Yoda Longbottom

Neil even shrugs off to talking about Gosford Park. LOL I like the movie, though. Good to know Morlock likes it too. Roman.-)

As about the mention of the "Gosford Park" above, have you seen this movie? It's perhaps not the one you would fall in love with, but neither is it the kind of the film that should make you regret the time spent watching. Anyway, has anyone ever seen "Open Water"? It nearly caused me a heartache and I definitely can recommend it to those who find all the movies made thus far about sharks boring! Dreadful! 8O

I'll be getting mine in about a week or so. But who nows since they have yet to put it in stock in here. Decca really takes its time with latest releases here...... Roman.-)

I already have the "standard" DVD released here a few years ago. Anything extra from Titanic is a very welcomed move, at least for me and in the very least it's more valuable to me than thousands of minutes of extras from LOTR, and I don' believe we've seen the end with LOTR already. Oh, can we still talk LOTR here...? R.-)

I swear I couldn't tell Star Wars main titles and Superman march one from the other when I heard them for the first time. It was as difficult as it ever gets with marches, but now I don't see how I could not see that they are two completely different things but were those the beginnings. I had had the same difficulty of distinguishing middle parts of movements of Mahler and Mozart symphonies as well. I think I learnt to understand music better with time. Daring to tell so, but I believe I have improved upon my sensing the music. I remember how I couldn't stand the music I heard in the Always and these days it' among my more favorites by Williams. Call it maturing… :-) Roman.-)

Star Wars (A New Hope) Accidental Tourist Nixon Angela's Ashes Schindler's List Sabrina Seven Years in Tibet and to a lesser extent E.T. (the first released version) The Lost World Minority Report Hook And the ones I know the least: Return of the Jedi Jurassic Park all Indy scores except perhaps the Doom score …other composers's works I know pretty well: The Sixth Sense Out of Africa Basic Instinct Edward Scissorhands Legends of the Fall Secondhand Lions I cannot think of more now… Roman.-)

I can enjoy both tonal and atonal scores and I don't think it weakness when there is no ode-to-joy-like theme in a score. It only depends how well they're written. I have though read many reviews in which fans and reviewers fall into despair for there being no clear stand-out theme in the score, as if film scores ought to always bring out a hummable theme regardless of the nature of the film for which the composer writes the music. I don't understand that. I believe that music can be enjoyed without blatantly tempting the listener with themes that bulk out as a pimple. It smells of slothfulness if people are in need of a nice theme in order to even consider listening to the score, let alone enjoying it. When we were children, we sure needed somebody to lull us with a melodic tune in order to fall asleep. And I wouldn't perhaps pick anything from this score to lull a baby. Time will tell whether John Williams is still enjoying writing strong, memorable themes. But first and foremost, there must come a movie to need something thematic. WotW, the movie, wasn't that case. Roman.-)

Thanks, nice reminder. I love all 3 featured in the poll more than Phoenix theme, but all are excpetionally strong themes in Williams' catalogue. But, one thing straight, I did not mean to hurt anyone's feelings with my previous post in this thread. It sounds as if I somewhat despised people loving strong melodies and thought them untrue fans. I worded it very badly. I admit it sounded as if I attacked Ray's and practically anyone's love for strong themes based around beautiful melodies. It's not how I perceive things, believe me. I only tend a lot toward atonal stuff as it seems… and nowadays I don't need a theme to have a heartbreaking melody to really fall in love with, like I used to some 10 years ago. But I still apologize for what I wrote in the post above… :oops:

I voted for Across the Stars. Not because it is a theme that appears in Star Wars. To me it always sounded beautiful but never anything like appropriate Star Wars music until I heard it incorporated into the third episode with its many classy variations. It is just a kicker! Anyway, even in each cue's basic forms (as appears in their title cues) that fight against each other in this poll, Across the Stars is the one I love a bit more than Phoenix Theme. If I were to judge the themes by the "beauty" of the melody, Fawkes has a catchier tonal backbone, and is perhaps easier to hum and more friendly to melody-lovers and casual soundtrack fans. But myself I consider Across the Stars a better theme in all aspects. It is just me, but what to expect from someone who is not that much melody-oriented and prefers structure and the whole concept of themes over the catchiness and tunefulness? Roman.-)

I must be deaf to like the RotS score that much than. I think it brilliant. The more I listen to it the more I love it. It has surpassed all Potter scores for me already, including the great third one. …..but if WotW turns out even better, are we getting another CE3K quality score? I think some things cannot happen more than once even in a life of master of writing for films.

Hi! Well, I have seen both first two episodes in theatres around the time they were released, but I have not watched the original trilogy yet (even though I read a lot about them so far :-) I don't have OT on DVD nor have I ever taped them from TV (although they were showing them twice thus far (the '97's reworks)), but they don't show these old series in theatres around here anymore. Which is a shame because I (always) basically prefer seeing the movies at theatres to home any experience. I hope to find a way to see the OT now that the third episode was finished and the continuity has been bridged. Roman.-)

I'm going down to the city this weekend to get the soundtrack. I wanted to buy it the last week when we went to the film's premiere in Prague but they didn't have it on that day. It was sold out by the time we got to the shop near the cinema palace. I still haven't figured out which version might I buy as there is more than one form available (with and without DVD if I get it right). Someone somewhere wrote that DVD extras are worth it if for nothing but the sound quality of the old scores cues. Roman.-)

Thanks for welcoming me back, Neil! I'm happy to be here again but still I can't drop by as often as in the past. I should hope for more regular postings in a bout a week or two as I still need to take care of few things in my life. It's been hard times… but some things in my life had been done with and it's sort of okay now. Roman.-)

I watched the Revenge of the Sith last Saturday and loved it! Went to two other screenings that day and realized what a great movie it is. In this point I must admit I think this third episode puts the first two to shame. As for the score --and I wish I would find more time to discuss it here-- I find it just plain brilliant from start to end. I do not own the soundtrack yet, but judged by hearing it in the movie, all the new themes are so good that they match the old great ones. The "sad" motif played a couple times there is as good as the Force Theme and I tell you the Force theme has been my favorite Star Wars theme. The violin solo is as if a cut-off from some heavy dramatic scene in a war movie, and it fits perfectly. The new theme heard largely during the final battle is better than Duel of the Fates. I just cannot find words. I am enjoying this kind of music from Williams most above all else. I have not been this pleased with a score since 93. I am truly loving this latest Williams work. Williams Walton would love this as well I believe. :-) And I am glad the choir stuff written for this film is huger and much better than that of LOTR movies. I was already beginning to fear JW got beaten by Shore as for the writing for the choir, but Episode III put my worries away. I cannot wait for the War of the Worlds…. Roman.-)

Depends on your judgment. For me, Howard Shore is not any more major than, say, Dave Grusin. I think it's up to each one of us. Makes the poll even more fun.

In one early episode (one made between 1989 - 1991) whose title I can't recall (it's where Poirot and Hastings go far by train to gather some testimony from an old woman living in the forlorn cottage surrounded by large meadows) there is music similar to what later made body of main theme to Vangelis' Conquest of Paradise. I bet Vangelis didn't intentionally borrow. He could have watched the episode, unintentionally memorized the tune that reappears a few times in the episode (but never more outside the particular episode) and when composing the main theme to Conquest, that memorized chord progression could have jumped into the quill while penning the music and there it was. Same as Beethoven transcribed some bird's melody line he heard during walks in the park into his famous opening of the fifth's. Work of subconsciousness.

Come on all ya avowed purists! What would film music sound like without "borrowings" from classical music? Despite many different genres used for scoring films, hasn't symphonic (orchestral) film music developed from classical music? I see no problem in that at all. I don't like this hidden reproachable attitude when all music that borrows is somewhat, you know, second class. What if Tschaikovsky or Mahler or Orff borrowed ideas from ancient works you may have never heard? Would that lower the works' value in your eyes? I'm not attacking you, Alex, just stumbled upon the hint at borrowings in your post and thought I should say what I think. Roman.-)

Always trust your ears and instincts and never let them sell you a system you are not allowed to hear! But just in case you care to know my opinion... The simpler the system, the better for ears and more true to reality. Stay away from wash-and-go systems that usually couple maximum imaginable comfort and features in one small chassis. Well, that is just my attitude but Sony's micro systems have usually very good sound and you can't go much wrong with them. Sony's miscros are sensitive to classical and acoustic music more than any comparable system of the same price category in general (Philips, AIWA, Kenwood, Panasonic) as they offer good detailed sound with no distractive boosts on mid and high frequencies to make recordings sound interesting. It usually means loss of quality where there is an attempt to spice-up the sound. Try keeping off from AIWA and JVC's as they prefer low frequencies above the rest of sound spectrum and if you're not strictly a die-hard dancefloor/techno music fan, you could find the sound artificially tinted. You can never go wrong going out to test the sound with RCA's 1997's release of Star Wars and ask them to let you play Binary Sunset and Princess Leia on different systems and you'll hear what you want in a flash of a moment. Roman, in love with Dynaudio (won't specify ) speakers and never heard strings and French horns sound any more true to the live performance experience.

Ooops, yay yay. It's about the best, not worst. So my apologies to Lotman. with whom I too concur... Oopss ups.

So I concur with Steef!

Am I entitled to disagree? Then please I would disagree with that as much as I can suppose you're referring to Poirot series with David Suchet starring, where the main theme is brilliant and so-called filler "underscore" differs more than you would expect from "a mere TV show" chapter by chapter.

One minute more and it could have been too late. Welcome back, then...!

Why do you think it's the worst one?

You better think thrice next time. You don't live that far from me, do you...? LOL

Nothing wrong with any of these. The World Is Not Enough is brilliant! Steef, any difference of opinion is the key to the way our music collections look like. They're not the same and that's fine. Anyway, especially with Basil it was hard to mark one as the "worst". Here I hope "the worst" doesn't imply "generally bad and unlistenably flubby, just picked the ones I think I like the least of all I know per each note penner. With Hans Zimmer, it was tough to pick just one.