Cerebral Cortex

So is this the guy who was asking for Williams' address a couple months ago?

That was friggin' great. And great to see Williams in good shape, considering this was only last week!
 
I love how he appears in a mix between a wizard and with his hand in his pocket like a true jazzman. Amazing.

I like to think that Williams has a closet filled with nothing but almost identical looking turtlenecks all tagged different things like "for scoring," "formal," or "casual," and which one he wears is dependent on which situation he feels he will be confronted with that day. 

Yeah, it could be really interesting if a chunk of the film did involve watching the teachings of both Luke and Snoke. It would be the perfect opportunity to see the Dark and Light sides running a parallel dialogue where you see the differences and similarities. Luke could say something to Rey, and then in a later scene Snoke is eerily giving a similar lesson to Ren: countering what we heard earlier from Luke or what we might remember from Obi-Wan and Yoda, twisting it, putting it in a different context...and sometimes merely repeating it verbatim, which would be the most interesting. And then you go back to Luke and he's doing the same thing.

Heh, what a sweet guy.

Here is a very good quality clip of the opening dozen minutes or so of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's live to picture performance of Raiders of the Lost Ark, conducted by Richard Kaufman.  Was this the one that you attended, Will?
 
 

Indeed I did attend this exact performance - this video brings back happy memories.  I had chills all over during "Flight from Peru."

I'd watch a film about this guy and his planet.
 

 
 
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Max_Rebo/Legends
 
The Max Rebo Story starring Jonah Hill.

Short but nice analysis of Rey's theme and its relationships with other themes:
 
 

I hadn't seen this before -- WOW!
 
As if we needed any more evidence but... John Williams is a genius.

It's honestly just really heartening to see an orchestra taking the music seriously like that. Rather than put their conductor in a Darth Vader costume and Stormtrooper helmets on all the musicians, they instead took advantage of the audience's familiarity with Star Wars for a little motivic analysis. Beautiful.

JJ had me at, "beep beep beep beep"

McGann toasts his Big Finish audio adventures companions during The Night Of The Doctor, making them canon too.     

 


Martin Freeman's ageing badly. 

I thang yew. 

The best solution is to re-release FOTR as a 4 disc set, where discs 1-3 are the same format as before only with all the tracking and editing undone, with the original intended mixes instead of final film mixes with lower choir (basically: Rebuild the complete score from scratch from start to finish from pristine studio elements, don't take anything from the film's music stem), and have disc 4 be a collection of alternate versions.  Start right with the alternate prologue and go chronologically through the film until you end with the NZSO finale cue (unless there is some alt end credits stuff worth including too).  
 
Now THAT would be a killer 4CD set (and the gem of my film score collection).

Chris Hemsworth with reprise his role as George Kirk and have scenes with James Kirk, so it seems time travel will be involved.
 
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/scifi_movies/star_trek/it-sounds-like-thor-ragnaroks-chris-hemsworth-will-return-a143513

They're totally different composers though, so I don't really understand the comparisons. I think both composers have had knock-out scores that replay heavily on my iPod, so that's what matters to me.

Speaking of emotional maturity...

lol

 
And also, yeah, you can pre-order it now: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019G8GZOG/?tag=trekcore-20

Speaking of emotional maturity...

The only truth in anything that concerns both Williams and Giacchino is that they are 2 separate human beings. That's where the facts stop. Anything after that is all personal opinion. I happen to believe that Giacchino is sensational and I have felt the same wonder, excitement, and emotional connection to Giacchino's output, as I have to Williams.
 
Of course Williams has happened to score so many of my all-time favourite films, and so I am far more connected to his music through those childhood obsessions, but that doesn't remove or disprove the fact that, to me, Giacchino has managed to create the same sense of adventure, magic and power that I have felt from Williams since birth. I am not drawn to Giacchino because of his cool clothes. He has made me a big fan because of his music reaching out to me. Simple as that.
 
Anywho, Desplat has proven time and time again to me that he will nail Rogue One. Not only because of his admiration and respect for Williams, but mostly because of his ability to write strong themes, and to use memorable melodies in both his emotional and action writing. Rise of the Guardians alone is his job application for Star Wars.

It means that at least it does its job, which is the very least it should do.
Giacchino generally gets at least that right. Zimmer does not. Not always.
 
It is all personal preference though, isn't it? In general, I prefer old-fashioned orchestral music over more modern sensibilities (with exceptions, of course).
And I don't mind at all if composers take inspiration from Williams and then write something similar that is also enjoyable in its own right.
I prefer that over a "unique voice" that isn't very aurally pleasing to me.
 
Is Giacchino as good as Williams? Probably not. I don't think he has written anything on the level of Cutthroat Island or Independence Day yet.
But he does generally write music that I quite like listening to. Which is good enough for me.

‘Star Trek’ Is Right About Almost Everything

Yesterday while traveling I managed to continue the two above traditions. 
 
I actually almost forgot to listen to Midway March, but fortunately I remembered while sitting in the plane waiting to take off. 
 
And then I Can Fly Anything: I tried to sync real-world take off with Finn and Poe's TIE fighter take off and it was marvelous. Williams's action music is so fun and exhilarating. I was trying very hard to suppress a silly grin from breaking out on my face. 

TWR's log, Stardate 94137.26.  I've never trusted critics.  And I never will.  I can never forgive them for the treatment of Interstellar.  It seems to me our mission to enjoy this movie and score is problematic at best.  David Ehrlich says this could be an historic occasion, and I'd like to believe him, but how on Earth can history get past people like me?