Richard Penna

The ostinatos remind me heavily of Silvestri's Avengers theme. The melody hasn't stuck in my head at all unfortunately.

I just sampled Poor Things. It must work unbelievably well in the film. It's one of the most bizarre things I've ever heard on an album, ranging from completely inoffensive guitar ramblings to... fuck knows what. Not for me. A quick listen to Flower Moon and I get a sense of where we're going here. It's just the contenders for best picture being given a music nod, plus Williams' yearly token. Oppenheimer first impressions... this one's actually a score but doesn't immediately leap out at me as overly interesting, really. Sort of comes across as some documentary library music. So against my better judgements, DoD may indeed be the most musically effective and enjoyable of this lot, but I think that's 100% a reflection on the rest of the nominations being so unmusical, and not that JW should win.

I'm with you for Hook and Jurassic Park. I think they were vastly overshadowed in their respective years by more serious scores. It's unfortunate in my view that a film dealing with subject matter like SL automatically gets more serious attention to its music than a fun adventure score, despite both having equal craft and quality. I also strikes me odd that others are considering a general lack of nominations as a snub. Most actors and directors work for decades in serious roles/films to earn a nomination, and maybe, just maybe, a win. Willliams has had that honour five times, and as he retires and produces fewer truly original ideas, perhaps that honour should be recognising more contemporary artists who are reaching the top of their game? I'd argue for example that Powell's animation work in general shows the sort of skill and cinematic quality that should get him the sort of attention from composing circles as Williams did in his earlier days.

Production-wise looks good. Music is a little bit meh - it's nicely orchestral and patriotic but somehow isn't exciting me at all - by the end the plane sounds overwhelm it and it doesn't have the feel of a noble, majestic takeoff. Maybe it didn't even need music.

Because I got confused after looking at the chapter list for #2 and saw Where No One Goes, which of course has Powell elements. I've had a mentally busy day today

He wouldn't, and in my mind that signals something a bit wrong with the process. The oscars don't recognise scores from popcorn action movies that much. LotR had the combination of a great score and films that are critically and popularly acclaimed. Most other franchises or adventure/fantasy scores that come to mind are either for more serious films or are by Williams. It didn't mean they were all great scores - it just meant that it's fashionable to give him a nod because of the great work he's done before. A world where McCreary doesn't get nominated for RoP but Williams does for Indy 5, is a world where it's not the work you did that year, it's who you are. Put another way - if you give Williams an oscar for DoD, you then immediately hand Powell three oscars for the HTTYD trilogy

#2 tracklist is the same as the chapter list, except for the demos, and what's there is mostly the same as the promo for #3 so I think we do have our tracklist. Cues above that don't clearly match a track in the FYC are: - Busy Busy Berk Pt. 2 (?) - Setting up Camp - Valka's warning - New Berk Feast - New Island - Grimmel’s Surprise Although there's also the suite which the promo doesn't have, so if there are again about 20 mins of demos then that makes around 13-14 mins of additional music in those 5/6 tracks. Surprisingly it would appear there are no alternates either, and... no stupid Jonsi song?

Why? The book is for the existing trilogy. We don't even know if Powell will keep the same thematic/orchestrational base for the new film.

I wouldn't object to watching 65 based on the score which I rather liked. Freudian slip, or have you decided one of the recent movies was so bad it doesn't exist?

I think the negativity is people being (a) honest, and (b) much more objective than JWFanners are. Looking back, I personally think the idea of Fabelmans or DoD being considered the best score of the year is ludicrous, whereas him not receiving recognition for anything post 1993 is also ludicrous (for example, I think in 2001 he was unfortunate to be up against Shore). There's a balance that's being observed by most people, but not by people who think Williams is still at the top of his game... which in my humble view, he isn't, and I heavily suspect voters are about to demonstrate that. He should have a lifetime achievement award in the bag for sure... but suggesting every year for the last decade that whatever he does is still automatically better than anyone else because he's Williams? Isn't that pretty much what a fanboy does?

That's all it is now... yeah John, you wrote another score. But your movie was (apparently) shit, and some 'real' films also came out with more trendy scores, sorry buddy.

And he's nominated. Oppenheimer or Flower Moon will win, but let the perpetual hoping begin for those who, for some reason, care....

Man, anyone who thinks Williams has a hope of winning based on this reception of the movie... you have an optimism I do not possess 2 1/2 hours to go till Hollywood goes nuts.

I respect a filmmaker who manages to finish their film with minimal or no tracking but I think it represents a far too rosy-tinted view of the process. Probably also a symptom of over-editing at the last minute and just generally fiddling around when it doesn't need it. This score sounds like an extreme example though, with entire sequences created from tracked or re-recorded (so effectively tracked) music.

That's interesting because I skimmed a bit of the Barbie score and honestly couldn't really compute why there was so much demand for it. Just seemed like some inoffensive noodling and a few song references. I was primarily hoping for any sort of expansion of Dance the Night and that didn't really materialise how I wanted. I think that overall, quite a few scores that most others liked this year, I didn't find very special. The Creator sounded promising (espcially as I'd recently discovered and really enjoyed Dune) but somehow it didn't sparkle. DoD we've been through - I think what made the album is 3 to 4 star stuff, but the score as a whole has far, far too much recycled material to come together properly as a major achievement. Migration is the lone score that comes to mind as something not necessarily that original, but certainly memorable and full of ideas. Hunger Games some interesting parts too. But on the other side I discovered a ton of stuff last year - Shore's Two Concerti, Howard Goodall's marvellous two Bean scores, Soule's Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, plus two non-soundtrack artists that it turns out I rather like (Elle Duhey, Olivia Rodrigo). Some years it's the things you find elsewhere in the musical sphere, and not necessarily new scores.

I'd like to keep this quote for the next monopoly round if I may But in all seriousness, I think I came across some sort of boot many years ago and didn't really hear anything very notable apart from more thematic variations. There are plenty of scores where having the entire thing opens up the score but others where the overall structure is mostly variations on the same material (maybe because songs take focus) and I suspect this may be one of those cases. I've got the theme piece from the 'Greatest Hits' album and it's a lovely piece.

In my world, doesn't really matter. It would be a 7th score no one was expecting.

Eight minutes sounds pretty reasonable for a movie as complicated as this? Seems worse perhaps because it's all over the place though.

One positive: we get another Jurassic score.

I went on a hunt today for the one single moment of the classic run that I remember as a kid, from 1989. It's an image of Ace being trapped behind some glass and nearly drowning which no doubt scared the shit out of me as a 4-year old. It's from 'Battlefield' but I have no memory of anything else from that era nor even the full context of the scene. The other one I've seen was a special from the mid 90s produced in 3D.

Is that the most innovative way yet of saying it's held up by legal crap?

I was more referring to scores where the default option would be an image featuring the actor and hence an extra approval and complexity is added to the release. In those cases, I suspect fans would rather a product that featured something else but came out a year earlier. -- When Gibson's credit on LLL's cover is bigger and more prominent than the composer's name, there's definitely an ego issue. It's not even describing the product like it is for a DVD. Mel Gibson as an actor has nothing to do with the score. (argument perhaps to be made that he's the director too, but they don't usually go on album covers either)

Honestly when I read the thread title I was expecting something a bit more concrete than that. There are probably plenty of Williams scores in some stage or other of development. If Hook took the best part of a decade, who knows what issues there may be with Bo4J or The Patriot or Nixon that result in an expansion taking time. And yeah, the dreaded actor approval. Who here would accept a cover that didn't feature Cruise or any prominent movie artwork if it meant whomever didn't have to wait for 2 years for Cruise to sign a bit of paper? I seem to remember Wyatt Earp having delays because Costner was constantly away filming.

It's on a bunch of somewhat more reliable sites now (not BBC) although whether she's been fired is more likely the clickbait as well as Gatwa 'breaking his silence'. Tbh, him doing only one season would be far more newsworthy than this.