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In fact it's just more or less one guy.

I am sorry, but I find this post to be baseless. Since Joker, she has done 3 films and none of them are blockbuster hits. The way people say she "got all the best gigs," you would think she is churring out scores like Lorne Balfe. Even critically, only Tar was a highly regarded film. Also, all this talk about her getting gigs because she is a woman doesn't make sense. Her trajectory isn't that different than Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor. They won an Oscar for Social Network and started to get gigs from directors looking for Avant-garde scores. And since Hildur Guðnadóttir won an Oscar and is critically praised, she is already proven right? Or do you mean she has to prove herself to the 200 people posting here at JWfan.com? Lastly, we know women can write as good as men. How is this still a question today? You don't think Debbie Wiseman, Rachel Portman, Pinar Toprak, Anne-Kathrin Dern, and others can write as good as men? Not every guy is writing John Williams level scores.

Congratulations! You just described the output of every composer in the history of western art music and film music! And if you argue otherwise about even a single one, you’d only be showing your lack of familiarity with their body of work. The more you listen to a single composer’s work, the more you will find musical similarities and techniques applied regularly across different pieces. You will eventually begin to notice more subtle stylistic references (i.e. a particular phrase structure, orchestration, cadence, etc.). This repetition of musical features over time in a composer’s body of work we call “musical voice” or “identity” and helps to distinguish one composer from another. If you listened to any other composer’s output to the same detailed extent as you did John Williams, you would have no choice but to agree. Our limitations as humans prevent us from discovering this is true for each individual case - If we had infinite time and memory, this would be no problem. I challenge you, even among the greatest composers of all time (Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Ravel, Debussy, Bartók, Vaughan Williams, the list goes on), can you honestly tell me there is not the same balance (more or less) between original material and self-references that you find in Williams? I would even argue that JW has one of the best ratios of original:recycled material among the greatest film composers (Steiner, Korngold, Bernstein, Herrmann, Morricone, Goldsmith, Horner, etc.).

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There's nothing in the LTP score which matches Doug's description (it should be in between Don't Touch That and Discovering the Script, but there's nothing to be found there). I went to the BP concert yesterday, and it was an awesome experience! It was my first time hearing JW's music performed live, so I was really stoked, and Brossé and the BP definitely delivered beyond my expectations. One minor quip: I thought the trumpets sounded a bit dull at times, definitely not as piercing (edit: or crisp, perhaps) as I would have liked. Maybe it had something to do with the venue or their placement in the orchestra (they were sitting right in the middle of the orchestra—I was expecting them to be seated more to the right). Or perhaps it had something to do with the kind of trumpets used. This is just a minor quip though, as I was thrilled throughout the whole concert—hearing JW's iconic score performed live (in particular all that ballsy stuff for the brass section!) really made me feel things I'd never felt before. Brossé is a masterful conductor too, as he manages to let the music breathe (much like JW himself) by ignoring some of the less important hitpoints, still hitting all of the more important ones in the end.

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It looks like an advert for Cadbury's Flake

Snap I wanted to be right next to the orchestra so I could just watch them. Everyone around me had their necks twisted looking up at the screen from a horrible angle. I'm not kidding when I say that the only times I looked at the screen were when they stopped playing music for a few seconds here and there haha. I always think that if I wanted to watch the film, I'd do it at home. I'm there for the orchestra.

A life-size Oscar for lifetime achievements

Could this be a release for Nosferatu?!?!

I don’t think any of us is looking to bring the hate, but if you’re open to a reasonable counterargument, I’ll give it a shot. Your depiction of us as too-easily-impressed JW fanboys misses the mark. It doesn’t help that you misrepresent the amount of self-plagiarism in JW’s music, specifically DoD. We don’t treat every score JW writes with unquestioned, overjoyed praise. Off the top of my head, there was plenty of commentary in these boards about how slight BFG, The Post, and The Fabelmans all were. Folks here wasted no time identifying the handful of moments that JW lifted from his previous work for DoD, which led to (in my opinion) an overwrought reaction about JW’s supposedly deteriorating creative faculties. I seem to recall TROS being treated as the least of the sequel trilogy scores—although that’s actually due to JJ Abrams and the Mouse House screwing the movie up every which way possible. Rather, what we appreciate and show genuine gratitude for is a man who continues to apply himself with the same level of commitment to the craft that he gave when he was half his age—composing music for characters and moments using ridiculous, outdated things like key changes, octatonic scales and woodwinds, rather than washes of interchangeable ‘moods’ written with drum loops; writing and shorthand-orchestrating every note with a pencil on paper; conducting every bar in the studio; and doing it week after week at an age when most of his birth cohort is already six feet under. It’s exactly this that prevents JW from ever being overrated. Being the consummate pro that he is, JW continues to be the same one-stop shop he’s always been, delivering each film exactly the music it needs (to the extent this era of “no such thing as picture lock” allows)—and if that music is ‘deficient’ in some way to some folks, it’s usually because JW either left out some choice cues in his OST program or because we all spent too long imagining what the music might be like to a movie we hadn’t seen in the months/years leading to that movie’s release and was ultimately disappointed in the material JW had to work with. JW isn’t overrated here—he’s rated exactly at the level he deserves to be.

The Juilliard situation is simply that he's bequeathed the sheet music in his house to them, after he passes. The Live To Projection sheet music would only go to an orchestra who has booked a performance. Like I said, you have no legal means of seeing the original manuscripts, they're only available via illegal file sharing amongst fans.

“This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or random as a blaster; an elegant weapon for a more... civilized age.” No, like this guy:

Also what were all these amazing gigs Rachel Portman was getting post-Oscar? She was working plenty doing like 2-3 movies a year but there was nothing unusual or disproportionate about her career, they were just a bunch of modestly budgeted dramas. She maybe got the best (or highest profile) crop of movies for women composers at the time but that in itself is pretty average when the highest budgeted movies she got in her heyday ($70m-80m) were Beloved, The Legend of Baggar Vance, Mona Lisa Smile, and The Manchurian Candidate...like come on. I'm not sure I can even pinpoint an especially great Hollywood film she worked on, her two Best Picture nominees Cider House Rules and Chocolat were pretty standard Miramax weepies. I'm not saying it's a bad career, she had a perfectly decent run, but it's hardly too much even if we call her overrated. The one thing I'll admit is that those four higher-budget movies were possibly movies that could have gone to Howard Shore, Thomas Newman, and Patrick Doyle based on the director associations, and it really is too bad what happened to their careers because of Portman taking those movies. Oh actually I forgot Hart's War which was a pretty expensive movie, that director's previous movie was Frequency, scored by Michael Kamen, who died right after Rachel Portman took Hart's War. So it's possible that was her fault.

That's the Provence for you, Richard.

This ain't too bad.

Maestro Jerry Goldsmith’s heroic score always gets me.

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Windtalkers (expanded) by James Horner One of the most overlooked gems in Horner's illustrious career, and this score only confirms it. The action music is surprisingly good, with a nice use of snare drums and militaristic brass that a few years later would inform Horner's music for the U.S. military the RDA from Avatar. Also there's some interesting string parts that recalled me of Williams' infamous Ludlow motif used in many scores from that time. But it's the emotional music where Horner shines. It's the reason why late 90s/early 2000s is my favorite Horner era: he was too melodramatic, and I loved it. The main theme gets a little repetitive after a while, but it still packs a punch on the most sad, dramatic parts. Cues like Joe Looks at Birds (all the versions), The Night Before, Invitation to Navajo Country and, of course, the epic finale Calling to the Wind are amazing examples of Horner's melodrama from that time. Bring on more expansions from Horner's 2000s scores?

I don't. None of the above. And concertos don't count, it's about film scoring. John Williams is still being hyped as the composer who writes classic all time film music one after the other, and every piece he releases at this point is heralded as this amazing, irreplacable genius work with thousandfold meaning, when more often than not, and especially lately, he's pulling out repackaged tropes from yesteryear. The Star Wars sequels are the best example, The Last Jedi marks the point where his Star Wars themes became more tropes and member berries than serious compositional elements. I would bet good money it's the exact opposite: sporadic dates of composition and nostalgia make people fawn over Williams pieces that would not get anywhere near the accolades or praise, had they been written about 15 years prior, and the notion "thank god we still got him" is the main driving force behind this. In 2005, Williams wouldn't have gotten away with a Star Wars score like The Last Jedi, or Rise Of Skywalker for that matter. And certainly not with Dial Of Destiny. That score is as clear a sign that Williams should stop scoring such films as anything you'll ever get. And it's THE perfect example for what I'm convinced is the state of overhype for JW: it's a few handful of original material in an environment of self-plagiarism. Even with a short OST, it's still full of outright repurposing of old compositions. And while it's hard to tell how much exactly is temp love, it's not hard to tell why DoD is held in such high esteem: the semi-retirement of Williams, not the actual originality or quality of the score. Williams is overhyped now because he's kept in public memory as the guy who always produces amazing original classics, while he simply isn't doing that anymore for about 10-15 years. Nobody would care about BFG if it was sandwiched by two scores of the quality of Jurassic Park and Schindler's List, just like scores like Sabrina or Born On The 4th Of July aren't mentioned as much or held in as firm a memory because he wrote Last Crusade, Phantom Menace, and the likes shortly before or thereafter. Now bring the hate.

I just noticted that this moment almost sounds like part of a slow version of The Imperial March. The first few notes of the theme could be played there. Screen_Recording_20230924_181704_Samsung Music.mp4

It is nice just to see them hanging together after five M Night Shyamalan movies have gone by now without JNH

He bought a new car

Aren't you a bit short for a protocol droid?

I do! Two teenagers, girl and boy. My boy and I saw Jedi in the theater earlier this year. The three of us watch Ahsoka every week. Star Wars is definitely Dad's movie. Neither of them like the PT, we all like the ST to varying degrees. Everyone LOVES Rebels. As they see more and more of the World and the Lore they appreciate the OT and where it all came from. My son likes to dig into The Stuff of the movies and shows (neither of them are into any of the books or comics) and know the history that makes up the shows he watches now. My daughter engages with it through the Lego Games as much as anything. From their point of view I don't think there is a "first time they saw" for any of the original 6. It's just kind of been in the air since they were babies. But we saw all of the movies in their life time on opening day.

That's such a beautiful shot by the way. I loved seeing all of Douglas Slocombe's beautiful cinematography on the big screen. Also, there was no explanation about the choice of music for the intermission either. I imagined they'd project something along the lines of "Swashbuckler—from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom and the Crystal Skull". But they didn't, I think the screen only read "Intermission".

Right. I believe Marcia also considered keeping the Jabba scene, because she liked (actually, quite rightly) Han's entrance into the shot. Her position as some sort of "saviour" of Star Wars is fallacious, and Marcia herself admits to this. Much the same is true of producer Gary Kurtz.

Well the easiest way is slowing down you project tempo (the bpm) and then return to normal speed once you finished recording the midi in. I also recommend using step input, you can take all the time you need and everything is quantized (which is good if you're working on the grid and not good it you're normally off the grid) Retrospective Record is also very cool, it saved my improvisations a lot of times

The Well-Digger's Daughter [DVD]: Amazon.co.uk: Daniel Auteuil, Kad Merad, Sabine Azéma, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Daniel Auteuil, Daniel Auteuil, Kad Merad: DVD & Blu-ray

You can't get any legal access to these manuscripts. You have to delve into the world of illegal file sharing, which is not something discussed on this message board.

"Screenwriters in the US say they have reached a tentative deal with studio bosses that could see them end a strike that has lasted nearly five months."

It’s because she won all the awards for Joker. The same thing happened to Rachel Portman. She wasn’t the best composer who happened to be a woman, but the industry wanted to show that they appreciate female film composers and she got all the best gigs after winning the Oscar for Emma. I wish the sex of film composers didn’t matter at all, only the quality of the music they produce. I’m so tired of “female film composers”. I just want great scores by Film Composers, regardless of their sex. If a woman composer is as talented as a man, let her prove herself by getting major assignments. If no woman in Hollywood can write on the same level as the men, then studios shouldn’t hire them just to meet diversity quotas, because that only hurts the music. Nothing else should matter when hiring a film composer besides talent. Men or women should be hired only if they are talented, and every director should have the right to choose who they want to work with.

I'll throw another name in there: Hildur Guðnadottir. It's a shame. I really feel that it's important that women get the same opportunities in the composer realm as men do. And Hildur seems like such a lovely person, but her music is really overrated in almost every way. There are so many female composers who do much stronger work and have a better musical voice. Think Laura Karpman, Pinar Toprak, Germaine Franco, Nami Melumad, Amie Doherty. I wish they would get the same praise of Guðnadottir seemingly gets for every score she writes

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In the case of Maestro John Williams it’s kind of… normal, I guess. He’s one of the greatest film composers of all time after all, even his lesser works are better than almost every other film composer’s best work.

It's definitely late March/early April, as I listened to a cassette of a brand new album, on the drive up to London, and the album was released on 24.3.86.

https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/wdr-klassik/john-williams-dirigiert-john-williams/wdr/Y3JpZDovL3dkci5kZS9CZWl0cmFnLXNvcGhvcmEtMjhiN2YxMTMtYzg5My00NmU4LThiOGEtNmRiNjE2ZmY2NWEz

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With the currenty strike, we'll be lucky if we get any movies at all next year You should see Oppenheimer. It's has the typical Nolanisms, but it's still an excellent movie, a gripping adult thriller. The rest you can dismiss.

Within one sentence, you intentionally deligitimize criticism of JW's sliding quality by putting everything up against one of the greatest JW ever wrote, to then accuse the critics of putting the bar too high. Now that's comedy.

Post 2015 for me.

This project got sidelined a bit, and I'm out of home for a couple of weeks, but Ahsoka has made me fall in love again with Kiner's music, and I will probably try to update this breakdown as soon as I can. Thanks for the interest and the patience!

Karol

Hahaha I'm going insane because I can't actually believe we are getting this! Are you bloody kidding me? It's like JNH asked me personally what I'd love to have from him and he just said "sure, no probs."

As with almost everything with Star Wars the answer is Star Wars and then The Empire Strikes Back. Or the other way around. Depends on the day. They're both perfect. But Empire cannot be as perfect as it is without Star Wars. But Star Wars is not as good as Empire. But Empire is only that good because it builds and perfects what came before with Star Wars. Flip. Flip. Flip. Empire was the first film to codify "This is what the template is". I'm sure I've said elsewhere that one of the best Star Wars related experiences for me was waiting in line for Empire when the doors to the cinema opened to let out the previous show. And I heard the end titles for the first time. And I realized "Oh! There's a SYSTEM!" Jedi actually took it a step further, taking it even more back to Star Wars with the pattern of "Star Wars themes, end credits suites, end of Star Wars end titles only with concert ending". Too far, IMHO. Appropriate for Jedi, I suppose. It always bugs me that the concert versions and the various subsequent end credits truncate the Luke's theme portion of the beginning of the credits. Look, play it all or don't play it. Empire sidestepped this by getting out after the Rebel Fanfare and going right into Yoda's theme. Star Wars and Empire are also unique in that they are the only two that don't just regurgitate a bunch of concert suites. Yes, Empire has the Imperial March but Yoda's theme and the Love Theme are unique on the album. Every Star Wars film since has been disappointing in this regard. There have been some wonderful finales. Most of them, really. But the monumental leap that is Empire has never been attempted again, let alone equaled.

That's the Mancini version. Ps, J.T. Walsh always gives (gave ) good performances.

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That's just JJ. He pulled the same crap in Star Trek. See? When you believe the "Star Wars isn't science fiction" BS you open the door for this. Dave's gotta Dave. They're the bad guys. Of course they think the Jedi are flawed. They also think the Empire was a pretty neat idea. The episode: 1) That was a damn sexy Star Destroyer. 2) Having someone say "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...." just made me so happy. Having it be David Tennant to say it was pure icing. 3) Bordizzo is nailing it as Sabine. And Esfandi so far is perfect as Ezra. They even made him look like his dad! Man, this guy lost his parents, saw his mentor killed while saving Ezra, then vanished to another galaxy and has been living with techno rock trolls. But he still seems pretty upbeat. Take THAT JJ / Rian! 4) Thrawn: That voice can carry the whole character.