oierem

Watching the end credits of Crystall Skull, when Marion's theme appeared, my mom turned to me and said "that's really lovely... but this music didn't appear in the movie at all!"

Tell that to Beethoven!

Absolutely agreed.

I agree with that. However, I see Skull as a "coda" to the trilogy, almost like an extra thing after the main course. It's like ANOTHER ending, maybe not as epic, but more definitive (getting married, as opposed to riding off to another adventure). I quite like the movie, though it's true that it's a hard act to follow such a SUPERB three-part series. The one thing I like about Skull (enough to consider it part of the series) is that the story is set in America; Raiders is mostly an african adventure, Temple happens 100% in Asia, and Skull is mostly European/Western story.

Disagreed. Unless you'd only hear the melody without any harmonic context (which never happens), the opening motive of the theme is very clearly in a minor mode. And even if you played the opening melody alone, it wouldn't feel like a major mode melody because the minor third to the "tonic" is clearly heard. The ONLY way to make it feel like a major mode motiv is to deliberately change the harmony, which Williams (more or less) does in Vader's dying scene (once he is unmasked, the flutes play the theme in D minor over a harp that suggests a Bb lydian mode).

What??? No!! IIRC, those two bars are present in the original manuscript, they just decided to cross them out for the recording of the film. For some reason, Williams reversed the choice for all subsequent recordings (or he completely forgot about those two cut bars).

At first it was "the movies will go on forever" (1977-78). Then it was "it's a three-act trilogy, and then there will be more more" (1979-80) Then it was "it's a three-act trilogy and that's it for me" (1981-83). Once Empire Strikes Back had a defined structure and plot (early 1978) Jedi was always concieved as an ending of the trilogy.

Are usually the end credit suites composed with a specific timing? Or are the credits adjusted to the music?

War Horse is a great score (one of the very last masterpieces from JW, IMO), with lots of beautiful melodies, unabashedly romantic. I can't even decide which of the themes is better, because each one is better than the last, and even keeps a unique theme for the finale. But the OST is literally one of the best ever produced: a complete symphonic score, with a clear 3-part structure, following the chronological journey of the film, and missing nothing essential, in my opinion. I can listen the that OST from beginning to end and emotionally follow the story. It feels like a C&C release. The movie is also quite good, with great cinematography recreating the WWI setting (and that final sunset shot...) I haven't seen Far & Away, and although the score has many clear highlights, as of now the complete score is a bit too long for me. Probably because I haven't watched the film.

And is it fair to count the opening credits?

The Empire Strikes Back, possibly. Consistently great, from beginning to end.

There is one change in the Extended ROTK cut that really bothers me: if I'm not mistaken, in the theatrical cut, after Faramir meets Gandalf in Minas Tirith and tells him about Frodo and Cirith Ungol, Gandalf says "tell me everything", and it cuts to Frodo, Sam and Gollum climbing the stairs of Cirith Ungol. In the extended cut, the dramatic build-up of "tell me everything" cuts to... a scene with Faramir and Denethor which has nothing to do with what they were talking in the previous scene. It may be a small difference, but I never liked that change.

Absolutely. This dull way of staging things (as well as a very lifeless way of editing scenes) really kills these movies for me. As you say, everyone just stands still, waiting for each turn to say a line - and there's always an awkard pause before each one. Compare that to any Spielberg scene, where everything -from every character to the camera itself- is alive.

Indeed. There are two "unanswered questions" that needed to be answered in the film (regardless of what's in the book). -How did Lupin AND Sirius know how to use the map? ("The map never lies") -Why did future-Harry produce a stag-formed patronus? Both are answered with a very quick explanation of who made the map. (Of course: the in the next film everyone talks about "Wormtail"... while Azkaban never explains who Wormtail is)

This is obviously an exception lol But I'm thinking about the concert versions that were recorded during the recording sessions: Leia, Vader, Yoda, Ewoks... all those themes are gradually introduced in the score. Listening to the concert version before the main program would be a mistake, in my opinion.