscant" two times on the album was somehow a better listening experience than including this.

 

Quit talking bs! 

 

Williams wrote it. He can decide what to include in his own album or not. In my opinion, he felt that a complete or expanded TPM album would be released soon one way or another.... Which eventually did happen, even if it turned out flawed.

 

The fact that Williams left this cue off the OST album seems to irk you so much, you almost sound like you wish he didn't write it at all!

1 hour ago, MrScratch said:

 

The Tide Turns is a phenomenal, heart-racing cue.  TFA lacks this kind of action writing.  The triumphant Force Theme playing over the DOTF rhythm just knocks your socks off. 

 

But I agree with you on this!

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1 hour ago, JoeinAR said:

The Phantom Menace is such a wretched film I cant find many kind things to say about evdn the music. But there is this its the only decent score of the 3 prequels. AOTC is JW hardly trying and thd only good music from Revenge of the shits is the real Star Wars music.

 

You have the worst opinion on the prequel scores. Everyone here knows it. I'm just saying it. I've sided with you many times before and even when I didn't, I usually respected your opinion. Never when it comes to the prequel scores.

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Yeah, I really like the prequel scores. I like Phantom Menace and while it is a touch deriviative, I like the operatic quality of Revenge of the Sith. I really like the love theme from Attack of the Clones, although not much else from that score.

 

I guess it helps that those films (well, two of them) don't irk me in the way that they do other people here. None of them are brilliant cinema by any means, but within the aesthetics set by previous Star Wars films - they're okay. Dialogue is a hit-or-miss yes, although that's also very true of the original Star Wars. I like the scope, the adventure and even a lot of the action in The Phantom Menace, and Anakin and Qui-Gon are at least likeable (albeit on the most basic level). Phantom Menace also uses a lot more practical sets than the next two, so the bad CGI is quarantined into portions of the movie where my mind turns off anyway like the Gungans fighting the Droids.

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1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

Dialogue is a hit-or-miss yes, although that's also very true of the original Star Wars.

 

Sure the dialogue was still clunky in Star Wars, but the difference was in the delivery. In the OT, actors delivered their lines in a way that sounded more natural and spontaneous. But in the prequels, it sounded like everyone had a stick up their arses. I doubt the prequels would be as hated today if the actors were allowed to breathe a bit and be human for a change.

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RotS has this synth-only parts, that are Williams at his most experimental. I would like to know how to recreate the synth sound that most prominently appears in the Harry Potter 1 library scene.

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There are bad deliveries in Star Wars and in Return of the Jedi: Carrie Fisher's fake English accent for the first few scenes, than her sassy dialogue with Han, and some of his rebuttles are just terrible ("not this ship, sister"). Even James Earl-Jones gets some bad lines, "I want them alive!" to "he will come to me?" 

 

True, its not quite so much as the prequels, but still. So, at least on the level of dialogue and delivery, an inadequate film (when viewed out-of-franchise-context) can still be a good Star Wars film.

21 minutes ago, Baby Jane Hudson said:

 

Sure the dialogue was still clunky in Star Wars, but the difference was in the delivery. In the OT, actors delivered their lines in a way that sounded more natural and spontaneous. But in the prequels, it sounded like everyone had a stick up their arses. I doubt the prequels would be as hated today if the actors were allowed to breathe a bit and be human for a change.

 

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11 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

RotS has this synth-only parts, that are Williams at his most experimental. I would like to know how to recreate the synth sound that most prominently appears in the Harry Potter 1 library scene.

 

That's all over Williams' scores, one of his characteristic synth patches.  "Ghostly" atmosphere (theremin + "Airy" flute) as it's called in the score, if you care to build your own patch based on those rather impressionistic instructions....

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3 hours ago, Not Mr. Big said:

I love it too.  An explosive opening to kick off the return of Star Wars.  It's the track that embodies the leaner meaner sound of TFA's action music.

Oh yeah. And that slick-ass line he drops in with the trumpets and French horns at 4:45, that he introduced earlier? Oh my god.

 

 

Also love, love the moment at 5:09-:11 (the basics of that chord bottom to top being D#, C#, G#, with the D# moving up to E then F#). Perfect, perfect, perfect Star Wars moment for me. 

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Both get a lot of play out of me, and Duel of Fates is of course brilliant, but more and more I find myself listening to TFA, not just because it's recent, but because it feels more complete / less chaotic, a lot of which I'm sure is a result of the production. Plus Rey's theme and The Jedi Steps are terrific. Love both though, so it was really a close call for me. 

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5 hours ago, Not Mr. Big said:

I love it too.  An explosive opening to kick off the return of Star Wars.  It's the track that embodies the leaner meaner sound of TFA's action music.

 

The aggressive, declarative trumpet bursts at 2:05 - 2:15 (and the slow buildup to it) is just so badass! It's like John Williams is saying, "This is Star Wars, and it's the real deal! And I'm back!" :lol:

 

Williams repeats this trumpet motif (?) at 4:20 - 4:35 against Kylo Ren's theme.... It's just unbeatable! 

 

 

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18 hours ago, The Doctor said:

 

You have the worst opinion on the prequel scores. Everyone here knows it. I'm just saying it. I've sided with you many times before and even when I didn't, I usually respected your opinion. Never when it comes to the prequel scores.

I cant help it if you are all wrong. AOTC is John not giving a damn. And talk about a poorly named piece, Battle of the Heroes. 

 

And I stand by my statement Reys theme is superiror to any piece of music in the prequels. 

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I don't he didn't give a damn. He just tried dabbling in a more dense, motivic score made of short, interconnected motifs. It just didn't work particularly well.

 

That said, I'll take the love theme from that film over Rey's theme any day. If I'm being brutally honest, I think people wanted the new John Williams' Star Wars score to be great so badly, that they aren't emotionally sincere about approaching stuff like Rey's theme.

 

If you'll take a person who watched the film and liked it, but isn't as keyed towards the music as we are, and play Rey's theme for him or her - I doubt it would leave too much of an impression on them. It's just too lilting and soft compared to his more sweeping themes. I wouldn't be caught humming it, even if my life depended on it.

 

I know I'm not emotionally biased against the themes in the prequels: I loathe Attack of the Clones. But even I admit that the love theme is beautiful.

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I think people are underestimating the memorability of Rey's theme and even Ren's theme and other TFA themes especially when they have been used over and over in teasers, video games, etc.  It's great seeing comments on social media pointing out the themes used in TLJ teaser/trailer, even if they are a little off.

 

That said, considering the whole score, I prefer TPM, especially in its unaltered form but I prefer TFA for its themes.  My opinion could change when Williams' original intentions for TFA have been revealed.

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Kylo Ren's motif is a bit more noticeable because it's typically scored for brass. It's also often used to herald his arrival as we see his spaceship arrive, at which point there often aren't many effects in the film to cover it up.

 

Both aren't particularly memorable to the wider audience, though.

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1 hour ago, The Doctor said:

Ray's Theme sounds like some sort of abandoned motivic idea from Harry Potter. It could have been Hermione's theme.

Still better than anything in the prequels. 

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13 hours ago, The Doctor said:

Ray's Theme sounds like some sort of abandoned motivic idea from Harry Potter. It could have been Hermione's theme.

 

Precisely my thoughts when I first heard it.

 

I also needed to listen to it many times in order to memorise it.

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It's the weakest of the big JW marches from that era. Raiders, Superman and Imperial were perfectly assigned to their characters. The SW main theme as most people call it feels the least specific, I guess.

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4 hours ago, The Doctor said:

It's the weakest of the big JW marches from that era. Raiders, Superman and Imperial were perfectly assigned to their characters. The SW main theme as most people call it feels the least specific, I guess.

 

The SW Theme is not a March

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In the words of the Maestro:

 

Quote

The opening of the film was visually so stunning, with that lettering that comes out and the spaceships[...]I tried[...]to give it all a kind of ceremonial...it's not a march but very nearly it.

 

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1 minute ago, crocodile said:

The Force Awakens is a better score. I might not necessarily be better music but you can hear Williams was more "involved" in storytelling. It's quite unique for a Star Wars score to have a main theme that is actually developed over the course of the film. Usually, they are just sort of introduced and don't really have any arcs. But here Williams gives it a very specific purpose.

 

That's true of Rey's theme, certainly.

 

But I don't think its entirely untrue of the prequels. Anakin's theme, while not introduced as early in the film as one would hope (although the same is true of Rey's theme!), does explore some interesting variations.

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Just now, Chen G. said:

Anakin's theme, while not introduced as early in the film as one would hope (although the same is true of Rey's theme!), does explore some interesting variations.

Yes, but not so much within the film's narrative.

 

Karol

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44 minutes ago, crocodile said:

The Force Awakens is a better score. I might not necessarily be better music but you can hear Williams was more "involved" in storytelling. It's quite unique for a Star Wars score to have a main theme that is actually developed over the course of the film. Usually, they are just sort of introduced fully formed and don't really have any arcs. But here Williams gives it a very specific purpose. I like that. The Phantom Menace has some really memorable highlights but, as was the case with all prequel scores, Williams sort of composed it despite the film. It's an often often pretty but ultimately meaningless glitter with no real consequence or conviction. Extremely well-crafted but also very passive and mechanical.

 

Karol

Well said! Even if I prefer TPM, well said!

 

46 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

It's the weakest of the big kind of ceremonials.

I'd pick the Superman March for that.

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