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Alan Silvestri's AVENGERS: ENDGAME (2019)


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12 minutes ago, The Illustrious Jerry said:

I'll give this is a good listen.

 

Hoping for some Ant-Man nods, moderate thematic statements á la Infinity War, and neccesarily emotional beats.

There is definitely one nod to Ant-Man theme in the film. Not sure whether it appears on album though.

 

Karol

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There were definitely thematic nods to previous scores. I seem to remember material from Captain America's first film, and from Doctor Strange, among others. Its neat.

 

Wish the film was better...

 

In fact, while we're on that topic.

 

20 hours ago, JohnnyD said:

I just got back from seeing the film. Marvel Studios has done something remarkable in the last decade with The Infinity Saga. I won't give anything away. Too much to take in as it is. All I will say is this. Each film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe Infinity Saga has been great, with compelling stories and great characters all interlocked into one giant narrative. I've never seen something like this since Star Wars. 2019 marks the final chapter of both sagas. Truly amazing.

 

Its great that you enjoyed the film.

 

That being said, I don't think you can compare the MCU to Star Wars. Star Wars is a cycle, where the individual films are episodes of one large story. The MCU is an anthology, where the films tell episodic, individual stories, where only some, very specific plot points interconnect.

 

Its also a wrong comparison on the basis of premeditation: The MCU clearly has some premeditation behind its various entries, while Star Wars - for the most part - had none. So to say that there's nothing like those two series is ignoring a whole host of other series (mostly from the 2000s) where the individual entries were made simultaneously and acted as a genuine cycle, namely The Lord of the Rings but even something like Pirates of the Caribbean 1-3.

 

20 hours ago, JohnnyD said:

Anyway, to put it simply, Avengers: Endgame is the best film out of all the previous films that lead to it. A very powerful conclusion to a narrative 11 years in the making.[...]I will be seeing it again tomorrow and Sunday in the way it was meant to be seen: IMAX..

 

I'm sure it benfits from the bigger screen, but in terms of proper IMAX, 70mm IMAX is over 9K, and the contact print is 6-7K. Endgame was shot on 6.5K digital (which, after filtering loses, is more like 5.5K) and was funneled down to 4K. So much for IMAX...

 

Its also far from the best of these. The original Avengers, Infinity War and many other films in the series - all greatly surpass it, I'm afraid. That final showdown ranged from the amazing to the bland too many times, and even the emotionally resonant material found in the denoument was interspersed with sequel bait.

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Did I say there was nothing like those two, period? No. I am not ignoring Lord of the Rings, but I am talking about in terms of a larger narrative told within the timespan of at least a decade. Lord of the Rings took three years; that does not take away from the impact of that trilogy, which I greatly enjoyed, and I own most of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth saga (his books; I was not a fan of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy).

 

All I did was give my observation of the film and Marvel Studios as a whole. 

 

To each his own (I enjoy Star Wars more than the MCU, though).

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3 minutes ago, JohnnyD said:

Lord of the Rings took three years

 

It took 14. ;)

 

But that's besides the point. The point is that the comparison is kind of haphazard.

 

Anyway, I'm always happy that people enjoy movies: that's the goal, after all. So yeah, to each his own.

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God damn this score was bad - just like Infinity War's score. Such a great film, but was taken down a notch thanks to the awful score (and Brie Larson of course).

 

Giacchino, Brian Tyler, hell - ANYONE - would've done better. Infuriating to see such great movies butchered with weak scores like this. Listened to the whole CD 2x now and its just all filler with Alan Silvestri's 1 (weak) Avengers theme sprinkled in here or there. Iron Man, Thor, and Cap (yes I know we briefly here a nod to him) should've had all their themes prominent. 

 

Gah!

 

 

3 minutes ago, Fabulin said:

In the movie: complete disaster

As a standalone: complete hackfest

 

As if a bot assembled music from the film scores of the last 40 years. I can't bother to check the tracks again (I am not intending to relisten this) but there was half a track ripped from one in Gia's Incredibles, and poorly masked at that. There was a bit copied from MOH Airborne in an action/suspense moment (a literal copy), something dilluted from Newton-Howard's Atlantis, lots of Predator/BackToTheFuture (of course), something from Mummy Returns a few times, something from one of SW OT scores. There is not one smart orchestral thing done, unlike Spiderman: Homecoming, for example. It was an ok listen, but I felt miserable hearing all these rip-offs and cliches.


Totally. I hope Silvestri stops getting work... He did great stuff decades ago, but lets stop pretending he has any talent these days.

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2 minutes ago, Fabulin said:

I wanted to write the same thing, only with Goldenthal, T. Newman and "even Powell"

 

Totally. I'm legitimately pissed off about it. This soundtrack honestly should have been the blockbuster soundtrack of the decade, filled with incredible cues. 

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Most of the first Avengers score just flew right past me, and Infinity War and Ready Player One barely registered. So I'm not exactly a Silvestri fan, but I'm liking this.

 

I only put this on at work as I was curious - I've ended up quite likely buying the 2-CD digital release.

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I like the main Avengers theme from the original The Avengers, and I like whatever it is that plays under that oner near the end of Endgame.

 

That's about all my MCU music.

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I've always liked the theme that plays at the end of 'Main on End'. Pretty much the only thing I liked from the first score actually.

 

There is definitely a lot of temping here though. I just listened to The Real Hero which is basically an alternate take of something from Cast Away. I wouldn't say it's bad scoring by any means - it just sounds more familiar than it ideally would. Five Seconds and possibly others have a Beowulfy feel.

 

Why can't editors/directors put in a load of really shitty synth library music as their temp track, so that they are practically begging the composer for original material?

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21 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

Why can't editors/directors put in a load of really shitty synth library music as their temp track, so that they are practically begging the composer for original material?

They don't want to tempt fate

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Quick first reaction - Overall, I thought it worked decently well, but it wasn't cohesive. I liked the callbacks to the Captain America theme, etc. Having said that, I think half the solemn/serious/sad moments were temped with Silvestri's previous work OR he HEAVILY relied on them. I heard strong echoes of Contact, Forrest Gump, and Cast Away throughout. 

 

Saw it last night in a sold out theater with my kids, so I honestly wasn't too intensely focused on analyzing the music, but Contact and Cast Away literally yanked my right out of it a couple times.

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I'm unfamiliar with the other Marvel scores so I didn't notice any references to those. Unfortunately it was the temping that stuck out to me the most. The emphasis on emotion overall probably highlights the temping.

 

Nothing on the level of My First Bus Ride in terms of action though. There were little moments here and there that leapt out, but as said before, it lacks cohesiveness.

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Some gorgeous stuff from Silvestri in the final act of Endgame.

 

I immediately thought of Cast Away when this piece started in the cinema. I love his sombre yet heroic Avengers theme on brass playing behind the strings at 3:34, and also before when the main melody turns atmospheric and innocently child-like at 2:32 as if the musician is playing glasses of water with their fingers. And that guitar is so melancholic and cliche, but so damn beautiful.

 

 

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"The Real Hero" made me shed a few tears, not just for the melody, orchestra and composition, but also the sequence it portrays, climaxing in a long pan back shot that is perhaps my favorite shot in the entire film, maybe in the whole Infinity Saga. I was not expecting it; it was really powerful.

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What's the cue when Antman first enters the Avengers compound? I am specifically talking about the music when he is explaining quantum physics to Widow and Cap? 

 

Spoiler

It had a nice dramatic sound. It reminded me of Williams' music for The Post when Streep is in a dilemma about whether to publish or not publish.

 

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15 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

I understand the wish not to spoil things with a tracklist.  But I find the track titles for both this and Infinity War very annoying.  A track title should allow you to connect a cue to a scene in your memory after one viewing of a film IMO.

 

Qui-Gon's Noble End?

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1 hour ago, TheUlyssesian said:

What's the cue when Antman first enters the Avengers compound? I am specifically talking about the music when he is explaining quantum physics to Widow and Cap? 

 

For some reason it seems to be one of the half dozen tracks not on the OST

Other major absences being the Doctor Strange theme reappearance and

Thanos 2nd death

 

 

Alsoyou guys dont even wanna know how jumbled up the tracks are. They sorta go chronologically, but a lot of them are 2/3 or 4 cues thrown together.

And a few of them are out of order (though I understand starting this OST with the same theme that ended IW)

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Yes, the opening of the album is not the first thing we hear in the film. The reprise of mournful material from Infinity War comes a bit later. But the rest of it is indeed in the right place. I see why they did it. It's not exactly the greatest opener.

 

Karol

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The movie and the Silvestri's score are blasts. More reprising stuffs from Captain America, Avengers and Infinity War, spectialy in the last part, but in sur-over powerful versions. Enjoyable to death. Love the jazz versions ^^ and speedy virtuosity like in BTTF. Great stuff everywehre.

So, there is 2 hours of score to listen again and again. Thank you for this Silvestri (and Marvel).

 

The Captain Marvel entrance with her Pinar Toprak's theme (not reorchestrated by Silvestri, the real track from Captain Marvel) was crazy AWESOME.

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On 4/28/2019 at 3:47 AM, Obi said:

The movie and the Silvestri's score are blasts. More reprising stuffs from Captain America, Avengers and Infinity War, spectialy in the last part, but in sur-over powerful versions. Enjoyable to death. Love the jazz versions ^^ and speedy virtuosity like in BTTF. Great stuff everywehre.

So, there is 2 hours of score to listen again and again. Thank you for this Silvestri (and Marvel).

 

The Captain Marvel entrance with her Pinar Toprak's theme (not reorchestrated by Silvestri, the real track from Captain Marvel) was crazy AWESOME.

 

Agreed. I was not expecting the jazz passages, and it reminded me of musical passages he did in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. A nice surprise. However, the reprisal of Pinar Toprak's Captain Marvel theme is performed by the orchestra conducted by Alan Silvestri; he is performing it for that moment in the film. I've seen both films enough times to know the distinction. Too bad that the reprisals of Christophe Beck's Ant-Man theme and Michael Giacchino's Doctor Strange theme are not included in the soundtrack release.

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I recognised the Avengers theme, some Doctor Strange material, the tragic theme from Gammora's death in the previous film, a bit of Captain America's theme, and that's about it.

 

What else is there? Do we have a list of leitmotives for these scores?

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31 minutes ago, JohnnyD said:

However, the reprisal of Pinar Toprak's Captain Marvel theme is performed by the orchestra conducted by Alan Silvestri

 

Ok ! I believed you. Too bad it's not in the soundtrack release too.

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33 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

As usual the only themes I noticed in the film were Silvestri's own.

 

 

Not even Ant-Man's theme? It's probably one of the most distinctive themes in this series. I would argue it is more memorable than Silvestri's own material. However, the statement heard here is very brief and subtle.

 

Karo

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One theme Silvestri reprises that I haven't heard mentioned is

Spoiler

he slyly reprises his Black Widow theme from Avengers very briefly during the moment in the film...

Spoiler

right before the cut to the dock where everyone is mourning her death. 

 

 

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33 minutes ago, Cerebral Cortex said:

One theme Silvestri reprises that I haven't heard mentioned is

  Hide contents

he slyly reprises his Black Widow theme from Avengers very briefly during the moment in the film...

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

Yes, in the beginning of this track :

 

 

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I loved the reprise of Toprak's Captain Marvel theme

Spoiler

when she shows up to destroy Thanos' ship.  I wish it were turned up a bit in the film audio mix, but I could tell it was rockin'.

 

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4 hours ago, crocodile said:

Not even Ant-Man's theme? It's probably one of the most distinctive themes in this series. I would argue it is more memorable than Silvestri's own material. However, the statement heard here is very brief and subtle.

 

Karo

 

There's an Ant-Man theme?

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1 minute ago, Stefancos said:

Meh...

It's meant to evoke the 1970's Mission: Impossible type of thriller. And Wasp also receives her own theme in the sequel:

 

 

Karol

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Beck's scores are in the upper tier of MCU scores.  Yeah har har cue the "not much competition" jokes.  The Ant-Man scores are good.

 

IMO Marvel scores took a decided turn for the better after (but not including) Civil War.

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3 minutes ago, Cerebral Cortex said:

Even though I knew it was unlikely, I was really holding out for a reprise of Doyle's Thor theme or Tyler's Iron Man 3 theme. A reprisal of Thor's theme especially could have greatly complimented the scene...

  Reveal hidden contents

 

There's some similarity between Silvestri's music and Mark Motherbaugh's:

 

 

 

Karol

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Good catch! Hadn't noticed that. 

God, I would have freaked if we got some of McCreary's Shield theme during...

Spoiler

...the scene where Stark and Cap are infiltrating the Shield compound during the 1970s. Something like this:

 

 

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11 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Beck's scores are in the upper tier of MCU scores.  Yeah har har cue the "not much competition" jokes.  The Ant-Man scores are good.

Yes, these two, Black Panther, Thor: Ragnarok (although the main theme is quite weak and they should have stuck with Doyle) and the majority of Silvestri's stuff. I also like Danny Elfman's contributions to Age of Ultron (although it sort of doesn't count because it's barely noticeable), Brian Tyler's Iron Man theme is very good and shame they abandoned it. His original unused Avengers theme wasn't terrible either. Giacchino's Spider-Man theme isn't bad although I don't really like the score as a whole. The rest is average.

 

Karol

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On 4/27/2019 at 6:28 AM, leeallen01 said:

Some gorgeous stuff from Silvestri in the final act of Endgame.

 

I immediately thought of Cast Away when this piece started in the cinema. I love his sombre yet heroic Avengers theme on brass playing behind the strings at 3:34, and also before when the main melody turns atmospheric and innocently child-like at 2:32 as if the musician is playing glasses of water with their fingers. And that guitar is so melancholic and cliche, but so damn beautiful.

 

 

 

This is indeed very good material. It's beautiful and moving. It has some of the elegiac feeling from Randy Newman's devastating Toy Story 3 finale music.

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