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The happy news I cryptically alluded to last week is now something I can make official: I just signed a book contract with OUP for 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘬𝘺𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘚𝘺𝘮𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘦𝘴: 𝘔𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘳 𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘴! It's a book it feels like I've been writing in my head for a long, long time -- since middle school, kinda? And unless Williams somehow returns to write another entry in the series, I'm treating it a chance to provide a properly 𝘴𝘺𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘤 investigation into these scores, all nine of them. Even Rise of Skywalker?? 𝘌𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 Rise of Skywalker! My hope is this book does some justice to the complexity, challenge, and sheer magic of this music. Now, back to the grindstone! https://www.facebook.com/Falstaft/posts/pfbid0L6wUjeDDxj6AmhwHh1f9obrVMJfYbPx4GJM8YaEWiZtqxwp37A88monPFVDxBQ26l Congratulations, @Falstaft!

Maybe today I'll even get to listen to it!

The liner notes should be included digitally for every digital release on every platform, why the fuck is that not a common basic given thing

Senseless. Everyone knows you drink goat milk while listening to Heidi.

Reported for name calling

Then you’ll smile, you son of a bitch!

Maybe you’ll get to listen to the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.

Williams_Fan_Theme.mp3 Someone made this mock up years ago. I apologise if I wasn't allowed to post it or something. It's actually a pretty cool theme. That's great! You might live long enough to hear the Expanded Star Wars Prequel scores.

There's a podcast that will be uploading his talk I was told, I will share it in that thread when its released.

Now out digitally for backers https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nightgalleryart/the-jerry-goldsmith-companion/posts/4064554

Or maybe there was disagreement about budget and timing and Shore couldn't agree to that. Writing 8 hours of music is a HUGE undertaking. I think Shore might have demanded much more time and a bigger budget and compensation for his services. TV schedule is too pushing for a composer of Shore's stature. Also think about it - this would have been an impossible gig for Shore. Imagine hiring John Williams to write 8 hours of new Star Wars music and tell him - you can't use a note of anything you wrote previously because we don't have the rights. That's putting him in a straight jacket. Shore would have to constantly watch out for falling into old modes as is bound to happen when you are returning to the same property. I mean 8 hours of new middle earth music from Shore would have been God's gift. but I ain't about to scoff at the score Bear wrote - I think he did a great job still. And we did get a great main title from Shore.

Definition of First World problem: Arguing over the omission or placement, size, etc. of a character in a publicity image.

Honestly i find myself playing it often. I think it is a tremendous piece of writing, very refined and masterful - and that in just 90 seconds.

These are becoming quite the Rorschach test these days. There was a flap over last year's Star Trek Day banners because they didn't include Shatner. The reasons for leaving him out aren't totally out of whack, IMHO. If you're picking one person to represent TOS and you have the choice of Kirk OR Spock then you definitely go with Spock. Shatner's Kirk is a legend. Nimoy's Spock is an icon. IIRC some banners got rid of Shatner, Nimoy, AND Mount, going with Peck for Spock taking the SNW spot and Uhura taking over for TOS. It's not about erasing Shatner's Kirk for being "problematic" but it is about marketing the current shows and "balancing" the demographics. So now we have this poster from Variety. There are 84 representation of various characters. 57 characters total. Well. Shatner (not Kirk, SHATNER) appears FIVE TIMES. Patrick Stewart appears three times (once as Locutus). Leonard Nimoy, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Jonathan Frakes, and Michael Dorn all appear twice. Kate Mulgrew, Jack Quaid, and Tawny Newsome appear in live action and animated. Characterwise, Kirk appears EIGHT times. Spock five. Uhura three. Sulu three. (Every Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, and Uhura are here. But only one Chekov!). Picard has three. Boimler, Data, Janeway, Khan, LaForge, Mariner, McCoy, Riker, Scott, and Worf all appear twice. As for shows, TOS gets 18, 11 from the movies. TNG gets 13, 5 from the movies, with an additional 6 from Picard. JJ-Trek gets 14! . Prodigy gets 7! SNW gets 6. (Unless we count live action Boimler and Mariner as LDS then it gets 4.) Lower Decks gets 5. (Or 7!) DS9 gets 5. Discovery might have Burnham and Oscar Winning Actress and Future Star of Section 31 Michelle Yeoh big and prominent but the show only gets 3 characters. (Booker over Saru? Are they insane?) And Voyager and Enterprise each get 3. Of the cast from the opening credits of each show we are missing: TOS Chekov(!), Beverly Crusher (but we got Jack for some reason), and Deanna Troi from TNG. Dax (either one), Bashir, and Jake Sisko from DS9. Chakotay, Torres, Paris, Kes, Neelix, The Doctor, and Kim from VOY. T'Pol, Phlox, Sato, and Tucker from ENT. Saru, Tyler, Stamets, Tilly, Lorca, and Culber from Disco. Chapel, La'an, Ortegas, M'Benga, and Hemmer from SNW. (They have the tertiary race of servants from Star Trek: Insurrection, but not Saru or Phlox?) You know, I still haven't read the article.

I actually prefer Peck to Quinto, the latter of whom played Spock like a thinly veiled psychotic who always seemed seconds away from a murderous rampage. It was like the producers handed him some Star Trek episodes to prepare for the role, he watched Amok Time and said “I’ll go with this”.

(emphasis mine) That's indeed one thing that struck me as extremely done already in the first film, because it seemed so natural and powerful without being an intrusive effect.

Well that and the restraining order he has against us.

RIP Calvin Bouchard...

Hi, im new to the Forum. Been a Big Williams Fan for several years now.(I am only 21) I have been reading the Forum for a while now every once in a while. And sometimes i get the urge to chime in, so i created an account. Here is a Handwritten Letter/Theme i stumbled upon by Williams and i was Wondering wether anyone new anything about this. I couldnt find anything on this Forum about it.

I found this interesting video which I'm just about able to understand, musically. I'm still in the camp that finds his piece a bit simple in comparison to most stuff he did in LotR, though, and if many people reacted how I did (i.e. a little bit 'meh'), does that not indicate that Shore composed a main title that drives other composers and scholars crazy, but doesn't make much impression on Joe Public? Sure, he absofuckinglutely did that with LotR (it's quite literally the reason I'm writing this now) but that doesn't mean he did the same here.

Will Frank have to pay the reuse fees to the AFM?

WOW! If you love 80s Horner, you'll want to hear this! And it's for a short film!

I’m more bothered by that 80s denim jacket Picard is sporting. He just needs to load it up with AC/DC buttons and Def Leppard pins.

I had kind of a John Williams dream last night... In my dream, I saw a friend of mine riding a segway that somehow looked like a TIE Fighter. So I came to him and said something like "you remind me of a movie!", to which he replied "which movie?". Then, I started singing the main melody from "Here They Come" from A New Hope. However, my friend didn't get it and just looked at me like "WTF?". Sigh... Not even in dreams people around me recognize Star Wars cues

Shatner's Kirk is probably one of the most unfairly maligned characters in pop culture history, and subject to some seriously distorted historical revisionism. He's hardly the sexist, "shoot first ask questions" later misogynistic dinosaur he's made out to be. Those traits, while there to a certain extent, have been vastly blown out of proportion. Kirk is actually an incredibly thoughtful leader who almost always sought out a diplomatic solution first. Your point about how well Kirk's ageing was handled is something I hadn't considered before, and it's a very good one. Well, that's true enough. And clearly they're trying to update the characters for "modern audiences". But when you're creating what's essentially an entirely new character and simply slapping the old name and rank on them, why not just create new characters altogether? For a show about the future, NuTrek does a lot of looking back. No, I'm pretty sure it's about erasing Shatner. You simply cannot rationalize minimizing James T. f*cking Kirk in Star Trek. Especially given that every other significant Trek captain is featured in that poster. I mean…you can have Archer and not Kirk? Do newer Trek fans even know who Archer is? Give me a break. Your point about Spock being iconic is well taken, but Kirk’s an icon as well, so why not have both? There are two TNG characters after all. How is Geordi more iconic than Kirk? They don’t like Shatner. He’s said so himself. And if the purpose of the poster is to “balance the demographics” rather than featuring Star Trek’s iconic characters and history…well then, you’ve summed up NuTreks priorities, and problems, nicely.

I wouldn't care if all traces of NTTD were erased from existence.

I'm new to it, too, but I believe you aren't charged unless the project is successful. I haven't been charged yet.

Totally agreed. Classical labels almost always provide excellent PDF versions of the liner notes for their releases. It seems surprising that film music releases do not. I mean, the printed notes and artwork will be put together in a computer programme and I doubt it would take much work to convert that into a PDF.

I recommend all mentioned in my post at the top of this thread. And like @JNHFan2000 mentioned, Angel, Nouvelle Guerre des Boutons & Un Homme Et Son Chien are beautiful, too.

It would be really nice to call attention to the preservation efforts and bring some awareness to the “normies”. And of course, Matessino would reciprocate and graciously acknowledge the importance of such work. More general awareness would be a benefit to the projects yet to be futureproofed.

I honestly love this release. I am glad they were finally able to get the session tapes that had all of "Ultimate War" untouched including the versions of "To War" and "Crossed Swords" with their film inserts in the main score. This set is definitely worth the double dipping as it pretty much makes the other one obsolete.

I just wish we'd get complete score releases for the Prequels already. Disney must know by now that there's pretty much a huge demand for them.

It was Herb Spencer. With that said, JW's sketches are extremely detailed and as Conrad Pope says, an orchestrator for JW's film is a glorified editor. He's specific about the instrumentation, rhythms, voicings, ornaments, doublings, solos, etc., all in the sketch.

Glad to report that Heidi and Jane made it home safe. Although they did pick up some sketchy company along the way.

People look for too much stuff to complain about these days.

Williams has written themes for better fan clubs than ours here. But they're all dead.

"How about you, Jimmie? You an oak man?"

Doesn’t this Sky Pirates (1986) Blu Ray set look awesome? Well, it is. I own it. Unfortunately the movie itself is a real stinker. The Bad: The script is really boring, cluttered and confusing. The pacing is blah. It really could’ve used more tongue in cheek humor like the superior Indy rip-off, King Solomon’s Mines. The Good: The aerial stunt work is quite effective. Many of the airplane scenes look better than anything we’d see 3 years later in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In fact, I’m not certain if any models were used at all. Composer Brian May delivers the goods with a cracking fun jaunty score. It’s a shame this Ozploitation Indy Rip-Off didn’t lean more into the fun, because it doesn’t look cheap, the costume designer did well, and the marketing department gave it their best. The deluxe Blu Ray comes with a really cool booklet on “Indiana Clones”, a guide to Raiders rip-offs. I’ve not seen either of those. Project Wolf Hunting looks like a decent modern violence fest.

@Thor no doubt you must have some appreciation for Argento’s Inferno score by Keith Emerson.

Depends. I like some of it, when there's a solid auteur behind the camera. Like Argento. But it isn't usually something I'm attracted to. Music-wise, however, they can often spawn some absolutely brilliant scores. Like Donaggio's ALL LADIES DO IT (aka COSI FAN TUTTE), which is featured on your photo spread.

Frankly, at least on the OST, I prefer the Shore track to anything else by a good margin. But I do think that this is career-best stuff from McCreary.

Just finished listening to the whole series and agree with the above! Thanks a lot, Thor. #1 favorite discovery was the "Moment of Decision" prologue, you hyped it up in your intro and it didn't disappoint. I'm definitely converted to the cause of an Alcoa Premiere box set. Love that Tammy Grimes theme too, and I wish I could see Inside the Movie Kingdom! I'm actually not sure I'd ever gotten around to "Scherzo for Today" from the NBC News pieces either? Or it's been awhile but that's a fun one. This was also a reminder for me that I gotta finally watch those Amazing Stories episodes....I guess part of me has always liked knowing there were still two more Spielberg/Williams collabs just sitting out there. One non-Williams piece of trivia I wanna nitpick was about the Heidi Game. You said that it went into "overtime" which implies the game was tied and Heidi interrupted who won (which still probably would have made US football fans really mad) but it was even funnier than that. The game was standard but just ran a little long into Heidi's premiere, and since it appeared the Oakland Raiders were going to lose, anyway, it might not have caused such a ruckus...except in those final 61 seconds on the clock that Heidi covered up, the Raiders unpredictably scored two touchdowns and won. You probably already know this but that's what made it extra crazy. Anyway, late to the party but superb. As a JWFan for so many years it was kind of touching in a way to finally listen to you with all this runway on a subject you've always been frustrated isn't one of the bedrocks of this forum really appreciate you collecting all of this and sharing. I'm sure I will be listening again, especially to help enhance my reading of the big JW biography next year. I'm glad I was able to listen on Google Podcasts in its dying days....it's the only app that had Celluloid Tunes, I guess because it works differently than other podcast catchers. I will miss it! But it made it slightly more convenient to download the show and save for the future

ARK: The Animated Series was just released, and the first volume of the soundtarck containing, I think, all music from the first 6 episodes is here! Apparently, the composer was allowed to rework several sections from the game, as well as his memorable main theme, alongside at least 7 new identities for different characters. I haven't listened to the whole thing yet, but I'm planning on watching the show and listening to the soundtrack as soon as I can! What I've heard so far sounds awesome and I particularly love Helena's theme. I think anyone who's a fan of the composer will enjoy this. They also posted a small behind the scenes video where the composer talks about the scoring process:

Indiegogo (for example) works differently, but with Kickstarter there’s nothing to refund in that case because they only charge (at the end) IF the funding threshold is met. Yavar

I gave the highlights album another listen this week and really enjoyed it. It's too long to sit and listen to in one sitting so I listened to it in smaller chunks although was still quite surprised how quickly the time seemed fly by. However I was reminded just how great some of the other themes were. I'm not disputing that the individual episode scores are great, but getting familiar with that much music so you then can decide which one to listen to is more challenging that's all. It might help if I watched these shows, although I have to admit that I can still only remember the main theme from Da Vinci's Demons which I'm watching at the moment. The Rings of Power themes are generally a considerable step up. Human Target is great fun for sure. I know he cares about writing decent thematic material for the shows and movies he scores, and I have almost all of theme, but I'm not going round humming his stuff like I am Jerry or JW or John Williams... Unfortunately the other videos aren't available for me.

https://www.worldsoundtrackawards.com/news/film-fest-gent-welcomes-philippe-rombi-as-guest-of-honour-at-the-24th-world-soundtrack-awards

Dr. McCoy, would you be so good as to tell me? What is your current medical status? Well, aside from a touch of arthritis, I'd say pretty good. (scattered laughter from audience) You have a singular wit, Doctor.

Copyist

It must be Mod - short for moderato, an indication of the tempo. Either that or Moo - to play the music as if you were a cow.