Atreides

Finally! Definitely getting it.

They had a listening party slated at all? I just thought it was a Patrick Doyle thing, not a Harry Potter thing...

On the Batman/Superman note, I agree with Brandon Routh. Superman and Batman should team up together. They'd compliment each other well. Superman has the powers, and Batman has the ability to fight sans powers so that when Superman is exposed to Kryptonite, no prob. Also in terms of outlook, there'd be an interesting interaction between the idealism of Superman and the cynical view of Batman.

Uh... did you see the movie?

That scene has always confused me to no end. Superman goes back in time and... what? Goes to Lois? But his "other" self didn't do anything more than he did the first time. So the avalanche should still happen, but it doesn't. Then Jimmy Olsen comes and talks about the earthquake. Still no avalanche. I reconciled it by thinking that Superman came back in time and stopped the other nuclear missile... but then why is there an earthquake? Ugh.

He left because he was part of the producers' plan to cut corners. He wasn't given the option to protest. My mistake. I had heard that, after Brando's lawsuit, he and the director were fired to cut corners, and that John Williams and several cast/crew members left in protest.

Really, lets be sensible. Most people don't really read the credits, and most will think that John Williams did the score anyway. The only reason that a few people outside of the film score community even know that Williams didn't do II-IV is because they know he left in protest to Donner being fired, not because they saw it in the credits. Only film score fans and movie buffs who actually pay attention to details will notice that John Ottman is the composer in the first place. As I remember, the only one of the reviews that even mentions the score seems to think that it was John Williams. So really, even if Williams wasn't credited, would it matter?

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/showthr...ad.php?t=488491

About 50-50 between film music and progressive rock (most specifically, the styles blended with metal, such as Dream Theater, Symphony X, etc.). It used to be 50-50 between film scores and metal in general, but my tastes in rock music have become much more selective. I'm trying to turn them into thirds, by listening to more classical music.

The Magneto motif isn't as easy to pick up on because it isn't as long as the other themes, doesn't make its presence known as prominently, and the last 2 of the 4 descending notes change alot. I don't have immediate access to the soundtrack, so I can't tell you the precise locations of the theme yet, but I believe it appears in the beginning and ending of "Church of Magneto," the beginning of "Magneto plots," and in "The Last Stand," before the main theme reprises in the same form as the second track.

It depends on what I'm focusing on at the time. If I buy a score on CD, I want to hear some good music. However, the movie should come first when a composer is writing the score. Great movies are never fashioned around music. Great musical montages, maybe, but movies are primarily a visual medium. All sound effects--music included--come second to the visual storytelling. If a composer can accompany, reflect, and tell the story of a film all at the same time successfuly, great! However, the music should never be dominant over the visuals. Music certainly has its times to shine (if all is done well, that should be throughout the film), but at the same time, it should always be serving a supporting role. In the case of 2001, one could say that the music took center stage, but this would only be a half-accurate assessment. The music was more important in 2001 not because it was dominant, but because Kubrick was expressing things with images that required a very different approach with the music. Kubrick rejected the actual film score in favor of the classical music because he felt that, for the music to accompany the film, it had to exist outside the film; causing people to go into a contemplative state of mind rather than to reflecting the action, which would have missed the point of the movie entirely. So, when I'm watching a movie, the movie comes first. But when I'm listening to a film music CD, different standards apply.

Highlighting for spoilers, again. (Magical_Me)"That's exactly what I thought! His "death" scene was so well done; it was reminiscent of those dramatic old deaths but without the cheese. I've heard McKellan will soon play King Lear in London, incidentally, and I think he'd do a marvellous job at it. I hope he just as good a job as Ian Holm did in the recent (in the last decade, anyway) television version. Off-topic though! Regarding the final scene, I was really hoping that the chess pieces would move but that it was Xavier's consiousness playing, ending with a line such as "good move, old friend" by Magneto. Would have been much more powerful than both what we had in that scene and the part after the credits." Ooooh, that would have been so great! Now that you mention it, I'm surprised I didn't think of something similar to that. "And incidentally, welcome to Atreides, my semi-acquaintence from one of those evil Harry Potter forums, and probably the only other one on it who listens to film scores at all (that aren't Goblet of Fire or something by Danny Elfman). " Tell me about it. I'm about ready to just give up on those forums entirely; its getting more hopeless every day. On that composer thread: How on earth can people be answering "Hans Zimmer?!"

I found Powell's score for X3 to be a great listen on album, and very good in the movie. As Magical_Me said, some parts were a little overblown. The main title was good (and very similar to Ottman's...), but I loved the themes for Phoenix and Angel. The theme for Magneto is a little indistinct and never really that noticeable, but it's functional. The movie was a mixed bag. Great action spectacle, to be sure, and it got a lot of mutants in (which was fun, if nothing else), but as a whole, it failed to stand up to Bryan Singer's films by a long shot. Oh, and another thing... SPOILERS HIGHLIGHT You can kill Cyclops, X, and Jean Grey, but to me, the most emotionally effective moment was when Magneto lost his powers. My favorite scene in the whole movie was at the end in the park, with him playing chess across from the seat where his old friend should be sitting. That alone made me choke up more than anything else in the film. Too bad it was ruined by that stupid end-opener.

Hey, I've been lurking around here for some time, and decided to actually start posting now... I really like what I hear from the soundclips. Being realistic, I expected this to be mainly a "Don Davis -Jurassic Park" sort of score, with endless (and pointless) repetition of John Williams' themes, but I really think Ottman has nailed it. Obviously though, I can't judge its functioning in the film yet.