Richard Penna

Indeed. Some of the opinions in this thread are just bizarre. I echo someone's earlier comment to the tune of 'just you try doing that'.

FINALLY!!!! Why does absolutely stunning new like this have to happen when I'm at work.... grrr. If this set does indeed deliver, I'm 100% certainly buying Last Crusade at least, although if it's only expanded, there'd better not be much missing. I love the boot for what it is, but the sound quality is simply unforgivable. Looking at the boot, it's 1 hour, 38 mins, which means a fully packed single CD would sacrifice 18 minutes of that which frankly is a lot. It'd better be 2 CDs. To be honest with KotCS, I'd only be really fussed about the complete Jungle Chase cue. I didn't notice anything else while watching the film that leapt out to me.

I wouldn't throw cold water on Powell's quality. He's got a style that I've never seen another composer try to emulate, and I really respect that he only uses synths when they're appropriate, and not to pad the score or appeal to youth. Anyway, how do you regard status these days? Quantity of scores per year? Average paycheck? Quality is hardly a reliable indicator, as it's pretty plain from this forum that 50% can hate a score while the other 50% worship it. Someone I'd consider upcoming is Ilan Eshkeri, the guy who wrote Stardust, to name one.

I'm afraid I didn't get that. I think it was in the middle somewhere and I needed to conserve power/tape for the inevitable finale/encore. And I got a second battery through the post 2 days later. Timing sucks sometimes.

I've finally got the highlights from this up on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fecmjtOp7iQ - 2001, Star Trek TMP, Imperial March http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTs8XnY5LjU - Leia's Theme http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yATQT6qibOk - a cue from Aliens, I think it's Ripley's Rescue http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik7L3msn05w - Adventures on Earth (that's me 'wooow'-ing in the background once I realised what it was) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pPfXqMirfI - end of previous cue, Alien, Star Wars This was a great audience for both reactions and respecting when the orchestra was actually playing unlike at Hollywood Bowl! Other notables were Ce3K and Superman, but my battery and tape were both going by this point.

Ah yeah, sorry, getting mixed up there - thought he was just referring to internal ones. Last part of that sentence is still true I believe. I would judge that there's probably also a limit to how big an external drive can get before it can't run on bus power alone.

I think he's got more than enough talent to equal any of those. So many crazy opinions in this thread I don't know where to start. I think Indy 4 probably will get a nomination, but it doesn't serve it. On a technical level it's classic Williams, but it just doesn't affect me on an emotional level, and that's what I believe should be awarded.

I personally can't stand that cheesy sort of sound. No, I can't either. I only got the score for the main theme and it's got about 3 listens. I generally don't like syrupy, happy/slapstick comedy scores like that. JNH's Dave falls into the same category.

Wise words. I'm thinking of applying a cull to this score as I do to make albums easier to listen to. Quite a few tracks just aren't interesting enough to me.

As far as I know, 2.5" drives are just for laptops - you don't get them connecting via USB (unless you get a USB enclosure), and they don't come close to 1TB yet. External 1TB desktop USB drives are around though, about £100. Bear in mind that I paid £70 for an internal 80GB drive probably about 3 years back so that's a damn good price already.

Indeed. First impressions for me are made very quickly, and after one listen of KotCS I was thinking 'is that it?'. Problem is, of all the scores that have given me that 'wow' feeling in the last number of years, far more have been from other composers, although the fact that John's output is almost nothing nowadays doesn't help that.

My rating of 'mediocre' John Williams is that another respected composer could have done at least as a good a score, if not a bit better, depending on the material. We are of course talking about Indy here though, which is Williams' baby, but it doesn't stop my feeling that this score could have been miles better.

John Debney, for the rest of Mummy 3. I like what Edelman did, but dammit man, get rid of those stupid synths and hire a decent mixer, it isn't the 90s any more.

It's nice that it's doing well, but it wasn't so spectacularly good that I'd be writing home about it, and IMDB must be full of fanboys.

I agree with Alan - I would think most judgements we make come from an emotional level, and while I personally do look at how a piece is constructed, I really don't care in the end if the piece does what it should do. There are many Williams scores I've barely touched in a long time, mostly because I haven't seen the films (I don't get round to watching films much these days; I find it hard to invest 2 hours in something that I know I need to pay full attention to, which is different to watching TV), and yet there are other scores from movies I know well that I can listen to again and again. The technical and artistic merits may be very different, but it's the emotional attachment and association that makes you keep going back to those pieces. Generally if I'm impressed by a score without seeing the film and can even notice some thematic development, then I consider it good on an artistic level. The last score that happened to recently was Hancock, which disappointingly isn't treated so well in the film.

Yeah my brother got a 1TB 3.5" drive for about £90 a month ago. When I buy a new desktop (maybe next year, this laptop isn't annoying me enough yet) I anticipate several TBs

Lucas is looking more like Chewie every day. Just look at him... mocking us

Replacing a hard drive is just about the easiest thing you can do to a laptop. Mine came new with an 80GB drive and I bought a 250GB one and was able to move all my music onto it. I haven't seen any bigger than 320GB, so there might be a limit at the moment, but depending on what you have at the moment it could be worth it. I've also got an external 160GB drive that I keep an exact duplicate of the music section of my internal drive, given that most of my collection is digital only. Plus a third drive which has an image of my Windows configuration, and a third copy of most of my music. I take no chances when it comes to music

It's a George Lucas production. Of course it won't.

I generally only don't like Powell in one of two modes: kiddie fare, or really, really modern stuff such as Mr & Mrs Smith or Paycheck. It's the sense of rhythm that I like from him, and that when he does make the effort to make a 'main theme', I Know that I'll never get it out of my head. I'm head over heels in love with Hancock though, I think it's one of the best current examples of 5 things going on at once without it becoming a wall of sound. The penultimate track builds up into a tour-de-force for strings, and when we get onto the final track, the underlying rhythms and little touches here and there really give the music a quality that makes me believe he spent a lot of time on it. Similar praise for Tangiers - what's going on in there must be a nightmare to play and it all meshes together so well.

Perfect example just now. I've had Aliens in my 'new' folder for ages, and finally decided to give it a listen. Decided to delete about 4 cues which just didn't really seem to have anything going on in them. My general rule is that if I have a complete or substantial score, and there's a cue I always skip, or can listen to without really noticing it, there's no point in having it. I apply this to even my favourite composers as I want a collection that reflects music I enjoy, not music that I feel I have to have for completism or just 'because' it's held in high esteem. There must be something about the Alien saga because I can't get into Goldsmith's score outside the first few tracks, and I massively trimmed Frizzell''s complete score to Resurrection (well ok, that's different obviously as they're not in the same league).

I wouldn't say that any of it is especially bad or outstandingly good. For me it's just another Williams score with a couple of cues that rise above the rest. I don't think I've ever seen a Williams score (and the movie) get such a mixed reaction from his own fans.

That's one beautiful theme. Me wantssss ittt!!!

Well obviously yes. I tend to listen through once, and if there's any cue I listen to and either don't feel anything, or is just boring, I delete it there and then. If only one cue out of a 30 track album is dull though (doesn't happen very often), I would keep it for completism unless it was a source cue/song.

Possibly deleting tracks 5 and 12? Are you mad? They're two of the most beautiful cues on the album IMO. I frequently delete individual cues from a playlist if I don't like them and they're not too important to the overall experience of the score.