Richard P

I suppose were this the first modern Narnia adapation, then I'd be more with you - the story is such a great canvas for a score. But we got an awesome one from HGW, and arguably a Narnia-like score from Desplat. So this would effectively be a bonus Narnia score, and if Knight's Tale turned out great with a bunch of modern songs in it, then I guess I don't get such a feeling of cynicism towards it. We'll probably have to just disagree about this pre-judging thing - I think a lot of films have been made that sounded like awful ideas at the time, that turned out great. And those that didn't...well... that sucks, but we can't linger on terrible films.

I'm rewatching the music video and I immediately get vibes of a poor man's Earth Song, except that I find his vocals a bit irritating when he goes into the upper registers. The instrumental version on the OST is much more pleasant.

I'm not comparing the stories, I'm comparing the notion of scoring a historical (in one way or another) movie in a modern manner. There's no inherent reason it couldn't work for Narnia - it depends what Gerwig has done.

A Knight's Tale is fucking awesome.

It worked for A Knight's Tale. Might not work for this. Darest I suggest actually waiting until it's out tho.

I've ordered the Blu-ray so I'm going to do the same thing. I'm not in any way familiar with the unreleased music, so either I'm going to discover a ton of cues I really want, or it may tell me that the OST is sufficient. I did like the source during the parade at the start, which it looks like is included. I think the main thing stopping me just ordering is the overall price with international shipping, and it doesn't have as much personal meaning to me as Skyfall, which I would probably have got by now.

The entire oscars machine doesn't really work as it should, with its politics and performatism. I think people are just desperate to see JW publicly awarded - name in lights, and all that. There's nothing more pleasing to the heart than reading 'John Williams, 94, receives sixth Oscar for his 30th collaboration with Spielberg'. I totally get it. Unfortunately, it does somewhat change the nature of what the oscars represents to automatically say that because of the nature and circumstances of the project, he should win, irregardless of the musical output. That's why I think a perfect recognition would be a special career award.

A lifetime achievement award to acknowledge JW's career - definitely. But given that we haven't (at time of writing) heard most of the scores in contention, nor even heard JW's full score, isn't winning best score a bit presumptuous?

Not in any way condoning an illegal purchase (which is worse than just an illegal download), but if we want to encourage legal purchases, you'd think they could just drop the album this week, rather than just a single. Having a gap like this may build hype, but it also creates a window where people have been teased with the tracklist and a few samples and just want to enjoy the score.

One can appreciate the gift of this album, and also wish we could hear the entire score. Although we don't yet know whether there even is much music missing to begin with. It may be totally unheard of in the world of JW, but the idea of watching a film and it being considered unreasonable to want to hear all the music in it, in 2026, is rather silly.

It's pleasant, although the section in the middle meanders a bit for me. I find it very A.I.-ish, which may explain why I'm a bit cool on it (I don't really like A.I.) The twinkly melody in the latter part is heavily reminding me of something, but I'm not sure yet what.

The Green Mile is Warner Bros. There aren't a lot of Newmans I want, due to his OSTs being quite long to start with. Maybe The Horse Whisperer.

Depends on whether Waxwork are going to keep it in print, long-term. From the reaction to the DME disaster, clearly JW's most dedicated fans understandably desire a CD, but that once that moment has passed and all of those people have had ample opportunity to get their disc, does it really matter that much if it's still available physically, as long as it's streaming wide? I doubt the 'but it's John Williams' persuasion will suddenly make loads of CDs materialise if sales data indicates that general consumers don't buy many of them.

I'm liking these two clips quite a bit more than Listen... actually; the brass motif is really interesting, and that rhythm at the end with the cornfield shots feels like something from the same pencil as WotW but all cleaned up and new, and without the pretty dark/dingy undertone that score had - more smooth and refined. I'm really looking forward to hearing this cue(s) properly on album. I also don't get any sense so far of the recycling and technique fallback that made DoD a bit disappointing for me. Could do without the puff-piece talking heads though...

I wouldn't have been so surprised were it CR or QoS, as they're the oldest of the modern era of Bond, and we typically think of these things as starting from the oldest entry. They do also have arguably wider appeal being Arnold. But I'm very excited that no one along the line has raised the thought of Newman's scores being too new to bother expanding, or not having the appeal. I did like the various rhythms in this one and minimalistic melodies - a style that doesn't work for everyone. With Skyfall they do have the issue of Adele's song, and given its 15th is next year, perhaps it's being targeted for then. Another skim of the FYC has indicated a good handful of missing cues (or sections of), but the more annoying thing is the Bond statements edited out so you can't just play one or the other. I think I have my newest mini-grail - a fully C&C expansion, with the song.