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John Carter (Of Mars) directed by Andrew Stanton, music by Michael Giacchino


Jay

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I like it, I really do. Giacchino is on fire! :)

John Carter is pretty delicate for an action hero. The theme feels like Horner love themes of Krull and, bizzarely, Gorky Park. I like that.

Karol

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Sounds great! Can't wait to hear the whole CD. Hopefully the movie is good too, but I doubt it.

BTW here is a direct link to the entire WQXR show

http://audio.wnyc.org/movies/movies121711.mp3

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Not hearing what you guys are.

Take the first track. It opens with an otherwordly sound, like something that was on Lost, or that was hinted at in Star Trek. Then the melody starts, but it's mysterious, it's like a bit dark. Suddenly it takes an emotional turn. Then the idea is repeated in a bigger, Super 8 esque manner people here seem to like. However you can still intelligently use the beggining of the idea in a big, heroic manner, usually in the brass. This in the middle of Medal of Honor & Star Trek. It's the juxtaposition of colours I guess.

The thing is MG is of the few that cares about going somewhere with his music as he writes new stuff. I find it fun to see all these things adding up, I wonder where it'll go.

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Sounds great! Can't wait to hear the whole CD. Hopefully the movie is good too, but I doubt it.

BTW here is a direct link to the entire WQXR show

http://audio.wnyc.org/movies/movies121711.mp3

I agree, movie looks less than appealing.

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Ya know, Stanton talks a big game (one of his tweets was something like "I have one rule for movies: just make me care"), and his two directorial efforts at Pixar were fantastic... I have hope.

But the music... wow, 'Pursuit of Dejah' was brilliant. And my cat (named Deja :D) was there to listen to it too.

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I think he's learning fast. Not up there yet, of course.

Karol

My problem with MG is that he has already been there,but he seems to have lost "it" a few years ago. Out of his recent film scores only Super 8 seemed to be a step in right direction. (I still haven't heard his new M:I score, nor the snippets from John Carter).

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Not hearing what you guys are.

Honestly, I am unable to find the appeal of Gia's music. It just sounds pedestrian and predictable to my untrained ears

Same here. It's lacking that certain element that makes it more then functional film music.

I disent from popular opinion*.

* = again.

"Deaf Squadron, reporting in. Over."

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I think he's learning fast. Not up there yet, of course.

Karol

My problem with MG is that he has already been there,but he seems to have lost "it" a few years ago. Out of his recent film scores only Super 8 seemed to be a step in right direction. (I still haven't heard his new M:I score, nor the snippets from John Carter).

Those John Carter samples do nothing for me, and I have yet to hear Ghost Protocol, but judging by his work earlier this year, he's not up to the same level as he once was. Season 6 of LOST is as good as scoring gets. What the hell was Monte Carlo and Cars 2?

I'd love to be proven wrong, of course. Powell took a little dip in quality and then slapped me in the face with How To Train Your Dragon.

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I like a lot what I've heard. I cooled down a lot on Giacchino after Cars 2 and Super 8, but these clips are reinstating my trust in him. Sure, it's not forward-looking music or something that does want to reinvent the wheel, but it seems Giacchino is channeling the ear-candy symphonic style of the 1980s in a really nice way: big, bold orchestral sound with recognizable themes, lots of Lydian modes. Maybe it's not in the same league of the greatest work of that era, but I guess it's the closest thing we can get today.

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I thought Giacchino fumbled his big entry into film music with Star Trek. And I don't like his Pixar stuff

That said I enjoy Let Me In and Super 8 a lot and got me on the Gia bandwagon .I also like Land of the Lost

This sounds really good too . The main theme is mysterious and beautiful (I hear John Barry influences) , Pursuit of Dejah reminds me of Stargate stuff .The third theme is a mix of Let Me In and Lost and sounds amazing

I'm looking forward to the rest of it.

Koray is starting to hate it because it's more lyrical than the rythmic crap he wrote for Star Trek and Speed Racer

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I don't think anything in Star Trek soudns MV-ish and I never understood why people thought so

Ya know, Stanton talks a big game (one of his tweets was something like "I have one rule for movies: just make me care"), and his two directorial efforts at Pixar were fantastic... I have hope.

But the music... wow, 'Pursuit of Dejah' was brilliant. And my cat (named Deja :D) was there to listen to it too.

Ah, I had no idea you were Miles (MerM) on FSM!

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I don't think anything in Star Trek soudns MV-ish and I never understood why people thought so

The loud parts are rather crude and to-the-point as orchestration goes, although it's fun in small doses. I can imagine someone as Williams-spoiled as KM might find this offensive. He certainly hates Goldsmith's NEMESIS, too, since it 's 'plagued' by the same roughness.

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Koray is starting to hate it because it's more lyrical than the rythmic crap he wrote for Star Trek and Speed Racer

That actually seems like an accurate description, but not the reason I hate it. I actually don't hate it, never said I did. I just need to hear more. This board has a tendency to make final decisions on scores based on 2 minutes of music.

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2 minutes? Those 3 clips total 13 minutes. That's more than we got from Tintin samples prior to its score CD release

---

In other news, the host of the radio show posted this on FSM

As I hope you heard, Michael was a great guest; very engaged and engaging. We had fun! And he'll soon answer the many good listener questions that we didn't have time to answer on the air by addressing them in the comments section of the show page at wqxr.org. Thank you for any questions that came from you folks here!

@tarasis, sorry, but Movies on the Radio isn't available as a podcast because of music rights issues.

@dogplant, you mentioned the interesting sounding instrument used early in "John Carter's Theme." It's not a cimbalom, as you thought it might be. Off-air Michael said it's a celtic harp, and also pointed out that it's played by the same harpist used so prominently on his "Lost" scores--a harpist he admires hugely. He identified her by name; sorry I can't remember her name right now.

And I thought all of you might like to know that in addition to the nearly 13 minutes of "John Carter" Michael shared on the air, he also left me six minutes more: a tremendously exciting action cue titled "Ape Fight," and a dreamy, lilting piece featuring wordless chorus, titled "Therns."

--David Garland

Those other 2 cues sound pretty cool!

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I don't think anything in Star Trek soudns MV-ish and I never understood why people thought so

The loud parts are rather crude and to-the-point as orchestration goes, although it's fun in small doses. I can imagine someone as Williams-spoiled as KM might find this offensive. He certainly hates Goldsmith's NEMESIS, too, since it 's 'plagued' by the same roughness.

King Mark also seems cold towards War Horse for the same reasons.

He's consistent. I'll give him that.

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I usually like the style of scores that's opposite to what Koray likes . If he likes it a lot it's pretty certain I won't

That seems to apply to Williams and Giacchino scores too

I like Medal of Honor main themes, Let Me In, Super 8 and this new one, Koray likes the tense music in Lost

PS I like War Horse a lot... did I ever say I didn't .It's Tintin that leaves me a bit cold

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The clips sound decent. I hear a lot of M:i:III in "Pursuit of Dejah," and some Super 8 in "John Carter's Theme." And a bit of Horner and Desplat in "Dejah's Theme."

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I usually like the style of scores that's opposite to what Koray likes . If he likes it a lot it's pretty certain I won't

That seems to apply to Williams and Giacchino scores too

I like Medal of Honor main themes, Let Me In, Super 8 and this new one, Koray likes the tense music in Lost

PS I like War Horse a lot... did I ever say I didn't .It's Tintin that leaves me a bit cold

But I love all of Giacchino's music, aside from some of his recent stuff. War Horse is my favorite score of the year and I don't like Tintin.

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Cars 2 and Monte Carlo are the only Giacchino scores you don't like?

Not a huge fan of Super 8 or Star Trek, at least compared to his other work. They have some great cues but I rarely listen to them. The scores work much better in their respective films.

Land Of The Lost is average.

Cars 2, Monte Carlo, and 50/50 aren't particularly good.

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No, but I've seen the film. It's not really fair to say it's a bad score, since the movie favors songs over traditional scoring. What's there is nice, but nothing special; but again, it's not like he got a chance to really do anything.

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Cars 2 and Monte Carlo are the only Giacchino scores you don't like?

Not a huge fan of Super 8 or Star Trek, at least compared to his other work. They have some great cues but I rarely listen to them. The scores work much better in their respective films.

Land Of The Lost is average.

Cars 2, Monte Carlo, and 50/50 aren't particularly good.

Koray I didn't realize you were such a hipster :P

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Wow.

Pursuit of The Falcon, 4:17

Pursuit of Dejah, 4:44

Giacchino, you filthy whore!

If it weren't for that awesome moment in Falcon, I'd prefer Dejah.

I love the heroic theme in John Carter though (50:20 in the show). I think I'll like this score.

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I'm also surprised at how much I keep going back to the clips.

Everyone is chit-chatting about the action music which is great. But Dejah's theme...which starts a little Lost like...builds into one of the best tracks I've heard in a long long long long long long time.

Just listen to it with your full attention from beginning to end. This isn't a Michael Giacchino's Lost-like 4 or 5 note theme. This is a full on theme in the ancient sense from the hey-day of film music. Wonderful stuff.

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