Henry B

That's like saying you've listened to two or three American game composers and therefore know what Western music sounds like: as if Igbo drum music, Renaissance madrigals, Johnny Cash and the score to "Call of Duty 4" are all fundamentally the same, but music from Thailand is something else entirely. I've had it with this East/West stereotype.

Why not scores by Eastern composers?

If someone dies, he won;t post on Facebook either. I wonder if someone in a virtual community will be missed as much as in real life...I dont; think so. Unless such a person had virtually no Facebook friends, the news would be obvious from the many comments and memorials left on the person's page.

I remember reading that Williams still gets offers from major commercial directors, but since 2005 has turned them all down. I mean, just ten years ago he was working for Roland Emmerich of all people. I guess a lot changes in ten years, but I'm not sure he's as irrelevant as you claim. Not that I expect him to score the film, of course, but an offer doesn't seem so outlandish.

I think Wind Waker has aged a lot better than Twilight Princess or the N64 games. Its stylized graphics are tailored to the GameCube's limitations. But I won't say no to this pretty looking remake.

Half in the Bag has a nice mix of frank discussion and funny theatrics. I love the facial acting in videos like and . You can't get that with the Plinkett reviews. Not saying that one is better, just that I like that Red Letter Media hasn't let itself become a Plinkett review factory.

So am I correct that "Sammath Naur" was scored to a very different cut of the film? It's pretty fascinating... would love to see how it worked.

Oh, wow, I don't remember all these alternates. As a rule of thumb, I tend to prefer the pieces from the Rarities Archive as pieces of pure music - i.e. "Flight to the Ford" and "Sammath Naur." But I see how the film versions were more cinematically effective. Also, I love the CR/OST version of "The Argonath," even though the original version with the Gondor theme was a fine piece.

So, guess who's working on Star Wars now. Let the raging begin.

I agree. I didn't dislike the family theme, nor the uses of JW's JP themes, but I agree Davis did a wonderful job on JP3. Even with a rushed schedule, he was up to par. Too bad he's pretty much out of a job now. It looks like he's taken a break from film scoring to work on concert and opera music. He's also still active as a conductor.

That's because the richness of the world can now be conveyed by the game itself, BB.

Well... I think the early Zelda games reflected 70s and 80s fantasy movies (both live action and animated), and certainly novels like Lord of the Rings. It's hard to see in the games because of the primitive graphics, but it really comes across in the instruction manuals and box art. The N64 games brought more Japanese elements to the games and minimized the Western fantasy tropes: consider that within minutes of beginning Ocarina of Time you see names like Kokiri and Deku. Twilight Princess is basically just a return to the Western fantasy tropes, only with a couple decades' worth of evolution.

I just started listening too. Pretty fabulous stuff. It's by no means a faithful recreation of the Twilight Princess soundtrack and it doesn't try to be. If I had to point to weak spots, it would be the Overture and Intermezzo. They're just a little too schmaltzy and showtune-like for Zelda. Anyway, wonderful job to the live choir, instrumentalists and of course Mr. Papeghin on horn!

Mañuel, it's because you use unrelated discussions to try to get back at the prequel haters, i.e. your obsession with comparing ILM and WETA. You drag Star Wars and George Lucas into arguments that don't involve them, and you seem to need to stand up for Lucas whenever possible (except regarding the editing of the prequel scores). And, well, it's nice, but Lucas is one of the richest people in the world, and I think he can take care of himself. I've never seen such devotion to a creator in any other pop phenomenon. But don't worry, I know you're not one of the truly crazy, religious Lucas fanatics. And I don't think most of us are as bothered as stuff like this as Quint is.

There were plenty of impressive releases this year, even if the Disney partnership wasn't as exciting as we'd hoped - not yet, anyway. Conan and North by Northwest, for instance? I'm no connoisseur, and I bet tons of these releases resonated with people. Didn't have the time or inclination to check every one of them out.

I really liked that "instrumental noise." Bizarrely out of place in a score like this, but not bad music.

I noticed a few silent film scores that were played entirely by organ (another underutilized instrument). I forgot the name(s), though. Yes, please, let's have some more organ. I think the reputation of this instrument has been decimated just by the cliché of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor in horror films. It's seriously an amazing instrument, though. The original synthesizer.

For what it's worth, this Nazgul resurrection business actually qualifies the title of Necromancer. Neither The Hobbit nor the LOTR appendices, unless I missed something, offer any description of what Sauron did as the Necromancer, if anything. It seems that he was just hiding in Dol Goldur until discovered by the White Council.

This. I just couldn't get the classic 24FPS feeling of LOTR out of my head. I actually found myself thinking over and over "I wish this shot were choppier. Damn this smoothness!" I had no idea how important framerate was to the cinematic experience until now. The wave of the future? Yes, totally. It looks amazing. But it's too much a departure for a sequel to a beloved trilogy. I'm seeing the film in 24FPS 2D* tomorrow, and I can't wait. * Not that I have a problem with the 3D... it was very well done. But I want the fully traditional experience.

Jay...

Yep.

The worst of the episodes? I don't know, man, I can't take stuff like Spielberg Games. Awkward writing, mechanical line delivery, no emotion. It's like James made a mad libs script for the past two years of AVGN and just filled it in with animal names and synonyms for poop. I think he must have been creatively exhausted from making so many of these episodes, so putting the show on semi-hiatus was certainly the right call. Another thing that bothers me is that he's actually gone back and edited old videos to include more information on the games; i.e. "people have e-mailed me that it's actually possible to do such and such by going to the... [whatever]." It was hilarious to see how upset he got at certain game issues, like the apparently impossible Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Correcting them makes for a more accurate review, but not a more entertaining one. And then there were a couple episodes where he redid old reviews to explore more game content and give fairer reviews... Eh, things were fine the way they were. The movie looks good though!

Thor used to be adamant that his vision was the only correct one and condescendingly declared that people who liked C&C were only interested in recalling scenes from the movie and couldn't possibly appreciate the music on its own terms (even when it came to unused and alternate cues?). But these days he's been saying that album is just his preference over C&C, which I think is fine. I often agree. It is also true that the album often does indeed represent the composer's wishes for listeners, whether you choose to follow them or not. He also used to hate the business of the specialty labels and moan when a complete score was released, which seemed a little rude to the people who make their living at it. Again, though, no longer an issue.

Yep.

I love Sondheim, but that film version of A Funny Thing doesn't look very faithful to the original score. I'll check out the samples, though.