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The length of The Fabelmans score reminds me of something Williams said during the Seventh Annual Career Achievement Award in the early 90’s. Back then he said: ’I think it could be just as interesting to write a ‘Satie-like’ miniature score which is 10 minutes long. That can be the jewel in the hands of a master as a hundred-minute bombast can be in the hands of a fool.’ Source: Score Magazine (Dutch), 1991

It's so hard to judge Rise of Skywalker because it feels like we've only gotten an hour's worth of 30 second samples and no clear understanding of Williams' intended musical narrative. I'm sure there's a cohesive musical experience just waiting to be assembled by Mike but neither the film nor album make for a satisfying experience. The album in particular wastes far too much time on note for note reprisals of existing music, far more than the oft-criticised Last Jedi OST. So it really only leaves the other two scores and it's hard to deny the writing prowess and thematic development in TFA. I think TLJ has better highlights but is less consistent and a bit more dull for extended patches. TFA is simply unrivalled with the assortment of quality new themes and I'm grateful for how brilliantly he developed them across the trilogy (rather than abandoning or forgetting about them, as he has in the past). What TLJ really needed was some type of Force-in-hibernation theme to break up the monotony of those incessant Force theme appearances, which would reach its climax in The Spark as Luke returns. By comparison, TFA doesn't really leave you wanting for anything. In terms of film presentation, Last Jedi leaves the other two for dead. The score is brilliantly mixed and clearly treated with reverence by Johnson and his sound team. Williams is given multiple opportunities to be the only voice in the mix, while he spends the other two films competing for airtime with 500 SFX artists all screaming at the top of their lungs. Enough has been said about Abrams and it's not worth repeating.

Nope! As Stu said, that's from the trailer music, which does not reference Williams' score. Yep, although I think there are more piano solos in the film than there are on the album, so maybe not necessarily this one. There we go! You can hear the celeste playing the reflective, melancholy theme for all of three seconds. I'm pretty sure this is track 11, The Letter. I didn't watch the whole featurette but that's not really the case at all. His parents' separation is the film's major conflict, albeit secondary to Stevie's filmmaking! I think it's just a more interesting perspective because it focuses on his relationship with his parents individually during the family drama, rather than the relationship between the parents themselves. We understand everything through Steven's perspective.

Saw this yesterday...this was Super!

*unrelated photo

TROS is unfortunately let down by both an OST with too many missing highlights (Falcon Flight, Rey Trains, Advice, Parents, etc.) and a pretty lackluster film presentation, microedited, tracked to death, and frequently buried under sound effects. But it’s actually my favorite of the three, even though TFA is my favorite OST and TLJ is my favorite in the film. Just bring on all three in complete form!

There was nothing engrossing or visceral about the experience watching Avatar for me. That's exactly my point. I can understand, that others like this kind of native american cliché adaptations. What I don't understand is , If anybody calls that original world building. In my view the little story ark in the first Star Wars with the Jawas is more original than everything that I have seen so far from Avatar.

This sentence only makes sense on a film score forum

The very first glimpse of the score can be heard from 5:55-6:01.

JW: Steven, you need a greater composer for this. SS: I know, so please use pieces by Bach, Haydn, Clementi, and Kuhlau!

This week we have two more quiet and emotional cues. We hope you enjoy Cue No. 22: Hermione's Tale and Cue No. 23: The Silver Doe!

With Avatar I have a similar issue like with the Fantastic Beasts movies. This exploration of this fantasy nature, animals and such is a nice tool for the world building, but that works best If it is just the skeleton of a crait dragon lying in the background or some growling swamp creature pulling R2-D2 under water just briefly showing its dorsal fin and then disapears. I am not interested in getting a the three hour presentation of that flora and fauna. That feels like watching an aquarium screensaver to me. But obviously many others see that differently. It's just not for me.

Brilliant find and utterly true. The man is so much more than just a musical poet. After a sprawling collaboration filled with almost every genre imaginable, I can't think of a better way for Williams and Spielberg to complete their partnership.

It's an amazing show so it's definitively worth watching. S4 has an ending which could be seen as a series ending in some way, even though it's not the final chapter of the story.

Yeah. I clearly have a hoarding problem. 🤣 Karol

My criticism is somewhat abstract — it's two legacy "tender and slow" themes (not notably reorchestrated / rearranged AFAICT) strung back to back. That said, No argument here, not from me 😁 even if I'm being picky, I think the moment is effective and I wouldn't call it cheap.

I've finally caught up with THE POWER OF THE DOCTOR. The only thing I can say is: "Thank fuck that's over".

Well we re-watched the original film tonight. I did not like it when it came out 2 years ago, but ended up interested in the score and its sequel score enough to want to see the new film, which made me want to revisit the first film before doing so. It was a good thing we did, too, because I had barely remembered anything about the film at all in the 2 years (common for a lot of early pandemic content, I've found). I liked the film much more this time than I did then! Boy, it really rubbed me the wrong way the initial viewing, or maybe I was just in a bad mood or something. It didn't annoy me at all this time, it was a nice easy watch. I don't think it's great by any means, but it's perfectly fine. Really sets up a potential for a good series if they can focus on what worked best and pivot away from what didn't as they go on. The biggest problem that the film has, is its weird and abrupt focus-shift. The film starts being about finding her mom, then she stumbles into the case of the missing marquis and chooses to focus on that, which is fine, but the mother subplot doesn't just become background noise.... it is all but dropped entirely, until suddenly returning in the final few minutes after everything else is wrapped up. But what's worse, is that her disappearance isn't really ever explained! It's clear from the clues and the meeting in the house that she was plotting some sort of bombing with a bunch of other women, and Enola even finds the bombs halfway through the movie...but the movie ends without explaining what she was up to. It seems like it would have been so easy to tie it into the marquis story by saying she was going to bomb a place where a bunch of people that were going to vote against the reform bill were going to be, but.. nothing is explained. Unless I missed it?? Anyway, what was really nice about this viewing was I had just listened to the sequel's score album Friday, as well as that suite from the first film up above, and on this viewing it was quite easy to pick up on what Pemberton was doing with all the themes. The so-called "Mystery Theme" (is that Pemberton's name, or @TheUlyssesian's ?) is wonderful in all its different guises, and really gets to shine in key moments in the film. Enola's theme does too, and the love theme is pretty decent too - definitely feels like something that could be expanded on in sequels as the two get older. The remaining themes aren't as bold and noticeable, though the mother/daughter theme is nice enough when its used. We'll probably watch the sequel film tomorrow. I'm listening to the OST album for the first film now following along with this great post, and it's really enriching my listen!

Varese owns the rights to both of those in perpetuity

Considerably incomplete, yes

So the score in the film is 10 minutes and we get 7 minutes of unused music on the OST!

They remain in "print" via digital download and streams, of course. The physical CD format had not been the primary (or secondary) way that major music labels stay in business for well over a decade now

With native american cliché I didn't mean the Pocachontas plot. Aspects like in what kind of society/tribe the aliens live, how are they organized, what professions do exist. Indian chief, medicine man, warrior etc. that is part of the world building, not necessarily of the plot. And oh, they are not only riding on kind of horses, but some dragons. Original? No. And they hunt with bow and arrow and drive on water by canoe. The treasure they wear, the weapons tey use.That all is part of the world building, and a damn weak part of it.

But when you say 'technical marvel', that sounds rather reductive, as if it's all just surface value without any kind of effect. It obviously is a technical marvel, but what matters is how you make use of it. Form is content. So when you have visionaries like Cameron (or Scott, or Spielberg, or other directors that make full use of the audiovisual tools not only for storytelling, but for mood and other things) that makes use of these technical marvels to create engrossing, visceral experiences, that's a valid form of pleasure. For all their spectacle, none of the Marvel films have accomplished this. Cameron, on the other hand, has managed this herculean task with THE ABYSS, ALIENS, TITANIC and the first AVATAR, in particular, and I have great confidence he will do it again with this sequel. Everyone and their grandmother agree that the Pocahontas story of AVATAR is completely unoriginal, but that's not really the point of the film, the way I see it. It's just a mechanism by which to absorb you into the universe of Pandora.

I thought this was going to be a sarcastic or troll post

I read thru it too fast to catch a mistake and wasn’t sure why you corrected him

Seriously though, it's why I never replied to the original post. I figured I'd post in the general TV series thread once I had something more to say about it (probably when the season is over). Switching the discussion to the other thread might bring it more attention, but since I was too lazy to cross-reply myself, I just pointed it out in the end, in the hopes that someone else might move it or restart it over there.

I've been watching The Peripheral, and so far I enjoy it a lot. It combines a somewhat novel idea with a good cast and a captivating design. I just still don't know what else to say about it; it hasn't yet moved beyond the category of good, but not particularly remarkable show for me. William Gibson seems to be happy with how it turned out in any case, judging from his Twitter feed. Wrong thread though.

Not a bad playlist, and it includes several of my standard go-to tracks. Also a lot of stuff that's not that interesting to me - probably little to no filler (there's quite a bit of that in the show as well), but I've never been particularly fond of most of the "ethnic" stuff in these scores. It's fine, it works, but it doesn't hold any special interest for me. Three of my regular tracks are missing though, and at least the first two are major favourites: Allegro, Battlestar Sonatica, and Dreilide Thrace Sonata No. 1. The first of these in particular I find important, because it was the moment in the show when I realised that Passacaglia wasn't a one hit wonder and that there was in fact (going to be) more outstanding music in the show. (Passacaglia and its further development in The Shape of Things to Come are the only really major tracks from S1 for me, and for some reason I hadn't really noticed the latter when I first watched the show).

You like depressing movies? I prefer A Room With A View.

I just listened to the Orville score Season One for the first time. First impression: The main theme reminds me dramatically of Goldsmith's The Blue Max. But I guess, I am not the first one saying that?

Williams might make two legacy themes strung back to back seem effortless, but in the hands of a lesser composer......

Here's the link: https://disneystudiosawards.com/media/soundtracks/01_Lift_Me_Up_update_1_main_2496_HRA-HD_Master_x26SVQB.mp3 This one will probably win

Here is a list of cues from Enola Holmes 2 (the soundtrack is incomplete and uses mostly different titles). Don't know if this list is chronological (the OST isn't):

The director is the be-all-end-all of the entire project. What they say goes, no matter what. They are 100% in control of the film. Think of them like a manager/CEO and the composers/actors/editors, etc. as employees. As for why some scores are butchered, well that just comes down to the director preferring the music to be edited in that way, as unfortunate as it might be for the composer and us. Some directors just clearly are not musicians.

Kiner and Haab have both done some really great work. I think Solo might be the single best non-JW SW score. The music has a near JW-like flow and a good glossary of themes. The action music sometimes grates a little, but it's not terrible.

I dunno man, even in 1977 a new themes just shouldn't have a clavinet (or whatever that keyboard in the opening is). Like the ABC World News Tonight theme is probably my favorite American news theme besides Williams' and it debuted around the same time as Mancini's. No funk here!

I only recently heard Williams' predecessor NBC Nightly News themes, written by Henry Mancini. I wonder if it is actually wildly inappropriate or does it only sound that way because Williams has so thoroughly defined what a news theme should sound like for me? Either way, it sounds like a cop show theme to me

Not true Incorrect

Listened to volume two a few times and thought it was great. I think in the long run, the appropriate “listening program” for this season will be one shorter volume of highlights only, but in general I like the vibe well enough. Especially glad to have the heist episode music and the weird vacation-world techno stuff!

Thanks for the heads up! Here are the individual links: Empire of Light (Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross) [16 cues, 00:35:34]

MP3 links still working, so we still have the soundtrack album freely available (though there might be somebody at Searchlight pictures getting reprimanded for uploading the commercial album) And kudos to Searchlight for uploading 24bit 48Khz wav files, again

‘Andor’ Season 2 Begins Filming November 21st in London

Just listening to Enola Holmes 2 score for the second time and it's absolutely marvelous. Exactly as I hoped for. I would say at least around 2/3 of the tracks are some kind of variation on the three main themes (Enola theme, "mystery" theme, and Enola+Tewkesbury theme), but Pemberton does it so well it's never boring. Bad Guys, See How They Run, Amsterdam and Enola Holmes are all excellent score, what a year for Pemberton.

Fifty? We have ourselves an optimist

So you came HERE?

Physical CD on every country's Amazon I could find it on: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0BKLW6J58 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BKLW6J58 https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0BKLW6J58 https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B0BKLW6J58 https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0BKLW6J58 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BKLW6J58 https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0BKLW6J58 https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0BKLW6J58 https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0BKLW6J58 https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0BKLW6J58 https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B0BKLW6J58 https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B0BKLW6J58 https://www.amazon.pl/dp/B0BKLW6J58