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A 4K video of the performance with Williams' complete speech. He speaks glowingly about the film and Harrison: Sounds like the film hangs off the chemistry of HF/PWB, possibly reminiscent of the HF/SC dynamic in TLC. That's something the Indy films always did well, his interactions with everyone along for the ride (Marion/Sallah, Willie/Shorty). Might be part of the reason Skull falls flat. LeBeouf does an admirable job with Mutt but the dynamic with Indy is a little dull. Clearly they were going for the Indy unknowingly being a father figure to his estranged son dynamic but Koepp's writing doesn't make it sing.

1998 at the Hollywood Bowl JW: "Now I'd like to play a little something from next year's new Star Wars movie. It is a piece called Qui-Gon's Noble End for when Liam Neeson's character is killed by Darth Maul. Enjoy" 😂

mini JWFan meetup Saturday morning. Right to left is Mike Matessino, myself, Jim Ware, and his wife Aparna

I'm worried that by next year the piece will sound weird without the crickets

Makes sense with all the Mediterranean locations they've shot at. A Williams score channelling Greek mythology and Roman-biblical epics is beyond mouthwatering... And if this theme is any indication of the score's influences (Golden Hollywood), we're in for one hell of a swan song. Along with Fabelmans, this might be the score that brings his entire working career in the film music industry full circle.

No, I hear a glaring flub at 1:23

Was literally just about to share those images with you! 😆 I'll put them here for the thread anyway. And yes, Helena's theme was played again tonight so should be on tomorrow as well.

I was thinking, Williams described the character as a femme fatale, but I don't think her theme quite conveys that. It sounds like a theme for a much nicer, more wholesome character, kinda like Anakin's Theme or My Friend Brachiossaurus. Irina's Theme, on the other hand, does sound particularly femme fatale-y.

Because that's not something anyone should be thinking of in the deep intangible faraway mythic past before time even began! They were all a happy and peaceful bunch in the place of perfection until Melkor introduced sadness and conflict into that idyllic place divorced from the real world! It's not something that should be "made realistic" at all, or even really depicted at all IMO, except maybe in stylised animation, that'd be the only way to get concepts like the Two Trees right, not with these giant glass things. They showed they aren't adverse to it with the opening titles in ep2, it could've been done.

I just finished seeing Jaws in IMAX 3D. Holy cow; seeing it remastered in this format was a surreal experience. The picture and sound were phenomenal; the music was loud and clear. Best way to see it since the 4K restoration. I still jumped out of my seat at the specific moments and was on the edge of my seat. This was such a thrill!

I hope you guys gave the poor lady something to do so she wouldn't get bored out of her mind after 5 seconds of scoretalk!

I loled the main titles very much. Musically it screams lotr very loudly

Those crickets have been there since the end of KOTCS

This damn chirping of crickets though, why nobody told them to shut up during the performance!!!

Hypothesis that could explain the resemblance to Marion’s theme: Helena is the daughter of Collin Williams and Marion Ravenwood. For those who don’t remember, Collin Williams was Mutt’s adoptive father who was mentioned in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. (Hence the name “Mutt Williams”.) This would make Helena Indy’s daughter-in-law. It would also mean that Helena is Mutt’s half-sister. The ages work out. If Mutt had a sister one year younger than him, it would make her 32 in 1969. Phoebe Waller Bridge would have been 36 at the time of filming. So, pretty close. It also just makes sense. Indy’s theme was referenced in “the Adventures of Mutt,” signaling that Mutt is Indy’s son. Therefor, if Marion’s theme is referenced, it implies Helena is Marion’s daughter.

This is a great score in itself but it holds a very special place in my heart because it was the first moment that my little sister (aged 4 at the time) actually noticed - and loved - music from a film; she still loves and listens to it now at the age of 20. Yes, it has been that long. Anyway, it often coaxes a nostalgic tear from us both. The finale, the uninterrupted assemblage of The Water Recedes / Mammoths / With The Herd / Into The Sunset is a moving and stirring seven minutes of awesome music.

Folks have mentioned Rise of Skywalker -- I also hear some similarities to The Long Goodbye, which JW just recently rearranged for Mutter!

This is mind blowingly good. Oh yes, there's some Marion's Theme in there. I'm blown away by this piece right now. Gorgeously crafted. Take that, modern day film composers! It's also giving me vibes from the concert version of "My Friend, The Brachiosaurus". That's an underrated gorgeous piece.

Now this is a score I don't hear anybody mentioning much of anymore... and this is possibly only my second/third listen since it came out so I remembered very little. What a blast! Let's remember, this is still - though only just - pre-Avatar and he hadn't really done anything like this sort of family-friendly fantasy fair for a good while at this point. There's tonnes of echoes from the likes of Jumanji, Bicentennial Man, Willow, Casper, The Rocketeer, The Land Before Time... even The Spitfire Grill and the Zorro films. The cue The Flight Of The Griffin is sublime Horner. I love it!

All for what? Cliche scene with cliche brother where he says some cliche "deep" thing which she later cliche-remembers in a cliche other scene with a cliche "choice".

Wow, @Ludwig, we are possessed by the same need to transcribe, aren't we! Here's my own attempt, just of the opening first minute and a half. We can compare notes, literally!

Beautiful theme! Just so we can get a sense of what the actual melody of the theme is, I did a transcription of the theme proper (minus the intro, middle section, and coda) . There are two statements - the first in the strings at 0:29, the second in the horn at 2:33 (I reposted the great-sounding video from @crumbs):

Yeah. He used that word to describe Spalko, but on film she never seemed particularly “femme fatale “ to me. There has to be something alluring about a femme fatale. Sexy but dangerous. I think Cate Blanchet could have done that. But for whatever reason, the writing and/or direction/editing of the character never came off that way. Just a stereotypical “cold Russian”. William’s Spalko theme is truly perfect for a femme fatale though. For my money the best femme fatale we’ve seen in Indy has been Elsa Come to think of it, I’m surprised Williams didn’t try to write a more mysterious sexy theme for her. The closest I think he got was a whisp of a moment in “The Austrian Way” 00:36-1:55 It wants to be a theme but never seems to materialize. I guess that musically nebulous approach to her character works though as her motivations are always changing throughout the film. Still. Seems like a missed opportunity for JW.

I didn't buy anything. I realized after poking around for a while, there was very unlikely to be anything I would get. I have so many film scores, and I've been keeping up with specialty label output for over a decade. The only thing I might not have is some old specialty label title that sold out quick and hasn't been reissued yet, but anything in that category would be expensive. Or something that has a reissue making the old edition irrelevant, but I might want anyway for crazy OTT completeness; For example, they were selling a used copy of the FSM Towering Inferno, which I don't own. But I own the disaster box, so the only reason to get it would just be completionism. But they were charging $75 for it, so any thoughts of being a 100% collector vanished pretty quick

My gut still tells me she is a former student and somewhat of a protege of Indys. Similar to Indy studying under Abner Ravenwood. As for the hint of Marion's Theme, definitely interesting. But JW isn't a stranger to adding other characters themes to pieces where there's no connection. I do like the fact that Marion's Theme is just always a nice bridge back into Indys theme.

Love Theme from The River, Superman, Ann and Gabriel theme from The Patriot and I would include the main theme from Sabrina as well.

I'm still hoping for Free Willy.

I think the sequence itself is a little underwhelming, visually. The music, however, is not. True, its not some big swashbuckling, fanfarish thing like people are used to with the openings of big TV shows, but that's just not Shore's style. I can't offhand think of a single Shore score that opens ostentatiously. One fortunate byproduct of the underwhelming title sequence is that the music doesn't become associated with any specific visuals: it really operates as a piece of absolute music, and as an anticipation of musical elements that will engender important themes that - within the order of the musical storytelling - are yet to come in Shore's movie scores.

Its just so...prosaic, mundane. In the trilogies, the prologues dealt with the corrupting power of the Ring, with greed, with loss of home, treachery, death. This prologue does pay lip service to some of these through a quick montage of the War of Wrath, but the bulk of it is some super mundane big brother routine, and the same is true to a lesser extent of Durin's "you missed my daughter's piano recital!" to Elrond.

I admit - and it saddens me to admit - that it's been a few years since Newman has truly impressed us. His output over the past few years has been dour. I look at this particular score as the last genuinely great thing he did. Revisiting it now, it's really really lovely. There's some textures here that are still a relatively uncommon thing for Newman... the use of real voices, choirs. Really gorgeous. It's still a Newman score through and through... unmistakably... but he made this one more interesting than most. It really stands out in his 2015-present discography. I dunno. I'm in mourning. I want my old Newman back. I hope this Wonder film and that Dracula thing he's attached to brings some interesting music.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull I've been binging Indy music for the past few weeks, and now the time has come to re-evaluate the most controversial of the four scores. Listening to the bootleg, I think I can pinpoint the exact reason why this score isn't as beloved as the other three. It all boils down to reel 3, which concentrates all the "boring suspense cues" that bring the listening experience down. But, aside from that, all the other reels contain interesting and energetic music that, although not as inspired as the underscore for the other three, it's still quite fun and have some great moments. So, when listening to KOTCS again, you may want to skip reel 3 altogether, or just keep one or two cues from it in order to have a calm bridge between "A Whirl Through Academe" on reel 2 and "Staring Down the Skull" on reel 4.

Unusually I'm hearing these albums for the first time in show context, which is the better way to do it. There are certainly some bits more engaging than others, and the season album will likely get more playtime as a concept album, but no part of the episode albums are uninteresting or boring for me. I'm not a big fan of Shore outside of LotR, but I have noticed that his sound in that franchise seems to be just... him. Panic Room, History of Violence and a few other bits, all basically sound the same in terms of instrumentation. So if I'm reading this right, you basically wanted Shore to do the series, but for whatever reason he didn't, which means that by all reasonable demands, you're getting a different composer who approaches the show with their own style, and is going to be under different requests. In short, do I think that your personal benchmark for this score being judged a success are unreasonable? Sadly, yes. I take no pleasure in having this debate of course, because it's disappointing that you don't like the music. However, I think you're rooted in such an extreme case of 'could have been', where all the decision makers wanted the score to continue Shore's signatures and Bear was prepared to spend a year or more writing in that style, which the vast majority of listeners will never notice. One of my pet hates is sort of the opposite of overthinking (my speciality): people who imagine the best possible outcome for a project for their personal tastes, and are disappointed to say the least, when that doesn't happen for any number of real, practical reasons. This is why I'm continuing to explore why you're seeing such mediocre work in something that I'm enjoying so much

The big question is, how long until he does a violin & orchestra arrangement for Mutter?

I know and I get your meaning. I am just affirming we do deserve it. Divinely or otherwise. If anything, the world is slightly better, slightly smaller, slightly more lovely. 4 mins cannot save the world, but it can nudge it in the right direction. And we are going to get probably ~45 mins of Fablemans and 79 mins of Indy 5 (plus whatever is not released) to give the world a nice shove too! But we are very fortunate and should be thankful for every note. (And glad you like KOTCS too!)

Holy cow this sounds sparkling!!! Great job Mike Matessino!

Yes! What a remarkable, lush, romantic love letter to cinema itself. It is just the right balance of complexity and accessibility. Yes it’s Golden Age. Yes, it’s Noir. Yes, it’s TROS. But it transcends each and every one of those to be just what it is - lovable. Truly a piece to be loved and savored. This is a GREAT sign for the rest of the score. This type of music just doesn’t exist anymore, and may never again. This gets me right in the heart. Do we deserve this even? After every fanboy gripe about KOTCS, John Williams is able to say, “Here. Enjoy.”

I watched the second episode and was just as good as the first one. I especially enjoyed all the stuff at Khazad-dûm, with Durin and Elrond, and I also enjoyed the fact that the Southlands storyline became sort of a horror movie for some sequences. Probably my favorite bits of McCreary's score correspond to all the material for the dwarves, but I also really liked the extended variations on the Stranger's theme in his scenes with Nori. As I have been doing with House of the Dragon, and did yesterday with the first episode, I have done an analysis of the score, the different themes, and how they play with each other to further the narrative of the series. Enjoy and feel free to share any thoughts you might have. Thanks! My Analysis of the Soundtrack - The Rings of Power 1x02: Adrift

Excellent question. And there's a story there. But for another time.

Doug was invited to the recording sessions and the premiere. But I hear he didn't go.

Woke up on a Saturday and had new John Williams music to a new Indiana Jones film waiting for me. Can't think of many better ways to start a three-day weekend. Life is good. @Ludwig @Falstaft It's insane that a piece like this can drop and not even half a day can go by before we already have transcriptions hot off the press. Thank you for all you two continue to give to this community, this just being one of many examples. We are grateful.

Drew Struzan responded to Mangold's tweet.

You could tell someone this piece was from Raiders, TOD or TLC, and no one would question it. It sounds so Indy.

Best sounding version I've found:

Mangold speaks!

I'm trying to think of the last time we got a film score debut like this a year before the film came out...

His speech is included here!

And I was there! What a thrill. And Johnny said he would like to come back at 100.

WHAT!!?!? Wow!!! It's absolutely gorgeous, a classic Hollywood theme from the Golden age of film scoring. It sounds like Williams has been quite inspired by whatever he's seen in this film. This also leans into the film noir flavour of Irina's theme from KOCS, though sweeter and less femme fatale.