Will

I've been looking forward to this score for a while, hoping Silvestri would return to his lovely sentimental style of Forrest Gump, Father of the Bride, etc. And for the most part, he didn't disappoint. I'm not an enormous fan of the themes, which feel a tad "cold" to me (I prefer Ready Player One and Pinnochio in that respect). But Silvestri's orchestration is excellent as always, and the score is a fascinating meld of his Avengers style and his more sentimental work (which I was not expecting). In the end, this score is a welcome throwback -- I know of few composers today who would write a soaring passage like this (even JW tends to stay slightly more restrained!):

Thank you! Appreciate the heads up. On the merits, I think this score falls well below the high bar set by Boys in the Boat--really, this one just has too many gloomy atmospheric passages (and electronic synths) for my liking. But there are several strong cues, the highlight certainly being 6M57 Grand Finale (esp. the final five minutes or so). There Desplat is really able to let the orchestra loose in a climactic moment of triumph.

The golf clips were a nice (very unexpected) surprise! I also really liked all the little clips from Spielberg's personal video collection ... although it also makes me wish even more that we could see longer excerpts. The scoring session clips are tantalizing but too short! Overall, though, a very well done documentary that I think does justice to JW's life and legacy, both within the film world and the broader musical one.

Just listened to White Bird. Overall, I'll admit it's a bit disappointing--feels like a missed opportunity for a truly great score. Nevertheless, there are some lovely moments. "Vive l’Humanité" is the highlight for me, with the music really soaring at the end:

It's NBC as usual--so of course they already have a longstanding relationship with JW.

I'm very late on this, but fascinating! Never knew this, but it makes sense. I agree with @Marian Schedenig above that "Summon the Heroes" is JW's best Olympic piece, as a purely musical matter. (The 1984 fanfare is still the one with the biggest emotional pull for me, and my favorite to hear on the TV broadcasts.) But even as "Summon the Heroes" has grown to become my favorite, I always felt like it was a bit disjointed--a string of brilliant musical ideas stitched together somewhat awkwardly. But the programmatic view makes a lot more sense of the transitions! It's a shame that NBC didn't use as much of the piece as in Games past, opting largely (though fortunately not entirely!) for the new "modernized" arrangements. But it's a marvelous piece--honestly, the orchestrations might be my favorite JW has ever done. The main theme is simple and catchy, but the writing is wildly exciting and even rather "daring," as Marian notes. Even after listening to it hundreds of times, I still discover ingenious little details in the orchestration, counterpoint, etc.

Well, it's easy as JW fans to get frustrated with Spielberg for taking so long between movies (by the time this one comes out it will have been 3.5 years since The Fabelmans) ... but perhaps in this case it's just as well given JW's health issue. If this were scheduled for next spring, it's not hard to imagine a Bridge of Spies-type situation. Hopefully the long wait ends up giving Williams plenty of time to recover (probably around a full year) and allows him to score this next fall/winter.

The timestamped portion is especially great (and sounds to me like it influenced JW, especially in his concertos).

https://filmmusicreporter.com/2024/08/08/alexandre-desplat-scoring-william-goldenbergs-unstoppable/ Amazing! Great to see Desplat doing another sports drama after his outstanding score for Boys in the Boat last year (in my view, one of his best scores ever).

Yeah I heard that too -- it's been used several times. But I agree it's clearly not JW. For those who don't know what we're talking about, you can hear some of it here: Fortunately, NBC is still making ample use of JW's original Olympic arrangements as well! Which is always excellent to hear.

While it's too bad that Spielberg waited so long to make his next film, I remain hopeful that JW will score this. The movie might be very heavily spotted and contain numerous intense action cues. But we don't know that's the case; for all we know, this could be a much more contemplative or philosophical take on UFOs. In other words, while this might be wishful thinking, there's no necessary reason to assume The Dish would present anything like the workload of The Rise of Skywalker or Dial of Destiny for JW. We'll see, I suppose -- fingers crossed!

Sadly, I'd have to think it's unlikely JW composed anything new, given that there is no mention of him in NBC's press release: https://www.nbcsports.com/pressbox/press-releases/steven-spielberg-stars-in-nbcuniversals-opening-film-to-welcome-viewers-to-the-paris-olympics. That said, it's nice to hear the promos use JW's existing music, and I hope the full four-minute film does too.

I'm wondering that too. Apparently Steven Spielberg filmed a four-minute intro for NBC's Paris Olympics coverage (https://www.nbcsports.com/pressbox/press-releases/steven-spielberg-stars-in-nbcuniversals-opening-film-to-welcome-viewers-to-the-paris-olympics), so at first I wondered if maybe JW had done a new arrangement for that. But the announcement doesn't mention JW, which would suggest he wasn't involved (surely if he was, they'd mention it...).

This is a super fun passage (variation on my favorite of Giacchino's themes from the first film):

It's definitely based on "Summon the Heroes" (the above video cuts off the beginning of the cue, which would make the association much clearer). Anyone who has a U.S. TV subscription can hear it (with dialogue, sadly) at 1:16 (one minute, 16 seconds) into this video: https://www.nbc.com/watch/olympics/trials-finals-w-100m-fly-m-400m-im-more/12004864. The whole bumper is about 15 seconds in length (the broadcast linked above then played the "Olympic Soccer" Summon the Heroes variation we've all heard). It was presumably recorded in 1996, I guess.