Mr. Who

Man of Steel (Zim Zim)
 
We watched Snyder's Justice League the other night. There are a lot of things it does well. Really well. But there was a little bit of me in the back of my brain that would occasionally say "We could be watching The Avengers right now."

But Holkenborg's score is merely functional. (I don't remember Elfman's score being any great shakes either.) It's there. It does score stuff. But man, when Zimmer's Superman themes come in all the hair on the back of my neck stands up. (As opposed to when he needle-drops the Wonder Woman theme where it's just recognition.)
 
No he's not Williams. The Beatles aren't Beethoven. (Zimmer isn't the Beatles either, it's a metaphor.) But he wrote arguably the most original Superman material since, what? The Fleischer cartoons? Even Williams was deriving from a decades long tradition of Superman fanfares. This is not to diminish the Williams score at all. It's perfect. You can't top it, you can't replace it. So Zimmer is one of the first composers to have the nerve to go around it.
 
So I'm listening to the sketchbook. Something I haven't done much over the last 11 (!) years. Partly because it took a while to realize that there is a lot more thematic work going on here than I first recognized. (Why listen to a thirty minute track when I can just go to What Are You Going to Do When You Are Not Saving the World?) I think this is because a lot of it is buried under very frantic action music. But also because most of the themes sounds a lot closer to each other than Zimmer's Superman theme which is so different. So it might seem that there is The Theme and then Everything Else. Which just isn't true. I mean, there's even a little snippet of a love theme. (You want to talk about the unclimbable mountain? Write something better for Superman and Lois than Can You Read My Mind!)
 
Over the years (and in part because of Justice League) I've really come to appreciate Zim's Krypton music. It's noble, menacing, and doomed sounding all at the same time. This is kind of ZImmer's last gasp at writing a melody instead of a soundscape and Krypton has a foot more firmly in the soundscape with a couple of low, impressive bass notes. But it's not so far removed that it becomes the next Inception bwaaaaaaaam.
 
And then there is the Superman Theme. It's so... Gentle. (And then it builds, of course.) I still remember the first Man of Steel trailer that introduced the theme and thinking "Oh. Damn. There might be something here!" I think Williams' theme feels like watching Superman. I think Zimmer's theme (especially the opening) feels like BEING Superman. And Clark Kent. And Kal-El.
 
I'm really glad we have both. I'm probably going to go listen to the LLL Superman now.

Fantastic episode! I'm loving all of Daemon's Harrenhal scenes, as I feel they give the castle a really unsettling and eerie vibe that it didn't have the previous times we saw it. Also, I'm really liking Aegon as a character this season. I don't entirely side with him but he's such a complex, tragic and sad character and Tom Glynn-Carney's portrayal is really layered and makes you emapathize with him.
 
And then the battle at the end was amazing. All of Cole's and Ser Gwayne's strategies and battle plans are worthless when confronted with the sheer force of a dragon. The scale of it all, the way it's portrayed on screen, the building tension, it was a horrifying yet oddly beautiful sequence. It is indeed portrayed like the dragons are dancing in the air when the lock their claws and are spinning around spitting fire. The humans on the ground cannot do anything more than run for their lives and try to escape the devastating dragon fire.
 
The direction, production design and acting on the whole episode and those final minutes in particular were amazing, as was Djawadi's music, who continues to deliver an amazing and emotional score episode after episode that I cannot wait to listen on its own!

Season 2 x Episode 4 - The Red Dragon And The Gold
 
Uuuhm, that was fucking intense!
Fantastic episode with a final 15 minutes that were phenomenal! I'm very very sad though.
 
I loved the connection between Rhaenys & Meleys. The final few looks Meleys & Rhaenys gave each other and throughout the whole battle was very special I thought. It really showed a certain connection between dragon and rider we haven't seen before. Not even between Daenerys & Drogon I think.
Eve Best completely owned this role and was maybe my favourite of the whole series, so I'm really sad to see her go. Great role and great performance.
 
The whole battle was really well done. Incredible tension throughout and what a joy to see such a big dragon battle in broad daylight. Made the whole experience even better. The battle just kept building and building. First Rhaenyrs arrives, then Aegon comes in and ruins the plan of Aemond & Cole. But that Aemond just chose to burn Sunfyre, just because he might take out Meleys as well, was brutal.
Also really loved seeing the different sizes of the dragons next to each other. We knew Vhagar was big, but to see her next to Meleys, which is the second biggest was quite scary actually. Vaghar really is just a beast.
 
The way the battle on the ground doesn't really matter anymore once a dragon is in play, was shown very well. As soon as a dragon appears there is chaos on the ground, people don't care anymore about their allegiance, it's just about not being burned alive.
 
Djawadi did some really amazing stuff with the music. His Dance Of Dragons theme fully explored here and I thought it packed quite the punch. Can't wait for the album.

Why are you posting about it then? He was Cameron's second hand and many people know him from all the behind the scenes documentaries of Cameron movies.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C6XJmtYPPsp/?igsh=MTNzbjkzZDZ3cDI3dg%3D%3D&img_index=1
 
This post is from April so it’s most likely complete.
 
Ridley is now hard at work swapping the bulk of it out. 

From The Guardian yesterday:
 
 

Why are you posting about it then? He was Cameron's second hand and many people know him from all the behind the scenes documentaries of Cameron movies.

Why are you posting about it then? He was Cameron's second hand and many people know him from all the behind the scenes documentaries of Cameron movies.

Why are you posting about it then? He was Cameron's second hand and many people know him from all the behind the scenes documentaries of Cameron movies.

WHAT, NO NEW JW RELEASE?! That's it, life isn't worth living anymore.

Yeah I don’t know why movie length is seen as such an issue. Can people seriously not go 4 hours without going to the bathroom? Maybe don’t drink a litre of soda in the first hour of the movie and it’ll be fine 😅
 
Now I was a bit bored by Snyder cut the one time I watched it but for movies like LOTR extended, Avatar, Oppenheimer, KOTFM etc I’ve never had issues.

Wonder Woman 1984. I absolutely adore this score from Zimmer but was never quite satisfied with the album. On the other hand, the sketch/demo album offered some nice tracks that would help to flesh out some ideas (Cheetah theme, for example). It's 2 hours and 24 minutes long but I feel it flows better overall. This is my OST album from now on:
 
No Hero Is Born from Lies (track 2 from Sketches album) --- serves as an overture Themyscira Games 1984 Barbara Minerva (track 5 from Sketches album) Black Gold Wish We Had More Time The Monkey Paw (track 4 from Sketches album) --- OST track The Stone feels like a shortened version of this so I eliminated it Cheetah Fireworks Lost and Found (originally bonus track 18 on the OST) Anything You Want Open Road Dechalafrea Ero (track 6 from Sketches album) Without Armor The White House Apex Predator (track 3 from Sketches album) Already Gone Citrine (track 8 from Sketches album) Radio Waves Lord of Desire The Beauty in What Is Truth 84 (track 1 from Sketches album) --- feels almost like a MOE! In Love (track 7 from Sketches album) The Amazon (track 11 from Sketches album)  
Karol

What is Cersei Lannister doing in the movie? 

I'm very, very wary of this.
 
The whole man-of-the-earth aspect of Crowe's Maximus - embodied in the way he rubs the dirt in his hands - is as close as things in movies go towards being sacroscant. I don't see why Lucius should pick it up as a habit.
 
In general, still shot after still shot here look ripped out of Gladiator, with different faces. I mean, they look good because Gladiator is a damn-fine-looking motion picture, but...

Hopefully Nolan doesnt have a 2026 film.
 
It worked out great that Oppenheimer was 2023 and Dune 2 is 2024 so they don't steal Oscars from each other

The score is fantastic. Saw the movie and didn't even know who the composer was until I figured it out by "sounds professional yet chameleonic...must be McNeely or Debney. And since I'm not watching a Tinkerbell movie, by the process of elimination..."

The inclusion and focus on Hogwarts was for instance an idea that came from the producers and not her. She wrote multiple drafts of the first one in co junction with Steve Kloves and the producers and director. She originally didn’t want to feature Hogwarts. The third film has very little to do with her original intention and several things were cut from the second film. Film is a collaborative medium so I’m sure the stories would have been quite different, had she written the FB series as books first and not as movies first.
I’m a huge fan of Djawadi’s work. He’s very versatile and has such a great sense of thematic variation and development! It would certainly be interesting to hear his take on HP but I would prefer JNH to do it because of his sound and history in the wizarding world! 

The inclusion and focus on Hogwarts was for instance an idea that came from the producers and not her. She wrote multiple drafts of the first one in co junction with Steve Kloves and the producers and director. She originally didn’t want to feature Hogwarts. The third film has very little to do with her original intention and several things were cut from the second film. Film is a collaborative medium so I’m sure the stories would have been quite different, had she written the FB series as books first and not as movies first.
I’m a huge fan of Djawadi’s work. He’s very versatile and has such a great sense of thematic variation and development! It would certainly be interesting to hear his take on HP but I would prefer JNH to do it because of his sound and history in the wizarding world! 

Perhaps wanting a more complete, faithful adaption is why she's keen for a TV series, and reportedly more heavily involved this time.
 
And she's a smart woman, she knows the compromises that are sometimes necessary in adaptation. Given the time constraints of film, I think enough of Riddle's backstory is in the film to give Voldemort context. 

I was waiting for the Targaryen theme to soar when Daemon left Dragonstone, but that cue was still powerful without it. I'm also waiting for Rhaenyra's themes, but they're more associated with her as a child so I don't expect to hear them that much again

Djawadi's scoring continues to be elevated further for this series. The music during the opening stretch of the the latest ep, and over the funeral scene, is very very good. I love the use of extended techniques on the strings, so textural, eerie and upsetting. He's built on the success of cues like "Light of the Seven" and injected some shades of The Green Knight, it works really well.

Agreed. I watched on the train at 7am. The sound of the sawing will stay with me while!
 
 
Yeah, I can see the logic behind the change with it and Alicent. I think a lot of people forget that the Dance is pretty sparsely sketched out. Ryan Condal has to expand what he has and add characterisation. I think he's doing a great job so far. 
 
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms started filming this week. Great to have Westeros back in Belfast. Must pop up around the Titanic Quarter soon 

I’m fine with the book change and don’t really have complaints. The scene was really well executed and filmed. You felt the horror completely.
 
I do think they maybe should have shown Darmon specifically say that he wants a head, a son for a son but it’s a minor nitpick as it was implied.

It's great that nobody in here is focusing on the change from the books for Blood and Cheese. Some people have fixated on it too much but it's clear from reading this thread that people were suitably horrified by what was actually in the show.