Delorean90

Just watched the video and I had to laugh at the beginning. Of course it was a D.

Yes, but what was she trying to get out of anything? What was her motivation?

I was completely at a loss as to why she was in the movie, in organic terms. I mean, I get WHY she was in the movie, but she didn't mesh well with the overall story, and by the end of the film I still didn't understand what her stake in things was.

So it appears we will eventually get The Rocketeer after all!!! SO HAPPY!!!!!!!

Yeah. Comic fans got pissed because of the twist, but I thought it worked very nicely into the political themes of the film. Also, the Stark/kid dynamic worked way better than it probably had any right to.

When I was about 11, I saw a commercial for The Exorcist that featured the "Today would be an excellent day for an exorcism" line, and it scared me positively shitless. Over the years I pretty much gathered what happens in the story, and I've had gradual exposure to some of the imagery and such to the point that its classic film status has overrided the childhood trauma status so that it's on my watch list now.

I don't own any of the Omen scores yet, and I'm wondering what the situation is like with those. It seems that The Final Conflict is the only one in print. Is there still music missing from any of them? Should we be hoping for any expansion, or simply unlimited reissues? I'd like to own them but I want to know what's up before I invest any money.

Yeah, I always took it as a way of efficiently illustrating how George's boosted self-confidence had impacted his life. The point wasn't the money, the point was the change that had been made in George's character.

Ah gotcha. I wouldn't be surprised if Intrada eventually releases it in complete form. Just for the record, The Rocketeer was indeed released under the Walt Disney Pictures name.

I wonder if he means II and III together, with the chicken problem that wasn't even a thing in the first film. Zemeckis and Gale addressed this, saying that if they had known ahead of time they'd get a trilogy they would've set it up better.

There has also been complete release for Star Trek The Motion Picture, Conan The Barbarian, First Knight, Batman Forever, all three Die Hard scores, 1941 and Home Alone as well.... The last few years have been pretty awesome That list is almost surreal to look at. Bloody amazing. As for Disney releases, I respect that delving into this treasure trove will be a huge undertaking. I'm still anxiously awaiting complete releases of The Rocketeer, Poledouris's The Jungle Book, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but I suspect that with all of the titles and composers Doug is referencing, we'll get those in good time. In the meantime, it's great to see Intrada bringing physical releases of scores that would otherwise be digital-only (with respect to other labels doing the same thing). It was utterly mind-boggling to see the Oscar-winning score for Up sitting in compressed digital land, so even though it is just the album presentation, it's good to see it in uncompressed physical form.

With so many disappointing blockbusters that trip over themselves trying to be clever, Pacific Rim was mostly a straight story told pretty well. It was great fun, and in stark contrast to the Transformers films, the battle scenes have clear direction and goals, and you can follow what's going on. The Hong Kong battle was easily the highlight. It wasn't trying to bite off big themes that it wasn't willing to chew, unlike films like STID and MOS. It was just a good old time. Damien: Omen II Could've been worse, but could've been more. It's almost like the film needed to go ahead and just be 2 hours, or adjust the ratio of kills to business talk to Damien's discoveries. The film is largely at its best when it is dealing with the latter, but it seems that the producers felt the need to outdo the first film by making more kills. Unfortunately, this ends up with characters being introduced and then killed off very quickly after they discover something's awry. It gets formulaic and repetitive. (This is not to say they're uneffective, at least not entirely--the elevator scene particularly provided the intended shock.) The business dealings of the Thorn Company also seem to go nowhere. I don't know if they were meant to be setup for Damien's dealings in the sequel (will be watching The Final Conflict soon), but even so, there needs to be some degree of payoff in the film so it stands on its own, and as it is it just seems like an excuse to have a couple more deaths and give the sense that a particular character is up to no good. Damien's revelations, on the other hand, provide the two strongest scenes, although they feel rushed, like we're getting the payoff for something that we missed a bit of the build up for. The human overseers for Damien also seem a bit underdeveloped; I didn't understand quite why we needed more than one, in addition to the supernatural protection he was getting (much less subtly than in the first film). The film also suffers a bit from some clunky dialogue and exposition. On the other hand, Bill Butler's cinematography lends some nice atmosphere, and Goldsmith's score is largely excellent, delivering some great variations on the "Ave Satani" material. I did feel the electronic blats were kind of odd, though--and they start right at the beginning! The focus on these variations also reflects the film's focus on giving the audience more kills; as with the story, it would be interesting to see what Goldsmith might have delivered with a film that spent some more time on the human drama. Not bad, but inferior to the first. It had the potential to outshine its predecessor by giving more focus to and development of its strong, unique facet: Damien's dilemma. With a longer runtime and/or less of the kills/business stuff, a more thorough and satisfying look into Damien's growing pains might be facilitated, and the material is certainly there for it. Nevertheless, there's enough to enjoy and appreciate about it for me to recommend it if you liked the first film.

Wow, that's kind of awesome.

Yeah but this is a different, gritty, realistic Superman. After what he did in MOS it would be laughable to actually have these 2 fight, unless the old tired kryptonite crutch falls into Batman's lap. And do we need Batman coming out in a human sized, Pacific Rim style costumed to try and stand toe to toe with him? I get the impression this MOS won't tolerate bs, especially with one of his last lines in the film as Superman. But I'm sure this film will make tons of money for WB and give them the billion dollar hit they were hoping MOS would be. I think the proper storyline would be for Superman and Batman to have distrust, but TDK knows he can't go toe to toe so maybe he builds on the public's fear of what the MOS could become. However a serious event happens that proves Supeman's worth and makes Batman trust him. Batman can handle Gotham but the world has changed with Kal-El's arrival and there are other gifted people waiting in the shadows to come forward and protect earth, all they needed was a leader to look to and Superman is that man....segue to Justice League. Though this isn't the route I would've gone for, it actually makes a certain amount of sense as a way to distinguish their approach from Marvel's: make this actually an unfolding series of films that are not just focused on single characters, but developing this world/ensemble/mythology. But I don't like the idea that we still have to have some kind of event that proves Superman. They already shot their load with the destruction of Metropolis, and then proceeded to not give us any real idea what the people of Earth think. The denoument was kind of a mess. Something else that occurs to me (and someone might've mentioned it already and I forgot): how the hell do you get a Batman/Superman confrontation based on The Dark Knight Returns after the drone scene in MOS? Doesn't that run contrary to the entire setup of the conflict in TDKR?

Ability and will are two different things.

In interviews he's mentioned a hero theme that he wrote and kept trying to keep Nolan from getting him to use it, and apparently he succeeded. There was even a theme that I thought worked for that purpose (the one in "Molossus") that I'm pretty sure never resurfaced in the sequels, aside from the monorail quote in TDKR.

But by the time of the helicopter scene, his theme was on full display. Perhaps part of the problem is that MOS doesn't afford as many of these occasions, but again, this is part of why the flight scene would've been a great time for it: he gets to fully indulge in his powers without any of the angst or world-threatening that goes on later in the film. It's perhaps the most unabashedly upbeat scene in the film, and the music fails to tap into this.

Refresh my memory: which scene did "This is Clark Kent" cover? Or were you simply referring to fact that we'd heard the theme before in not quite as bombastic settings? I'm curious why you think that Superman theme would be an ill fit, or what makes this the perfect moment to hear the other theme in full force (as opposed to, say, something in the climax of the film). To me the first flight segment felt like he was priming the pump for an unleashing of the theme in full force when he really flew, which made it all the more of a jarring moment for me that it was something completely different. Of course, I do think the ideal would've been some kind of tasteful blending of the thematic material there, but perhaps that's hoping for too much nuance from Mr. Zimmer. I confess, I'm also probably suffering from severe frustration with Zimmer's obsession with the heroes "earning their themes." Just score the goddamn film, Hans.

Fair enough, Quint! Prometheus: It may be better in the film version, then, because I've been largely going off of my original impression when viewing the film along with the album track, which doesn't have those high string figures you're talking about, and they might help. As to the soprano part, I don't think it's a solo like Morricone used, and "Flight" is a far cry from "Ecstasy of Gold." As to the heaviness, you said yourself the melody is dirge-like, and the brass/string/vocal unison approach, along with the percussion, keeps things very dense, so not only do you have this minor mode dirge feeling, but the music also doesn't have the aid of levity in the part balance, or emphasis on high-registers, or anything that would aid in a sense of uplift, flight, or relief. I don't follow in what way the dirge-like melody is appropriate, and I'm not a huge fan of foreshadowing in scores. The scene should have context, yes, but at some point I feel like you also have to pay attention to what the scene is doing in the moment. Say you have a scene of dire tragedy in a film preceded by a scene of peak joy by a protagonist--classic dramatic contrast. Do I really want the music in the joyful scene to be telegraphing that something bad's about to go down, or do I want it to be in the moment with the protagonist? Too much foreshadowing undermines and devalues both the immediate moment and the future events being telegraphed. There's enough serious shit going down in the film that I think we can really enjoy the moment with Kal-El. I'll even say this, if we really did see the tears of joy, and he wasn't pulling maneuvers all over the world with a goofy grin on his face the whole time, and then getting to fucking space, then I could possibly go with it, but as it stands, the cue just doesn't make sense to me. Do you feel that the music (or something like it) from "What Are You Going to Do When You Are Not Saving the World" would have been an ill fit?

Oh, no, I agree that the film isn't unwaveringly serious. Just like with the Batman films, I find it to be Zimmer painting with a broad brush and a monochromatic palette. It's like he zeros in on certain facets of the films, spends a lot of time on a sound world for that facet, and slathers the film with it. I suppose that's overstating the point--there is some attention to the turns of the film, such as the IMO good treatment of the home scenes--but that's the general impression I get. I also think there is joy in the flight sequence itself, which is why I don't like the cue. After the initial scoring of his first leaps, I feel the joy just sucked right out of the music. Like in the Batman films where he tried too hard to go to the other extreme from the excitement and color of the Elfman and Goldenthal scores, he tries too hard to make Superman's flight really meaningful; in the attempt, he makes it sound sad, or like Superman's desperately trying to get somewhere to stop something bad from happening. It's heavy both in instrumentation and tone.

I don't know if I've seen all of the deleted scenes from the Blu release, but I watched several of them when they were still online, and I really wish that they had kept the full original scene of Leia visting Luke while he's recovering from the Wampa attack. It gives the impression that there's really something there between Leia and Luke, which also gives an interesting sense of the passage of time from the first film to ESB, and gives the scene a nice sense of beginning, middle, and end. It adds layers to the kiss at the end of the scene (she's not just trying to piss off Han, she's also getting the kiss that she was interrupted from earlier in the scene), and sets up Threepio the Cockblocker as a running gag. It would also certainly have saved us from the stupid twin thing in ROTJ.

Yet that still had the cringe-worthy Raindrops Fallin' On My Head scene. He's really the only good thing in the film. It's too bad neither of Elfman's montage cues got used. I liked them both a lot.

Exactly. The smile on Kal's face is more like tears of joy than a dumb grin, which is what it was the first time round. The audience is also primed for the more introspective mood by the short take-off scene, with Jor-El's "you will help them achieve wonders" monologue and Kal-El closing his eyes. The music here works wonderfully with Amir Mokri's cinematography. D'oh! Been meaning to reply to this. There are a couple of issues I have with this. I like these ideas, but ultimately I don't really hear them reflected in the music itself. Music can be simultaneously introspective and/or melancholic while still being uplifting, but I don't feel that Zimmer achieves that kind of nuance. It sounds like more overbearing minor-mode "look how serious and epic this shit is" material to me, which I don't think is right for the scene. To use Prometheus's terms, I think the surface is the dumb grin, while the substance is the tears of joy, and I think the music should be able to hit both. But the dumb grin is nowhere to be found, and the joy doesn't come through, only the tears. It's almost like Zimmer thought about it just enough to neither score the surface (which might've been what we got if he made it a big unveil of the Superman theme) or the substance (some other ideal combo of thematic material). I sense there's also an issue in the context of the score and the film. The film itself has quite a bit of at times relentless action. Zimmer doesn't seem to make any effort at really complementing the film; if it's not huge epic action it's huge epic glory, with the odd bit of relief from the Kent scenes. It's all doubling and sledgehammering and it just gets on my nerves. Ultimately, though, I do just feel like it belongs in a different type of scene, more along the lines of Superman --something less carefree. I'm afraid it's just too darn heavy.

I've never gotten to see them on the big screen--I even missed out on the '97 releases. I'd love to see them do a theatrical run of the restored originals to lead up to VII. If they do it, I'll be there.

If you want to just go along for the ride, you can. I do think there is worth in studying the inner workings of an entertainment I/we apparently do not enjoy, although that may have a lot to do with my aspirations in storytelling/filmmaking. I want to try to gain some understanding of why I didn't like it, what didn't work for me--what could I do differently that would be effective? In this particular situation, as Hulk mentioned in his essay, this is an especially divisive film of a major figure in pop culture, with large groups either loving it or hating it. So beyond why I didn't like it, why did others like it (as far as I can tell)? Going in this direction can then transcend discussing story mechanics and film-making craft (which is good itself), into thoughts on culture and other people in a (hopefully) empathetic manner.