Datameister

My appreciation for the Sky Captain OST has waxed and waned over time, but I currently have enough fondness for it to warrant buying the expansion. I'm also hoping that the full score will allow a little more room to "breathe", since the OST can be a little oppressive in its enthusiasm.

Yeah I'm excited, I've put off owning this score for way too long!

On somewhat of a whim, I just ordered La-La Land's expanded Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and their big Planet of the Apes multi-film box set.

All of the operatic stuff from The Fifth Element.

"The Creation" from Doyle's Frankenstein.

In the broad strokes, this is a totally valid point...but I will point out that Williams rewrote the beginning of the credits for Empire - everything up till the Rebel fanfare. It's still the same idea, but he changed the key signature, he cut off the opening trumpet fanfare rather than letting it continue to the downbeat of Luke's theme, he gave the melody of Luke's theme to the trombones (and woodwinds) instead of the horns (and woodwinds), and he had to reconfigure the trumpet line that ascends up into the Rebel fanfare, which is still in its original key. This new version was retained for every film that followed. The changes are significant enough to be factors in this conversation, as are the differences in the performances and recording/mixing for each film. That being said, ANH is edging it out over ESB for me at the moment, though they're both extraordinary.

Bummer!

I'm still seeing it...

I'm getting the same thing...odd...

Scale is relative. For the electron, making that jump between energy levels is pretty huge. And more importantly, there's no "in between" state, which is why the phrase is often used to refer to abrupt or extreme changes. Objects on a macroscopic scale don't literally exhibit this behavior, so you'll have to forgive me for using a much smaller metaphor.

TLW is one that sticks out for me. Its OST wasn't bad - there are other expansions that have saved scores from much worse treatment - but the wealth of great previously unreleased music keeps bringing me back to that one in particular. Other contenders for me would be POA and Superman, the former for reasons similar to TLW and the latter for the quantum leap in sound quality.

ESB and ANH consistently duke it out for first in my book. "Gut reaction" picks between those will vary depending on my mood. At the other end, TLJ is a definitive low point for me. There's some very good stuff in there, but the literal interpretation of the temp track and the stretches of tepid underscore make for a stark contrast with the other eight scores. I can't vote yet because I haven't listened to TROS outside of the film yet. But even once I've listened to that album, voting will be nearly impossible. I reeeeaaaaally like my Star Wars scores.

Absolutely! @Holko, I like that shot, too. In fact, performance-wise, Tarkin is great in the film.

In all fairness, the awesomeness of Jurassic Park's visual effects is due in part to the fact that they only used CGI for shots (or parts of shots) where puppetry, animatronics, and costumed performers couldn't get the job done. CG lets the dinosaurs run; practical effects let them come to life.

If I'd never seen Peter Cushing in my life, my reaction would have been, "Who's the random dude with the CG face?" Leia looked great for, like, a split second as she was turning around. In profile, I totally bought it. But the jig was up as soon as I got a good look at her, just like with Tarkin. Again, not dissing the insane amount of highly skilled artistry that goes into something like this. It just turns out that making a 100% convincing full-motion closeup shot of a computer-generated human face is just about the hardest thing a visual effects artist could try to do.