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Battle of the John Williams/Steven Spielberg Oscar winners


  

38 members have voted

  1. 1. Which is these 3 Oscarwinning Spielberg/Williams scores is best?

    • Jaws
    • E.T. The Extra Terrestrial
    • Schindlers List


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Howard Goodall on tonight's Classic FM at the Movies said he thinks Schindler's List is Williams' greatest film score.

I heard that, too. The man's an ejit ;)

Personally, I prefer Radio 3's Sound Of Cinema, but I can't work out whether the presenter actually knows his stuff, or is just a Wiki-junkie.

In terms of popularity, "E.T." easily takes it, but "Jaws" is, by far the better, more important, more effective, and more remembered score. "Schindler's List" is...well..."Schindler's List".

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Richard you give a contradictory statement. ET more popular yet Jaws more remembered? That's virtually the same thing.

You can't lose with any of the 3 scores in terms of power and beauty. I know them all by heart.

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I hope that the results of this poll has put an end to the ridiculous hegemony of members who seem to think Williams greatest creative period, the 70's and 80's is somehow inferiour to his latter years.

Opinions are like assholes, but these John Williams haters really have no place on this forum as far as I'm concerned.

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I hope that the results of this poll has put an end to the ridiculous hegemony of members who seem to think Williams greatest creative period, the 70's and 80's is somehow inferiour to his latter years.

Opinions are like assholes, but these John Williams haters really have no place on this forum as far as I'm concerned.

I've never been able to fathom what's not to like about both his Golden Age and his latter-year works. Does everything have to be and sound the same? Granted, I can understand those who don't genuflect for his early-period stuff—the silly, light-jazz scores for the rom-coms of the 60s—and not everyone's going to have an eargasm over Heartbeeps, even among the most avid fans of the man's work. But nearly coming to blows over whether E.T. or Schindler's List is worthier of its Oscar win? What the hell? They both deserved every ounce of gold they received.

For me personally, the vote goes to E.T. Like I said, all three are phenomenal scores, but E.T. means the most to me.

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I hope that the results of this poll has put an end to the ridiculous hegemony of members who seem to think Williams greatest creative period, the 70's and 80's is somehow inferiour to his latter years.

Opinions are like assholes, but these John Williams haters really have no place on this forum as far as I'm concerned.

I've never been able to fathom what's not to like about both his Golden Age and his latter-year works. Does everything have to be and sound the same?

Indeed.

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That's pretty much where the delineation lies. In the 70s and 80s, he did heroic fanfares and leitmotifs. In '93, he did death.

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Harry Potter and his 4 recent scores are full of lietmotifs!

Oddly the Jurassic Park scores are fairly light on amount of themes....

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Jaws is, together with Superman, Williams most under appreciated score.

I think E.T. is also under-appreciated.

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None of those scores are under-appreciated.

you are in error.

It's all great, including the alternates and Margot Kidder

yes
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Jaws is, together with Superman, Williams most under appreciated score.

I think E.T. is also under-appreciated.

. . . which is why it's running away with more than twice the number of votes the other two received combined. (?)

It's all great, including the alternates and Margot Kidder

yes

Yes yes.

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Jaws is, together with Superman, Williams most under appreciated score.

I think E.T. is also under-appreciated.

. . . which is why it's running away with more than twice the number of votes the other two received combined. (?)

It's all great, including the alternates and Margot Kidder

yes

Yes yes.

something has to win. And ET is the best but it's always second best or third best to EsB.
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That's the thing. If Empire was an option, it would win. It doesn't matter what it's up against. The poll could be John Williams' The Empire Strikes Back Vs. a cure for cancer and Empire would still win.

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That's the thing. If Empire was an option, it would win. It doesn't matter what it's up against. The poll could be John Williams' The Empire Strikes Back Vs. a cure for cancer and Empire would still win.

I'm not the biggest fan of ESB. It's one of my least listened to JW scores. Perhaps the Star Wars games that I used to play all the time wore it out for me.

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something has to win. And ET is the best but it's always second best or third best to EsB.

Granted (at least as far as the wider opinion is concerned). I was simply pointing out that E.T. is hardly "unappreciated." It remains one of JW's most beloved scores.

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That's the thing. If Empire was an option, it would win. It doesn't matter what it's up against. The poll could be John Williams' The Empire Strikes Back Vs. a cure for cancer and Empire would still win.

That's because A Cure For Cancer is simply not a very good score.

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TESB is not a Spielberg film....

no but the score is the love child of this board and ET is the redheaded stepchild to it. As for films the love for ET has waned considerably.
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Schindler's List. I love all three, but Schindler's List reasonates with me the most (Remembrances, what a theme).

Are people here really saying E.T, Superman and Jaws are under appreciated our underrated?

Those are among the scores that receive the highest amount of praise and discussion, both here and in the outside world.

I'd call under appreciated or underrated something like Sleepers, Nixon, Images, Seven Years in Tibet, etc, and so many great scores that weren't fortunate enought to be attached to a mega popular blockbuster

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Amen!

Apparently an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, a bunch of Grammys, and being one of the world's best selling and popular scores of all time isn't enough appreciation.

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E.T.

This movie has the advantage of being rated PG, so it's the one that I think, was seen the most over the past decades. The soundtrack is rich and show John Williams as a real Master of Fantasy. Two great success: the movie and the soundtrack. And that final scene... this is history!

If I had to make a second choice, it would be Schindler's List.

You know, we are talking about three strong soundtracks. We could'nt put another music on these movies. The match is perfect. And you can whistle the first notes of the themes of all these three movies, and every cinema enthusiasts on the planet will immediately recognize them.

But E.T... well, it's different. And I must admit there is a little of nostalgia in this choice. ;)

I was going to forget something... There is actually a big problem with E.T. soundtrack (and we have the same problem with Jaws).

The problem is that the album which is certified Gold in USA, the original one from 1982, yes this one with a re-recording of the score...well, it's out-of-print! In fact, the last time it was reissued is in 1990.

That's 25 years ago.

Total aberration.

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I'd call under appreciated or underrated something like Sleepers, Nixon, Images, Seven Years in Tibet, etc, and so many great scores that weren't fortunate enought to be attached to a mega popular blockbuster

Exactly. Something that you have to explain to people, who've never heard the score and probably haven't seen the movie and wouldn't remember the music if they had.

On the other hand, I used a cue from E.T. in a recent power point presentation. Two members of the audience identified it immediately.

The problem is that the album which is certified Gold in USA, the original one from 1982, yes this one with a re-recording of the score...well, it's out-of-print! In fact, the last time it was reissued is in 1990.

It took me quite a while to track down another copy when I lost my original, and it was quite an agonizing search. Honestly, the original is one of the worst examples of the curtailed OSTs from back in the day: only 8 pieces, a mere 40 minutes of music, several concert pieces that weren't in the movie . . . it was everything I hated about Return of the Jedi at the time. And yet—the concert pieces were so damned good, and 15 minutes of the 40 were the best marriage of music and cinema ever created. It was an absolute must-have, and still is to this day, in spite of all the newer and more complete releases.

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Are you talking about ET or ROTJ?

Either way, NEITHER album is a re-recording. Both albums are a combination of film cues and concert arrangements, all recorded with the same orchestra at the same time during the film's main recording sessions.

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Are you talking about ET or ROTJ?

Either way, NEITHER album is a re-recording. Both albums are a combination of film cues and concert arrangements, all recorded with the same orchestra at the same time during the film's main recording sessions.

Yeah I meant Eee Tee.

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The original E.T. album contains film versions of Three Million Light Years From Home (AKA Far From Home AKA The Forest), E.T. Phone Home (AKA E.T. Is Alive! AKA E.T. Phones Home) and, more of less, Adventure On Earth (AKA Escape/Chase/Saying Goodbye AKA The Rescue/The Bike Chase/The Departure (with Steven's fix)), which has very slight differences from other versions. The rest are alternate album versions and definitive versions of the concert themes!

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Is the whole album a re-recording? The first, second and final tracks sound exactly as they did in the film.

If you're talking about E.T., that's not the case. The first track is missing material (the shot inside the ship, for instance), and the second track is different—either to be considered a concert piece, or simply a different interpretation. (Some think the album version, with its bombast landing after the main hits, is actually the better of the two.)

To answer your first question:

Are you talking about ET or ROTJ?

Either way, NEITHER album is a re-recording. Both albums are a combination of film cues and concert arrangements, all recorded with the same orchestra at the same time during the film's main recording sessions.

Exactly. They're all original recordings. But my frustration with ROTJ at the time was that it contained only 11 pieces out of that massive, grand opera—three of which were concert pieces and one of which was the stupid song from Jabba's court, leaving only 7 pieces from the film itself (and they were hardly the best of the lot—"Han Solo Returns?" Really?).

My point was that E.T. was almost the same in its ratio of concert pieces-to-film versions. I should've had the same problems with it. But I didn't mind nearly as much, because I loved the "alternates" so much that I'm still glad to have them to this day.

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I know completists hate the omissions in the ROTJ album, I can't help but love how such a vast score is so well contained in this colourful and varied 40 minute program.

If I wanted to demonstrate SW music to the uninitiated, I'd play this album for them rather than frightening them away with the complete score.

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