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War Horse MUSIC Discussion Thread


Jay

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This score doesn't seem to be getting a lot of love. More the opposite, or so it seems. I feel like currently moviegoers expect scores to consist of random piano key strikes, pounding electronic percussion, horns playing long sustained notes and repetitive string ostinatos. Lush symphonic scores are dead to the masses.

Ironically, this is more and more how Williams tend to write these days. I feel his music becomes more and more generic (track 13 sounds just like Hans Zimmer). I don't blame him though, I blame the directors and the quality of the movies made today.

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Just got my disc yesterday. Initially I thought , ‘what a lovely score’. Light and brilliant at the first half for the obvious reasons, dark on the second half. I thought the battle music was handled fantastically and there is a bit on track 9 I think where it’s the heaviest I heard Williams write in years.

And then track 19 kicked in. And something happened when the piano theme came on.

It proceeded to the string part of the same theme, and then it came back in the end of ‘The Homecoming’.

At that point my chest cracked open and my heart was ripped out. Bloody hell, what a wonderful, lovely theme!!!

It was imbedded in my brain (and still is) for the rest of the day within seconds after hearing it.

Absolutely stunning. It just felt like ‘it was meant to be’.

This guy just never ceases to amaze me.

:up: Well said!

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Mine too!

It is a theme that to my ears sounded somewhat un-Williams-like when I first heard the radio show preview but then after a couple of listens it completely clicked with me and after hearing the whole album it has become all the more powerful.

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I guess despite accusations of being saccharine and manipulative Williams is trying genuienly convey the emotions of the final scenes with this thematic idea, friendship, a bond between friends, homecoming and closure and I think it works very well in the film and moreover is beautiful and emotional music on its own.

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I haven't really participated in any of the topics in this sub-forum, but I'll just chime in here with my views on both film and score:

I saw the film last week. It has some serious flaws, mostly related to script, but also to casting. The scene with the French girl is disastrous (horribly acted), the main boy looks too teary-eyed and charisma-less and so on.

That being said, whenever Spielberg gets to use his genius filmmaking skills (whether scene transitions, framings, lighting w/Kaminski and so on), it's absolutely marvelous! All the war scenes were spectacular.

So I'm a BIT divided on the film, but MOSTLY positive.

Williams' score -- which I just now received on CD -- is also incredible. Some Ralph Vaughan Williams, some Copland, some nice scherzos for the horse, beauty for the character drama and suspense for the horrors of war as they are mirrored in Joey's face.

I've been playing it non-stop recently, and it's really a score that beats TINTIN to a pulp! THIS is the Williams sound I love and that made me such a fan of his in the first place.

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I guess despite accusations of being saccharine and manipulative Williams is trying genuienly convey the emotions of the final scenes with this thematic idea, friendship, a bond between friends, homecoming and closure and I think it works very well in the film and moreover is beautiful and emotional music on its own.

It's far too earnest and literal-minded. Ironic detachment and urbane sophistication are what movies need today. Reznor's pioneering work may be sneered at by the self-styled film music cognoscenti at this message board, but his genius will be appreciated in time.

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Horse is more soulful and heartfelt, Tintin is more of a bouncy, lighthearted and adventurous affair. They're too different to compare.

it's not about comparing them, it's about which you connect to the most. For me, that's easily WAR HORSE.

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Horse is more soulful and heartfelt, Tintin is more of a bouncy, lighthearted and adventurous affair. They're too different to compare.

If they were both similarly successful in achieving their intentions it would be difficult to compare, but for me (while I really like Tintin) War Horse is easily better at moving me than Tintin is at exciting me.

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I received the CD this week-end and played it yesterday, and loved it.

It may have been mentioned already, but I have not read this thread yet: I was happy to hear little bits (tracks 5 and 16) that reminded me of The River, which i love; I haven't heard this from Williams since that score, which i hope will soon get the Deluxe treatment;

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  • 2 months later...

A couple things I noticed

2:33-2:36 of "The Auction" is really similar if not the same as the Marshall College intro music in Raiders, Last Crusade and KOTCS.

2:44-2:48 of "Bringing Joey Home, and Bonding" is straight up from the Fellowship of the Ring --- "in the dark I hear a call..."

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and part of heading north from the Lost World is similar to Two Towers "look osgilliath burns"

;)

Well I was just keeping it thread specific, and honestly I don't care if those parts sound familiar. Just making an observation.

I don't have the Lost World so I'll have to check out that bit at some point.

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A couple things I noticed

2:33-2:36 of "The Auction" is really similar if not the same as the Marshall College intro music in Raiders, Last Crusade and KOTCS.

2:44-2:48 of "Bringing Joey Home, and Bonding" is straight up from the Fellowship of the Ring --- "in the dark I hear a call..."

You're right.

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Well, first there was:

R (number) P (number)

R: Reel P: Part

Example: R1P2

Then came:

(number) M (number)

First number: reel second number: cue

For example: 5m6

Now there is:

(number) M (number)

The difference in this one is that the cue numbers continue, regardless of the reel number

Example: 5m26

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The difference in this one is that the cue numbers continue, regardless of the reel number

Example: 5m26

That's because nowadays films are hardly splitted into 10-12 minutes reels, as it became useless with digital projection.

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There's one cue title we know of now:

7m73 Version 3 Returning to Dartmoor

How do we know that?

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There's one cue title we know of now:

7m73 Version 3 Returning to Dartmoor

How do we know that?

That excerpt from the score featurette.

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No, i mean the source of the pictures.

This score doesn't seem to be getting a lot of love. More the opposite, or so it seems. I feel like currently moviegoers expect scores to consist of random piano key strikes, pounding electronic percussion, horns playing long sustained notes and repetitive string ostinatos. Lush symphonic scores are dead to the masses.

Ironically, this is more and more how Williams tend to write these days. I feel his music becomes more and more generic (track 13 sounds just like Hans Zimmer). I don't blame him though, I blame the directors and the quality of the movies made today.

I disagree, Hans Zimmer's music is MUCH different.

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  • 5 years later...
  • 5 months later...

A couple of days ago the movie was being played on the TV and I was reminded of how good the actual war stuff is but the farm scenes fall flat on its feet. I kept thinking what drove Spielberg to make this particular in freaking 2011 of all years.... Maybe 15 years ago would have been a better choice, I dunno... Of all the stuff he could make, he chose this?! Maybe if he would have focused on the war more and cut back more on the two farm families the movie would have improved drastically. I get that he was trying to do a sort of Winchester 73 type of thing but still.... What were they thinking? Feels like a Far Away 2.0 and that can't be a good thing -and I adore that stupid movie because of how utterly idiotic it is.

 

Anyways, the score worked fine but it is overscored. I remember thinking the No Man's Land scene was freaking epic on the big screen, but seeing it again I felt kinda... embarassed. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood to watch it, but I thought the following scene with the soldiers on opposite sides halting the battle for a moment to help the horse was still a great scene.

 

I really dig the "irish" theme after all this time, but hearing the end credits I kept thinking how much better the "B" theme is compared to the "A" theme (the one that was promoted so heavily on the trailers and so on). What I mean with this "B" theme is this:

 

 

It's so perfect, it makes me teary-eyed. Should be the "A" theme in my opinion.

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War Horse probably has Williams' most 'hummable' themes in the last few decades, all packed into the one score. As you pointed out, the B theme alone would stand on its own feet as the main theme, but it's only the secondary idea!

 

Yet another one of those themes where it seems so obvious, you wonder how no composer thought of it sooner? A bit like many of Shore's LOTR/Hobbit themes.

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Might be a result of having a few years between film scores nowadays? While we haven't reached Hook levels of thematic indulgence since the 90s, almost all his modern scores are brimming with musical ideas.

 

He had 3 years off before KOTCS and we got 4 primary new themes (Ivana Spanko, Crystal Skull, Mutt, the Russians), then he had 3 years off before Tintin/War Horse and those films are overflowing with ideas (Haddock, Tintin, Snowy, the Thompsons, Sir Francis, then all the War Horse material).

 

He only wrote 4 scores in the following 5 years and all of them are thematically dense as well.

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I don't tend to rewatch movies, but man did the No Man's Land segment hit me when I saw it in theaters (both the initial charge and the truce to free the horse).  Still a great centerpiece on-album.  One of my all-time favorite Williams scores.  WAR HORSE!

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I saw the movie once at an advanced screening (first and only time I got tickets for something like that, neat experience).  While I thought the movie was okay (basically Spielberg kicking up the Spielberg factor to 11, but without the charm), the score has remained with me ever since.  I adore the music and absolutely cannot wait for an expanded treatment.

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The movie is OK, not very memorable.  The score is a masterpiece on album, but yea, the film is overscored.  Too much upbeat music too early.  The music and tone of the film blend better once Joey leaves the farm.

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I think it was once again the natural world that inspired Williams alongside the film. Spielberg mentions in the liner notes how Johnny had a copy of Wordsworth beside his piano when he wrote the score. Undoubtedly the nature poetry and the lovely images of Dartmoor among other things inspired JW.

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