Will

Blood Boal keeps just beating Jay. 
 
Thank you both though.

Yep.
 
An excellent little motif, may I say.

you know, you're not wrong.
 
on the video of Fantastic Beast's main theme there's a really upvoted comment simply saying:
 
"This score is lit"

I don't have any idea what you just said in the above post.
 
I am old, Jason. I don't look it, but I am beginning to feel it in my heart of hearts. Well-preserved indeed! Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can't be right. I need a change, or something.

That's contrary to what Spielberg said, isn't it? Spielberg said before that Lucas was executive-producing, and that he wouldn't do it without Lucas involved.

You're a good American, Will!

Sexist!

Well, this is a bit better.

Completely unrelated to Giacchino's work (because I haven't heard it yet), I must agree with the suggestion of withholding epic choirs unless it is for a very good story reason.
There is so much "epic" music these days that there is very little contrast.
It is virtually not possible to "go more epic for the finale" because it all started epic to begin with.
Bit overkill, really.
 
By contrast, I like scores like Cutthroat Island and Independence Day that definitely feature choir that is very epic when it cuts in, but it doesn't happen all that often.
Mainly just for special scenes (revelations of sorts) and the finale. Works pretty well!

Actually, it's the only one of his movies where we see the subjective viewpoint of a child. In his other movies, Spielberg was always the narrator. In Empire Of The Sun the narrator is Jamie. We are seeing HIS innocent, rose-tinted reality, and that's why the narration is, in fact, unreliable. People didn't expect this approach from Spielberg. That's why Empire Of The Sun has been severely misunderstood at the time it played in theatres.
 
 
Alex

That's for this thread:
 
 

SWRTFAN.COM!

They also released the 'Rogue Mix' - a custom version that was used in the trailer
 
 

I don't watch the NBC News unless I'm in a mental hospital and Nightly News is the only source of Williams music.
 
But I love the NBC News music!

Can you enjoy film music if you don't connect to the film? Absolutely. As Loert simply put it: "at the end of the day, music is sound," and if you're able to experience any sort of positive emotional arousal whatsoever that stems strictly from it alone than you obvious don't need the visual accompaniment of film to aid in your enjoyment of said sound. There are numerous films that I have only heard the soundtracks to and, for better or worse, not seen the actual films themselves.

So, yes, you can enjoy a score if you yourself don't connect to a film. Additionally...

As was brought up several times a couple months ago in the thread Bad film, Brilliant Scores, many a bad film hath given rise to a multitude of incredible scores. Often times, the very enjoyment of these scores necessitates you having to separate the music from the film. In these instances, the film and music relationship is almost parasitic, in that a terrible film is leeching off of its great score in hopes of achieving a sort of illusion or semblance of quality within the picture. In some cases, the music is all a bad film has going for it. Goes back to what @Taikomochi said about how "Williams was compensating" during the scoring of the Star Wars prequel trilogy because the films themselves were (or at least have been deemed by most as being) incredibly poor. In AOTC, the relationship between Anakin and Padmè as portrayed on film is an atrocious attempt at trying to show the "romance" that exists between star-crossed lovers, and the film figuratively tries to leech off of the music, which actually does do a great job of portraying that kind of relationship, to help compensate for the visual deficiencies. I enjoy the scoring, but really have to separate myself from the film in order to reach maximum enjoyment. Thinking of the film alongside listening to the score only really just ends up killing the figurative phonic boner I was getting. Hey, look! I'm getting all long-winded. This is exciting. 

I say this because, while I feel you can have a bad film that doesn't affect your enjoyment of its score, a great film can undoubtedly permanently improve your enjoyment of a score. 

Take 0:22 to 0:55 or so of The Road Goes Ever Pt. I.

A phenomenal little musical moment. Heard solely without picture accompaniment, it is able to stand unwavering on its own as a simply fantastic and phenomenal musical moment. But, without picture, I can only hope to guess what the music is saying, what picture it is hoping to conjure in my mind. To some, I suppose trying to guess and theorize what the musical intent was on behalf of the composer might prove more enjoyable. But I myself like being a bit more certain. 
 

With the visuals firmly attached, context is established and what the music is trying to say becomes infinitely more clear. It's about a hero about to embark on a journey he doesn't by any means want to embark on, a journey which by all considerations will most likely cost him his life, but, with the help of his friend, he has chosen to take on regardless. Friendship, bravery, adventure. That's what the music was originally trying to say! Before I could only guess what it was trying to say, but now I am certain. And now that I have visuals I have the added benefit of being able to gauge how effectively the music was able to convey those themes. It goes without saying it even does. 

And because I now know what the music was trying to say, because I know the visual experience it was accompanying, I find now that my engagement, appreciation, and enjoyment for that bit of music has been significantly heightened. I didn't need the film to connect to it, but (since it was a good film) it definitely helped. 15+ years later, I am unable to separate the music from the film for this moment because the two have become so intrinsically linked to me that they have become a singular moment of enjoyment for me. The emotional core is shared between both the visuals and the audio, with both supporting one another to convey meaning. 

Perhaps all this is stupendously obvious, and I'm just stating what goes without saying. If that is the case, I apologize for wasting your time. 

That's actually a very good way to put it.

Well, Quintus defined "epic" as follows in the first post:
 
 
I think that this last bit leaves a lot of room for "epic" to be subjective, if we are using this definition. 
 
When I think of "epic" I think huge brass, maybe huge chorus too, probably like you BloodBoal ... but what Quintus mentioned near the end is a feeling I have often when listening to film music/watching films, and is much more important to me than "big" cues. Perhaps "epic" isn't the right word, though... 
 
Anyway I'd guess @Nick1066 was referring more to the "downright poetic" feeling than a feeling of sheer, incredible power ... although I could be wrong.
 
So just depends how you define epic.

I don't know if it's epic, but it felt that way to me at the time...the first piece of film music I ever fell in love with...Ben's Death and TIE Fighter Attack.  Such a perfect marriage of film and music that left an indelible impression on me.  It was because of the first 60 seconds of that piece that I bought the Star Wars soundtrack and it represents everything I got into film music for in the first place.

This Duracell commercial features "Attack on Jakku Village" and "I Can Fly Anything" including Poe's theme 
 
 
Dumb little bit of non-news but with more and more Star Wars promos featuring trailerized music, it's always nice to see they haven't totally forgotten what's good.
 
EDIT: Ha, I see Will already posted this in the R1 thread. Don't mind me.

Oi! Take that drivel elsewhere, where it belongs! 
 
The final track, "Kangaru", sounds lovely.