Reputation from Not Mr. Big - Page 13 - JOHN WILLIAMS Fan Network

Not Mr. Big got a reaction from GerateWohl in The Christopher Young Appreciation Thread September 26, 2023

He bought a new car

Not Mr. Big reacted to Bayesian in Who is the most overrated film composer in recent history? September 26, 2023

I don’t think any of us is looking to bring the hate, but if you’re open to a reasonable counterargument, I’ll give it a shot.

Your depiction of us as too-easily-impressed JW fanboys misses the mark. It doesn’t help that you misrepresent the amount of self-plagiarism in JW’s music, specifically DoD.

We don’t treat every score JW writes with unquestioned, overjoyed praise. Off the top of my head, there was plenty of commentary in these boards about how slight BFG, The Post, and The Fabelmans all were. Folks here wasted no time identifying the handful of moments that JW lifted from his previous work for DoD, which led to (in my opinion) an overwrought reaction about JW’s supposedly deteriorating creative faculties. I seem to recall TROS being treated as the least of the sequel trilogy scores—although that’s actually due to JJ Abrams and the Mouse House screwing the movie up every which way possible.

Rather, what we appreciate and show genuine gratitude for is a man who continues to apply himself with the same level of commitment to the craft that he gave when he was half his age—composing music for characters and moments using ridiculous, outdated things like key changes, octatonic scales and woodwinds, rather than washes of interchangeable ‘moods’ written with drum loops; writing and shorthand-orchestrating every note with a pencil on paper; conducting every bar in the studio; and doing it week after week at an age when most of his birth cohort is already six feet under. It’s exactly this that prevents JW from ever being overrated. Being the consummate pro that he is, JW continues to be the same one-stop shop he’s always been, delivering each film exactly the music it needs (to the extent this era of “no such thing as picture lock” allows)—and if that music is ‘deficient’ in some way to some folks, it’s usually because JW either left out some choice cues in his OST program or because we all spent too long imagining what the music might be like to a movie we hadn’t seen in the months/years leading to that movie’s release and was ultimately disappointed in the material JW had to work with.

JW isn’t overrated here—he’s rated exactly at the level he deserves to be.

Not Mr. Big got a reaction from mrbellamy in The Christopher Young Appreciation Thread September 25, 2023

He bought a new car

Not Mr. Big reacted to crumbs in A Disney director tried - and failed - to use an AI Hans Zimmer to create a soundtrack September 21, 2023

It's surprising Zimmer agreed to work with him after this stunt.

Yeah, we all know Zimmer farms out work to underlings but I think anyone in a creative industry would be insulted if someone high-ranking from another department walked up to them and said, "look how close this AI came to approximating your work."

How long until composers are striking over conditions? It seems long overdue. Considering the way music editors have become de facto composers, samples are supplanting orchestras, and the plethora of library music is making original scores redundant, I can't help but wonder if companies like RCP have architected the demise of an entire industry.

Not Mr. Big reacted to MaxMovieMan in A Disney director tried - and failed - to use an AI Hans Zimmer to create a soundtrack September 21, 2023

Hopefully future strikes can stop the use of AI like this in film if more directors decide to go down this path. Very scary.