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Both inessential cues that meander too much before making a real musical point and are too short to afford so much meandering. I will also say, categorically, that there's a real arbitrariness to it (long sections of vaguely pleasant children's chorus, long stretches of uniform awe and/or menace stuff that could belong to any Marvel film) a diffuse non-commitment to clear narrative statements that is very typical of current blockbuster scoring. Howard is an old pro who knows his way around some restrictions, but there's very little to recommend it, really.

You have to be a purist on some matters. Let them complain! PS: compiled this playlist on the go. It runs a bit over 60 and tries to weed out the most insubstantial stuff. There's still more you'd need to do, but for the moment that will do for me.

Like i wrote in that other thread, it's another one of these baffling 'more is less' releases. 110 minutes of material that needs editorializing like a plant needs light. It's not enough to just whittle out tracks, you would need to edit tracks themselves. This is a good 45-50 minutes score.

Which sounds like its same-year counterpart 'The Fury' thin-ish and not at all apocalyptic. I don't know if both were recorded at Fox, but this problem lasted until the early 1980s (think of 'Masada'). Strangely enough, pristine recordings like TMP or Jaws 2 were possible, but they certainly were no industry standard.

I will repeat myself here like James Horner on a particular manic day of self-referencing, but it must be said: the release of 110-minute (or even more) albums kills what would have been fair to good 50 minute releases. James Newton Howard struggles on with the Beasts franchise and the third one isn't any better or worse than part II. Don't expect anything on the scale of King Kong, but it's also no Pawn Sacrifice or Michael Clayton. Perfectly middling stuff. It's even eerily similar: full of fleeting moments that never coalesce into musically satisfying cues - the start/stop problem i talked about earlier in Williams' RoS score, which means basically many empty gestures of the big orchestra that fizzle out into nothing, because they are just there to accentuate the usual blockbuster methodology of bluntly demanding attention whenever a character suddenly turns around etc. - it isn't a crushing disappointment but still a chore to sit through. With all the required editing work laid at my feet, i should get at least a voucher for a free flac download for things like this. Because, you know, that's what you need when you start extensive audio editing.

James Horner's nod to Bernstein's childhood classic 'To Kill a Mockingbird' (it riffs on a similar tune, with extensive piano, violin and woodwind solos). For budget reasons much of the orchestra was synthesized, which could theoretically give it an interesting edge, sadly most of it sounds like strings and plucked harps played on crummy synths. Still, as a direct relative to the many children scores Horner did so effortlessly it's a nice addition to the canon.

For reasons of originality i chose the 10-minute opening sequence of 'The Long Goodbye', with Williams' theme undergoing several groovy mutations whenever Elliot Gould switches location.

It certainly is enough for franchise fans with few musical credentials. But it should raise eyebrows that a sizeable number of guys here who profess to know and admire Williams' composing abilities consider *this* stuff high quality.

Colourful orchestral adventure score (the kind which is scientifically impossible these days, as we are told in another thread). Gordon shoots his load in the Riddles overture, which is a compact suite of all the good stuff distributed more fleetingly throughout the 45 remaining minutes. In a recent podcast, Gordon offers fascinating insights how he taught himself composing, which makes his imposing brass writing all the more remarkable.

Yeah well, cues that he conceived obviously without having seen the film. As i was pointing out, my beef is not that the themes are weak or the scores, but that the nature of the writing tends to be fragmented and heavily wedded to picture. I can't remember a Spielberg picture with so many dead spots that could be easily edited out without complaint. So it's probably a matter of modern editing and filmmaking in general.

The Rise of Skywalker concert cue certainly doesn't sound weighty, either (also like something out of the Potter trilogy).

What i mean is exactly that: MUSIC with a capital M, that's written and conceived as real music, not just a wallpapery thing that wafts away in the background at the mercy of a hundred sound effects. I'm aware of all what you're talking about, but it sounds too apologetic to me, like an industry professional trying to sell me something that is of no particular use for a music fan. Sounds like back in the 90's and early 2000's, when Ford Thaxton found an excuse for nearly everything with a non-sequitur like 'this will bring in the big monies, just accept it'. But why should i? Again, i don't really see what you are advocating here: that you are a big fan of sound gadgets and expensive gear? My argument is and always have been that i listen to something released separately from the movie, so i'm rating its musical qualities. That's all there is to it. I can talk about all this stuff, and it is known and debated for years, but do i gain better music from it?

That concert piece is eternally underrated by most fans. It's the most musically complicated - how JW weds and builds the disparate ideas into one piece moving towards a big resolution: that's great 'musical' writing, not the tons of murky underscore.

I'm not suggesting that Williams' abilities have declined, certainly not. But it's a pipe dream to think there's a cohesive masterpiece buried in the Disney vaults. There's an incredible amount of film-dependent writing here, i guess when you load the cues in Audition you will see many start/stop sections, slow build up's without resolution, sudden jolts to accentuate a character turning around etc. that don't necessarily have a musical reason and certainly do not sound very musical. And the whole thing moves like that, apart from a few through-composed pieces.

Even The Rise of Skywalker itself wasn't that great, so lowered expectations all around.

You cite several things that are neither (that) new, nor really an explanation for the loss of significance of music composed for films. Yes, digital has completely changed the technical/production side of things, but that's not really what drives these developments. The term 'content' is now routinely used for all kinds of media, and it describes a downgrade of sorts in the sense that we have become used to everything kinda looking and sounding the same. Of course there still would be countless films that would profit from 'traditional' scores (doesn't mean they must all sound like 'War Horse'). That they aren't written or even requested is mostly due to a generational change (the 'Stranger Things' phenomenon, whole lines of product are just based on slavishly recreated deja vú's - or the director's Spotify playlist) and the simple fact that the industry doesn't push for excellence beyond purely technical categories - certainly not for the musical artform. That there are occasional beacons of light (last years sadly not much beyond Greenwood, Gordon and yeah, Dune) gives me hope that the state of things will eventually change. Until this happens i refuse to call bland pap and ACME-style uniformity an acceptable state of things.

It's noncommittal, bland pop - no match for Matchstick Man - but it had a marimba cue i liked (had the boot once).

With one of Powell's most charming main titles.

Or in video games, where Austin Wintory has pretty consistently done much more sophisticated work than film composers usually do (read: are allowed to do). I. e. Pathless, Journey, Abzu. Hollywood also doesn't consider composers artists these days (lip service excluded). They are, as James Horner ruefully observed when he was still alive, just another technical category.

Star Treks! Give me those Star Treks! Nothing but Star Treks - Don't let them end.

It's an accumulation of Dont's.

It doesn't, but leagues better than the pinched Varése, which has an impossible stereo field with hardly a separation between the instrumental groups.

I tend to prefer the more playful things, like the aforementioned and 'Furies in Love' from the third one. Tends to bring out a more behaved compositional side of Powell.

IMHO that's not enough when you put it in a The Definitive John Williams Plagiarism/Homage Thread.

Had this saved this for a re-listen to decide if it was worth to investigate the Varése deluxe. Meh. Don't know if it's a generational gap thing but i remain dubious about its appeal. Except for a handful of quieter cues and the occasional highlight ('Flying with Mother') it ends up sounding like a big frenetic blob of sound to me. Maybe it has to do with the striping technique used for recording it. After experiencing the same problems with part III, i will return mainly to part I whenever i feel the dragon itch.