Not Mr. Big

It's a confluence of Gen Xers and millennials who've grown up with Giacchino's music (MOH, Lost, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Up, Trek, Jurassic World, Rogue One), the aggressive Marvel hype machine (the false promise of novelty with a "new" Spiderman), and the cultural amnesia of commodity fetishism. The latest product is the best, until the next, and then the one after that. Giacchino's music is the perfect film score product. Crude, easily digestible and utterly ephemeral.   
 
Mark my words, this score will be a footnote come December.
 
 

I saw that too. I also saw another film score person tweeting today that Rogue One is better than TFA. I know people have different tastes but these are insane rankings.
 
I enjoy parts of Homecoming but I'd place Elfman's, Young's and Horner's scores above Homecoming.

Yeah.  One of the film score people I follow on Twitter had a ranking of the Spider-Man scores with Homecoming in first place.  Absolute fucking madness!

I can't believe the love this score is getting in other pockets of film score enthusiasts online.  I just don't get it.  

Every new Williams score has a high probability of being his last, so it's good to get a couple at the same time.

I'm honestly surprised you haven't begun kidnapping Williams' loved ones promising their safe return if he starts using overblown choirs in his scores again.

If Williams retires after Star Wars IX, no one could begrudge him. He owes us nothing at this stage and frankly it's incredible he's even writing Star Wars scores at 85.
 
I'm certainly not holding my breath for him writing an Indiana Jones score at age 88. Frankly, Spielberg should scrap the whole film if he can't; Williams is as much a key ingredient to that series as Ford is (and Spielberg knows it, previously admitting he'd never make an Indiana Jones film without Ford, Kahn and Williams).

I wonder if the era will inspire anything musically from Williams? I'll be disappointed if this is yet another noble, Americana score.
 
Would be a pleasant surprise if the film is lighthearted in the vein of Catch Me If You Can, and Williams infuses the score with latin jazz or something (with some JKF/Nixon/Oliver Stone type music for good measure).
 
Maybe that's why Williams chose this project? He hasn't written in that style for many years (and even singled out his regret of not working with Oliver Stone for decades in that recent interview).

The fact that he's got Star Wars definitely makes the RPO loss easier to swallow in and of itself. If John Williams were only doing Spielberg movies and suddenly it was just The Papers until Indy 5 in 2020 when there had also been this big ol sci-fi score waiting right around the corner, I would have been....vexed. 
 
As it is, I know there's gonna be that whole honeymoon period with TLJ from January-March of digging through the OST and hopefully FYC and getting to know all that music, plus hopefully plenty to enjoy with The Papers, so I probably won't be feeling that greedy and it should be easy to just appreciate a cool Alan Silvestri score. In some ways I feel like Thomas Newman probably got a rawer deal from me as a rabid, impatient JWFan since all I really wanted in October 2015 was new Williams music 

The Last Paper/Ready Paper One

True enough, but he was actually pretty candid about the Bridge of Spies scenario.
 
We really don't know anything about this decision so I think it would still be interesting if Spielberg confirms something as simple as whether he himself suggested John do The Papers over RPO, or if John picked The Papers because he was interested in the subject or felt it would be a nice change of pace after The Last Jedi or whatever.
 
Obviously he's not gonna tell everyone about how he really showed John the movie and John said 'Wow Steve, what a piece of crap, why don't you grow the fuck up already' and Spielberg punched him in the face and John shoved his baton up Steve's ass and they didn't talk to each other for a week until Alan Silvestri rang Spielberg's door at 2am holding up Johnny who he found drunk and pissing on Spielberg's Hollywood Walk of Fame star and Alan said "Hug it out bitches" and they did and John conceded Ready Player One to Alan as a token of gratitude. He's not gonna talk about that.

I didn't like Birdman either. And this is coming from me. I'm happy Keaton got some recognition, even if it was for some boring pretentious flick where he's running around in his underwear.

Don't bring that movie up, please.

Then why didn't they just call it "The Lady"?

The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Godzilla
Maleficent
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
 
Hey, the summer of 2014 had a fairly decent lineup.
 
Karol

Apart from the territorial pissings, there must be at some point the simple admission that there are many listeners like RBurton above or several others that just do not hear a difference. Which is an observation, not a criticism. For me it's pretty undeniable that Giacchino and his ilk just are not up to par as composers to offer up more than acceptable - at best, see 'War' - scores that beg the question if that should be anyone's standard for excellence, or to be more precise: why bother with such banal, clichéd and thematically limp stuff and not give up the hobby altogether? (which of course many of us have, it's just here that we fake interest for the joys of pointless bickering). If so it's a pity - because we came from a period were the bar was pretty high. You can spend your time better in enjoying and analysing stuff that was written up to the mid-90's instead of wasting hours on these overlong new album fuckers put out every week.
 

There's nothing elitist about it, nor are there any feelings of entitlement.  What a petty way to respond!  
 
I am speaking broadly about what is healthy for the culture of film music, which is ideally an environment where diverse and richly creative opportunities are afforded to composers.  
 
The kind of b-grade orchestral anonymity that Giacchino often puts out there can very quickly become the next pervasive sound, just as the hybrid approach has been for a number of years now, if bean counters see a similarly enthusiastic response to it and embrace it as a safe model to conform future projects to.  This is stifling to the aforementioned ideal rich and free environment for film composers.  
 
Even if Giacchino were writing reliably good scores, he is simply becoming overused, and if that sets a trend, then we will see a return of symphonic scores, all right - but with no standards of excellence.  Look at what has happened previously.  Zimmer writes great scores, and then you end up with dozens of shit copy jobs over the ensuing months and years.  Giacchino is all over major franchises now, and he has little of the flair and freshness that Zimmer has on offer, so perhaps his is a sound that just won't "catch on" after all, but if it does, you then will have more of that stream of regurgitated crap, and from an original that was none too worthy to begin with.  
 
There are many great working composers who could do good work inside current styles, but there isn't much room given for that.  So don't bet that a return of symphonic stylings will suddenly see Desplat and Silvestri running around churning out masterworks - it isn't a problem of style that restricts greatness these days, it's lack of imagination from the powers that be.  Simple as that.  Giacchino fever will just swing the tunnel vision in a different direction.
 
And as far as one can be objective about music, I think it's fair to say that a good case can be made that Giacchino's music is on average quite mediocre.
 
But I suppose it's madness to be shocked that in 2017, the default reaction is to call for an end to the "tired arguments" of those who disagree with you, and to conjure up damning adjectives to dismiss them.  

The Last Paper/Ready Paper One

The Last Paper/Ready Paper One

Guess what paper is made from.  I think I know the real reason behind Williams' choice...

The Last Paper/Ready Paper One

The Amazing Stories theme sounds like Back to the Future.

With Williams doing the Stars Wars movies, it makes sense that he wants a change of pace for his other composing duties in between. Ready Player One might take too much out of him being in the same genre as SW. I'm happy with the replacement. Silvestri really hasn't been getting enough lately. As for Williams handing sketches to Silvestri? Why? It's not as if Silvestri is a bad composer who cannot come up with his own music and frankly, it would be a slap in the face. If Silvestri asks for them, then fine, but otherwise, give the man the respect to compose his own score. We aren't talking about some Hans Zimmer hack here. This guy has the chops!