BigMacGyver

Composers sometimes include little (or bigger) "nods" to William's music (more or less intentional). Now what are some that you consider as the best? Please note: this is not about pointing with the finger at a composer and laughing your butt off about how they rip off other scores or about the composer being oh-so lazy and all that nonsense. Now, these are my favs: Alan Silvestri - Siegfried & Roy: The Magic Box: Apart from some powerful williams-esque arrangements in that score, Silvestri included a short quote of the grail theme from Last Crusade in the first cue. Now there have been other instances where this theme shines through for very brief moments in silvestri's scores but never as prominent as in that one. A really lovely nod. Trevor Jones - Around The World In 80 Days I think there are a lot of hints to Williams scores in this one that you could almost open an entirely new topic that only deals with the quotes in that score. Jones was certainly forced to include these hints due to the temp track. However, my favourite one is Balloon Chase which is almost a re-arrangement of The Ultimate War from Hook. David Newman - The Nutty Professor 2 An exact arrangement of a portion from the Star Wars end titles suddenly takes over in one of the cues. It was so hilarious and a joy to listen. Now it's your turn

Sure? We don't know how much time he actually had to do this. Of course there is a lot of music in the film (including source cues) which probably took some time to record but it really is just speculation after all.

David Arnold stated on his own site that he never composed a score for this film. He and Emerich separated very early during the brainstorming process already. I think the only thing that was done are some short demos.

Indeed it works very well in the film which is one of the reasons why i like it so much. The CD arrangement is rather clumsy as there seems to be no logic behind it while every note made perfect sense in the film. A chronological arrangement might have helped the music because certain thematic developments would have been much stronger. BTW, does anybody else feel that the mix of the CD is rather poor? The sound is rather muddy to me and there seems to be some hiss here or there which really sucks on a recording done in the new millenium. Maybe it is just my copy that is defective but the score sound much more vibrant in the film.

I would say that i know both scores really well but i don't really see a connection between the main themes of Air Force One and The Patriot. The low string writing of the (patriot) theme is actually more reminiscent of The Lost World and Stuff from Saving Private Ryan spiced with a comparable brass from William's olympic fanfares. In fact, this theme is very different from Jerry's composition apart from the extensive use of horns and trumpet and i don't recall hearing playful flutes accompanying the air force one theme. But that's just me of course.

Sorry if there was already a topic dedicated to this score but i did not really find it right away so... Today, i listened to the patriot again and i am still amazed by this score. This one is actually among my top favourites of Williams new millenium output. What sounds great on CD works even better in the film. The idea of that distant trumpet solo is somewhat watered down on CD but actually is a great idea cleverly used in the film. And then, there is this battle music which really rocks. Tavington's Trap is simply a great piece. Now, i am not sure why this one is disliked so much probably due to the rather poor mix of the CD but it is certainly a very good score.

I have just ripped the last portion again to compare it with the album track: The beginning of the album's end credits is NOT the portion when the children are running in the town. The first few bars are similar but it goes into a slightly different version in the film. The clever edit in the album track comes at 00:36 where it jumps right into the end credits and leaves out about 2:50 minutes of music. The film version contains these annoying kids screaming and the album version is too short for being a potential replacement so i don't see how this portion of the finale could be salvaged.

I remember trying something like that, too (using the album end credits instead of the film version) but i think something did not really work. I think the build up to the end credits of the album version is actually the moment of score when the children are running into the town with indy and co. following. That goes right into the slave children's march. However, in the film the end credits build up is different. There is this fanfare of the second half of the raiders march's bridge which is repeated two times (pitch differs here) and this goes right into the march counterpointed with short round's theme. A lovely moment and actually the most satisfying way of getting to the end credits portion in the entire series. Why they cut that out of the album version and went straight to the slave childrens march is beyond me. That's the reason why i put the album end credits at the end of the disc since both versions are so different. But that was just an emergency solution and there might be a better way of doing it. Maybe by editing the portion of the beginning of the album track into the film version when the children start running... something like that though i am not exactly sure if that would work since it is a pain to match the pitch of album and film version.

I put the british fanfare there because... well, i liked it so much and felt i wanted to hear it once more. Besides, there is this nasty edit in the end credits that jumps right into the raiders march without any transition so i was looking for something to put in there but it is really just a personal love with the theme ;-)

I mainly used the rear channels for this edition. Only the end credits contains all channels. Portions with heavy sfx (just like the bottles) are edited out. I am afraid the last crusade is a different issue since there are way more soundeffects mixed over the music.

I voted 10 simply because it is John Williams best score in my book (yeah, even better than Star Wars). The score is such an integral part of the story and cues like Navy Planes, Roy's First Encounter, Barry's Kidnapping and Barnstorming are just pure genius. This score comes right from another world.

No, at least not officially. Find out by ourself i would say.

I am learning to become media designer for picture and sound and as soon as i have more knowledge of mastering and editing i will do another version of this one. I never thought it would become THAT famous and i only did it as mp3 with an encoding of only 192 kbps. That should be always the same, no matter from what source you got it and thats one of the reasons why i want to re-do this (some clumsy edits between film and album tracks are another good reason). Maybe I can even improve the sound a little and i found some more suspense music before the bug tunnel sequence which is pretty much sfx free and could be included. Now as soon as i have the time and expanded knowledge i will work on temple of doom again.

Has anybody ever considered that all this talking about the unfinished script might just be a big cover up to keep fans busy with speculating and they are already in pre-production? That's at least the impression i have when i read rumours like that.

It is Jurassic Park for me because i loved every second of it from the very first moment.

There is no definite pattern since they are released when they are ready. The only thing that is somewhat certain is that there are usually three batches in each year: The first one comes out some time during the first 4 months while the second and third are usually released during the second half of the year. That's at least what i guessed from my observations of their release-habits, so you probably don't want to put too much into that. It could be different this year... who knows?

Here are some of note: Alan Silvestri - Predator Silvestri painted the hostile jungle environment so perfectly that the score became an integral part of the film which is almost as effective as John William's classic jaws score. We hardly see the alien especially in the first half of the film but we are always threatened by the dark score. Elmer Bernstein - The Great Escape The WW2 classic would not be the same without Elmer's exciting score. Imagine Steve McQueen on his motorcycle without the vibrant music or the opening without the march - it would not work. James Horner - The Land Before Time Okay, i know we wanted to leave the best scores aside but this one has to be mentioned here. Horner nailed the emotions in this film with his beautiful score and even the playful passages never suffer from mickey mousing. It fits like a glove. There are way more of course, especially by these three composers.

Congratulations to John Williams for this well deserved win! Now good luck for the Academy award!

Lukas Kendall announced on the FSM board that the releases of Beneath The 12-mile Reef and the double feature Patton & Flight Of The Phoenix are down to less than 50 copies. The release of Leonard Rosenman's score for The Fantastic Voyage is sold out. Other low titles are (according to Kendall): STAGECOACH/THE LONER THE RETURN OF DRACULA - A few hundred left. PRINCE VALIANT MONTE WALSH PRINCE OF FOXES ALL ABOUT EVE RIO CONCHOS BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES A GUIDE FOR THE MARRIED MAN BATMAN - last 200, going fast THE FRENCH CONNECTION - last 200, going fast THE BRAVADOS THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT If you have hesitated to get any of these CD's yet, now might be a good time to invest. Especially the early Williams score might be of high interest for John Williams fans.

The funny thing about Top Secret was that I sat there listening to the sound clips and thought: This is like a golden age score on steroids and if it would be an FSM release it would be around for years. The music itself simply left me icy cold for some reason. Of course the varese CD sold out but the speed was amazing. The 1000 unit run must be a psychological mark where everyone jumps at the release without thinking which is sad for those poor bastards who have to work all day and come home only to find out their most wanted score was just released and already sold out.

There has never been a real academy promo CD of the score, only promotional tapes and they did not include any songs. That and the poor sound quality of this CD make it a fake. The sound quality is as poor as on the complete bootleg of dutch or the luxor ride and even the delorean bootleg has better sound.

For my 2-cents of the Die Hard score, you can go here: http://www.filmscorecenter.de/diehard.htm If you read that review you will find out that there is indeed music missing on the varese club cd. A 2-CD bootleg of die hard is floating around which has unedited versions of some cues (Gruber's Arrival, The Assault, etc) and a more powerful sound but with a lot more hiss/noise (which is basically the evidence that the tapes were in bad shape). I guess the reason why the varese cd has weaker sound is because they reduced these anomalies and one could argue that they simply did a little bit too much. What i don't understand though is why the club cd's tracklisting is exactly the same of the single disc bootleg with the exact same length and edits.

If memory serves, The Accidental Tourist was a Warner Bros feature and since the album is OOP it is a good candidate for a re-release. Maybe even an expanded edition could materialize but i don't know how much more music is left unreleased.

The popularity of Predator is certainly not just due to some bootlegs or because it was limited. I did a little experimentation when i was still in school and played a selfmade medley of silvestri themes for the class. The only themes that some of them recognized were Back To The Future and Predator (note: no one recognized Forrest Gump!), so predator is obviously bearing a lot of potential even for people who are no score addicts. Now take in account that most people who liked the film and the score probably have never heard of that limited edition. Now tell me again that it is not one of Silvestri's most in-demand scores and one of the most-requested releases in film music history.

It was one of the fastest-selling 3000 unit editions so someone must have realized that there is a potential in this score. Maybe when varese licence expires we might see a re-issue from a different label and maybe they will do it as a regular edition then. It is a shame that so many people have to play the risky ebay game to get this wonderful release. Same can be said about The Fury and all these other sold-out gems.