Romão

I know what you mean, but their exuberance and the maestro's obvious love of the material shines through. As far as this sort of concerts go, you could do a lot worse

Very much so. You get the same feeling with Gerhardt's ESB re-recording

I actually always liked those old "concert hall-like" Varese recordings. They were less bothered about recreating every minutiae of the original film score and instead treated film music in the same way you would concert music. As an autonomous piece of work, if that makes sense. I like they performed and recorded these scores in unique ways because that is what made them stand out.
 
Karol

I also love how you can feel the space of the room in the recording

The same role, you ask?

Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire. Now, I never really thought it sounds much like SW but it is nevertheless a very cool album and McNeely's finest work. In fact I sort of appreciate it more for not getting too close to Williams, it's just getting bit tiresome when people try to ape Johnny verbatim in all those video games. I prefer an original take as the only viable artistic choice, and it must the right one because this is particular work remains one of the few examples that stound out even after 24 years. Always loved the half-score/half-tone poem feel of this. Pity they didn't do any more of those.
 
Karol

Nothing quite like it, for better or worse

This need to "see more of" franchises past their expiration date is the deathbed of those franchises. You're killing the things you love by essentially bear-hugging them to death.
 
There's something to be said for temperence. Three Indiana Jones films - just like six Star Wars movies - is more than respectable, and it was good while it lasted: let it be.

The OST for Edward Scissorhands is still a pretty good release of the score. It's not like the expansion was huge

The OST for Edward Scissorhands is still a pretty good release of the score. It's not like the expansion was huge

Like Edmilson, I like Taika just fine (although I found Jojo Rabbit to be overrated as hell), but I don't think his sensibilities align with what I'd like to see in a Star Wars movie. And anyway, without JW's involvement, my interest in this is really low. Just let it die

I think it is easily the worst treated Star Wars score ever. But I'm pretty sure it will be a great listen once it is properly assembled

What a long journey from that moment:
to that:
 
40 years of hard work to the first one, and another 40 years of hard work to the second one.

Angelo Badalamenti?

Menken's strengths usually stood more on the songs that in the underscore itself, but in cases like Hunchback of Notre Dame, the two are intertwined in a way that is quite stunning and it's not as obvious where the songs end and the underscore starts. One of the best scores for an animated movie ever. I'm not so fond of Hercules underscore, but the aproach is so novel and bold, that I have a tremendous fondness for it

Cheers @Marian Schedenig for being the rationalist of this thread. Saves some of us time.
 
Glass' comments aren't so much derogatory as they are an honest reflection on his own priorities. Many artists are driven by questioning form, and convention. Asking oneself "why". And there's rarely ever space, time or money to ask such questions in a film studio.
 
His own music came from a period that rejected the establishment and conventions of music-making. So it makes sense that the idea of challenging normative expectations is his priority and preference (even if his own music hasn't done that in years...which is also okay). And in the concert world, or even pop, you're creating autonomous music for music's sake, so you have more freedom in developing or pushing forward a language or a school of thought. In film music, you're serving a picture and a genre first. So, if you work hard and train well, you become a master technician like Williams, and become virtuosically adept at dipping into multiple traditions of music-making to serve the needs of the story at hand. And like Glass says, that's not to say there aren't "innovators" in these forms, but for the most part, Williams isn't one. And that's okay. That's all Glass' comments are really pointing to.
 
Anything else is just a projection of Williams fanboy bias.

Hi everyone. In the same spirit as the "A New Home" from TROS appreciation thread, I thought I'd kick off discussion of another stand-out cue from The Rise of Skywalker.
 
I'm tempted to call "Falcon Flight" the best action cue from Episode 9, though far too many of its attractions are obscured in the film mix to notice. It seems to me to be as good a synthesis as we could ask for of the thematic richness of the OT action-style with the PT and ST's emphasis on quick changing gestures and repetitive ostinati. 
 
Over its brief duration, we get series-standout renditions of:
0:12 - Emperor's Theme. I simply love this arrangement, especially the atypical tritonal bass motion for the F#m - Am/C progression.
0:30, 0:45, 1:30 - March of the Resistance, really being used in an exciting and integral way
0:57, 2:05 - Rebel Fanfare, giving more proof that JW now treats it as much as an all-purpose hero theme (or Millennium Falcon theme) than something specifically for the Rebellion.
1:14 - New Heroics Motif, which seems to sprout from Poe's Theme and the Main Theme so seamlessly. And what trumpet writing!
 
It's not just themes: I think channeling of the OT's harmonic language is nowhere more exact, down to the pitch-perfect Db(#4)/G => C cadence at the end, bringing us right back the ANH's sound-world (and, by extension, Holst's Mars). 
 
The new "one-cue-wonder" material is great too. I love how each of the three lightspeed jump destinations garners its own distinct musical material.
 
And underneath much of it, a vigorous string ostinato that nods back, intentionally or not (I think intentionally -- it's too on-point!) to Hyperspace from ESB. And note how the string figure, while consistent as a texture, is actually never repeated for more than a measure or two without some substantial musical alteration. (cf. "The Master Switch" from Rogue One to see the difference between a master and an imitator..)
 
What do you all think?
 
 
 

Weird, it did not show up in the search results a couple of days ago

He should've been the composer for Dune

Even today, no other film looks like it. Just take any 5 second sequence and you would never mistake it for any other film. And the tone is also completely its own. I'm still surprised how they were able to pull off such serious and pompous delivery of the dialogue without it ever becoming ridiculous. It's something else

There is indeed. But it is frustratingly uneven film

I love the suite with the narration. They go wonderfully together. I wish JW would record his narrated suite for Angela's Ashes and perhaps compose narrated suites for Memoirs of a Geisha. Sleepers and The Accidental Tourist

I love the suite with the narration. They go wonderfully together. I wish JW would record his narrated suite for Angela's Ashes and perhaps compose narrated suites for Memoirs of a Geisha. Sleepers and The Accidental Tourist

2:36-2:58; with 2:49 being one of my favorite transitions the Maestro has ever scored.
 
 

I didn't even notice any editing, to be honest. The music just fits perfectly. Great job, I love these