wanner251

Doesn't anybody think that the score for PoA was a transitional development to be further realized in later scores for later movies? It makes perfect sense that one would like GoF better; a lot more happens in the film. There are many more arrival points. PoA as a film is VERY transitional, and so is the score. When I listen to the score, it just sounds like the third movement to me, which would have developed further and actually arrived in the fourth. So much builds up to the end of the fourth film, and since JW didn't have the opportunity to finish the idea, having Patrick Doyle finish it for him with a complete departure in style and themes really causes the buildup to be disjunct. Of course this is just my opinion. I'm sure that JW would have at least been prepared in the back of his mind for the opportunity of doing all 8 films. You don't just say, "Hmmm, 7 books... I think I'll just do a couple with some amazing themes and then leave it up to someone else to take the rest over, and whatever happens, happens." Actually, as I type it, maybe it IS possible for him to have thought that. He's never really done that in the past though. Just clipped his commitment short like that? Still seems weird.

Perhaps Yates, in his "green-ness" as a filmmaker, just wanted to do things that he was used to. Use modern methods of filmmaking, which includes how the score is presented. Maybe that's what he's comfortable doing. JW still handwrites his scores and works out his timings old school. The question really comes down to: Did Yates ask JW and JW turned it down? Or did Yates not even ask him? If the studio wanted him back so badly, it would seem that it would be a forgone conclusion that he would be back unless Yates stood in the way and said no way, or John walked away. As excited as John seems to be about revisiting music and developing things further, (he talks about it all the time in interviews over this process) it seems so unlikely to me that he would have just walked. Even as modest as he is, he has to know that his contribution to the HP series is a significant one. I mean, his score and themes are the ones used for source music in promotions and trailers. You hardly hear Harry Potter music outside of the films from anywhere else but John Williams.

So worried about things being 5 cents out of tune. Poor guy... I'd pay double the price for an added 3rd disc. This is one of my Desert Island scores I think. And Banning Back Home is a fabulous contrast... If he would have scored it completely orchestraly, perhaps the whole rest of the score would have to be Gruisin-esque... ;-P

As an amateur composer, it seems to me that it would be very difficult to just be disinterested in returning, knowing that such a missed opportunity would have taken place. This would have been an opportunity for musical and thematic development that would have been bigger than even that of all six Star Wars movies, and without the 20 year gap in between. It would be hard for ANY composer to pass that up, even one as prolific as John Williams. The only thing that makes sense to me is that he was either ousted because David Yates thought he was washed up (idiot), or that they didn't like each other or something along those lines. If Williams wasn't interested in scoring all 8 films, he wouldn't have chosen to score the first three.

Anyway, I was definitely moved by "Fawkes the Phoenix", especially the tender moment in "Fawkes is Reborn". Also, "Reunion of Friends" makes me feel like a child every time I hear it. That short flute motif always gets me...

I'm just glad he didn't go with Hans Zimmer....

I heard that the director of Goblet of Fire wanted to take the score into a "different direction" and was looking for a more modern approach instead of a classic sweeping, neo-romantic style score.

I found it very interesting that JW talked about working in a very classic "Disney-esque" sort of way where some of the music was composed first and then things were animated to fit. The idea of coming up with dramatic or comedic hits before the screen action has completely unfolded is an interesting one. Composing music to script seems like it would be quite the challenge. Of course, nothing can stump our favorite Maestro....

I suppose you could be right... but usually you have multiple sketches of things that could be used for things later on. Even if they are just for dramatic content or other ideas that didn't quite make it into the finished films, they can be utilized later. Sagas like Harry Potter tend to evolve, and sometimes it's a good idea to have a few hole cards to insert later on. It's just too bad JW got ousted after three films.

It was SUCH a huge shame! It has gone down in history as probably the most sorely missed spot in the history of thematic opportunities. I think John should score movies 4 through 8 and offer them as an alternative track or something. It would be interesting to see what his plans were when he thought that he was going to be on board for the entire journey. I'm sure he has to have something somewhere.... sketches for future movies... etc... You don't just jump into these epic serial sagas blindly...

For me, it sort of depends on what I'm given. Certain things inspire certain approaches. I did a short a while back that just made me think up a very un-unified score. The last cue was a passacaglia bass idea, so I decided to go with a DAW approach. I keyed in the repeating bass and went from there. The rest of the score kind of followed a bit, but not much. It's really kind of quirky. The film is on YouTube, and is quite funny.

I think Hook is internally one of John Williams' most diverse and varied score. It is also one of the most dense. It is an amazing amount of material and very little of it repeats itself. All of his motifs and themes are presented and then interwoven more densely as the film unfolds. It really is a work of genius and one of my favorites. I have the original, and one of the better sounding bootlegs, but I think they will pale in comparison to this new release. I'll be putting my money down the day of release! Bring on the Hook! And now if we could just get someone to release the full recording sessions of Chamber of Secrets, I'd be able to sleep a whole night through.

Does anyone think that the Fawkes Theme should have reappeared one more time in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince after Dumbledore dies and Fawkes flies off? I really thought it was horrible that it didn't come back even just for a few seconds or a tiny tip of the hat!

That's definitely a good one. For me it's still the ascending strings at the end of E.T. before the final fanfare. Whoa...

OK, let's go along with your thought... it's dead... and?

What makes you feel that they are better as a time period?

I think the fact that this conversation is even taking place is a testament to it still being very relevant.

Seriously? You know, I'm sure that Lucas/Spielberg/Williams never intend for their works to become complete cultural phenomenons. The fact that some of them have is merely a product of our own response to how well they speak directly to our own human condition. So, as long as you have seen Star Wars yourself, and it speaks to something inside your soul, it will remain alive, even if you think Empire was the only good one and all the rest suck. The fact that there was hope that the prequels would measure up to the original trilogy, means that the concept and world that was created is all still very much alive. Sometimes it's amazing to me how easily swayed people are by the changes in popular culture. Can't anyone stick to their guns?

I suppose that I just got tired of reading posts in this forum that pretty much amounted to "My favorite composer is better than your favorite composer and they're all better than John Williams" that I wanted to offer up an opportunity to discuss what makes John Williams so great (or not that great if you happen to think so). True, there is a great deal of healthy devil's advocate play going on, but it never seems to facilitate a really good discussion. As far as him being a visceral composer, I believe that is true in so much as his roots go very deep in emotion when he comes up with anything. However, I'm not sure that he has a tendency to emphasize one thing over another (i.e. rhythm over melodic content) only for the sake of doing so for the film. He doesn't seem to be ruled by that kind of principle. To me, he seems to be so much more focused on the larger picture and the sound of the whole. Instead of saying, ok it's in action sequence so lets be more rhythmic, as would be the more uncontrollable urge to do, he will often fight those urges for something better, and more capturing of the moment. AND do so with clarity. That seems to be his gift, whereas most composers have a dramatic instinct (oftentimes being very formulaic), Williams' dramatic instinct has a much wider dynamic range because he allows for those possibilities that are NOT necessarily in the formulae. Does anyone have any favorite Williams-score moments? Not just themes, but also points anywhere in any score where his genius just captivates or surprises you? I haven't yet seen War Horse either, or Tin Tin for that matter. But what you quoted from that review sounds like overly dramatic rhetoric. I'll have to go read it once I've seen the film.

We are definitely off to a good start here. I agree with a great deal of what you have said. The interesting thing I find in your first paragraph is the bit about complexity for complexity's sake. It seems that in the effort to put his personal touch on what he sees, Williams has a tendency in this day and age to demand a bit much of his listener. For me, personally, I don't find it demanding at all, just brilliant. I also don't believe that he ever makes the decision to have such densely orchestrated music just for its own sake. Contrarily, it always seems to me that at least 90% of the time he has a very definite handle on every note, not only how it relates to the screen, but also how it relates to the rest of the score itself as its own work of art. Oftentimes, I find other composers' works (especially their action cues) to be so rhythmically driven. I think they are trying to achieve that level of clarity that you are talking about, but they tend to miss the mark because the intent is entirely different. It's much easier to be clear when your music is rhythmically driven, I think. The idea of melody has become so much more difficult for composers because they know the kinds of standards that have already been set. I think many composers try to avoid it because getting involved too deeply in melody can make or break you these days. The misplacing of one note can sometimes throw the viewer off kilter, so every note must be chosen carefully. Still I also agree that the art form itself has changed. If you look at Silvestri and Horner of the 80s and compare them to their own mid to late 90s counterparts, this is very evident. Interestingly, they were part of what ushered in the modern film score, but at the same time they were adapting to what it was to become. It makes for a very interesting transition. Willow and Braveheart are so radically different, as are Back to the Future and The Mummy Returns. It is difficult to tell if Silvestri and Horner were evolving and growing as musicians, or if they were merely adapting to what was a changing industry. I think a great recent example of this in Williams' case was when he got put on the chopping block in the middle of the Harry Potter films. The director wanted to go with something more modern for the 4th film and onward. While all of the Harry Potter scores are quite excellent, everything recognizable that reaches out and grabs you emotionally and that embodies the world of the films comes from the first three, undeniably. I admit, that I was not very enamored with any of these scores at first, but as I continued to study them and listened more intently, so much of what I wrote at the beginning of this topic began to become so more more clear. It is very sad to me that we all have missed out on what he would have done, had he been trusted to continue. There is something so ultimately refined about these scores, and trust me, I've listened a great deal all the way back to Family Plot and his TV stuff with Gilligan's Island and Lost in Space. I think this refinement of theme and density of score is often overlooked because it is so easy to compare everything to the like of Star Wars and E.T. While those are both home runs and cast a huge shadow, we forget that John Williams is getting better. He did not peak in the 80s, though many people may think so. I'm sorry, I don't think I was clear about what I meant. I don't mean that his thematic ideas are only recently being juxtaposed into his incidental stuff. Of course he's been doing that since nearly the beginning. What I mean, is that his approach to thematic content is being applied to his incidental stuff. The whole idea of finding the clearest way to express is not only being applied to his thematic content, but also to how he approaches his non-thematic content. The whole point is that people are starting to think that he is just rehashing things from before, when in fact he could be applying a process of refinement to his own voice. I don't know if people would actually say that he's lost it, but sometimes I think the criticism that takes place here can very much abandon any idea of what John Williams himself intended to accomplish. Just because one of his works didn't please me, I cannot seem to bring myself to abandon his intent so overtly as if it didn't count. I'm not sure if that makes sense.

I've been a lurker for quite some time on this site, and over the past year or so, I've noticed people talking about John Williams basically rehashing himself in several permutations in his recent scores. Some people even seem to believe that he is dumbing things down for certain scores. I finally felt compelled to join up in order to provide what may be an alternate perspective. I think that I would more so like to encourage a discussion about this because all I seem to read is some version of "This score is great, but this one sucks". I haven't seen very much criticism that takes into account composer intent. Many people like to compare John Williams to other more modern film composers without realizing that they are divided by their very history, and therefore the intent of each are like apples and oranges. Anyway, for those of you who believe that John Williams' greatness ended with Hook or Jurassic Park, and that he hasn't created anything drastically new since, I offer another idea. John Williams himself has stated that his job as a composer is to strip away all the extraneous elements until you are left with the most exemplary idea of what fits the screen, or character, or whatever he is trying to make into an auditory spectacle. In a sense, his approach is very much in the vain of "Simple is the ultimate sophistication". He has said that he works for more hours on his themes than he does composing the "incidental" music. To him, those beautifully dense and diverse action cues that we all love are easy for him to crank out, but his themes are his ultimately sophisticated works of art. Now I believe that this idea has transcended into his "incidental" cues as well lately, which may sound like he is dumbing down his scores or rehashing material from before. I equate this to being more like his own unique brushstroke that he is constantly trying to apply and adapt to his new themes, and his idea of stripping things away rather than adding seems to (in my mind) contribute to this theory. We all believe that his approach is wonderful and unique, otherwise this board wouldn't exist, nor would we be a part of it. I don't think that we can assume that as John Williams is aging and gaining more experience, that his writing is becoming less mature. Artistically, that doesn't work in my mind. That would be like saying, "Oh sure, anyone could come up with the shark theme in Jaws" in about 2 minutes..." True, he doesn't always hit home runs, and he has definite strengths in certain genres and weaknesses in others. However, I think that his sophistication comes through in his simplicity. I believe that other composers try to mimic this approach because they understand what it is, but they never quite get it since their intent is very different. It's like sculpting... these other composers would sculpt with clay in a way that they mold here and add here until they are finished. Whereas, the John Williams approach is more like sculpting a block of marble with a hammer and chisel, he just gets rid of everything that is NOT the sculpture, being able to identify what he is after before he even begins. There is something very profound in that kind of simplicity. Anyway, I am very curious as to what you all think about this, and I'd like to get a discussion going where we can cite some examples of this or the contrary. I have been a fan of John williams for over 30 years, and for people to say he's "lost it" just doesn't make sense to me from an artist's perspective. Let the discussion begin!