Will Tasker

I have it on good authority that the 30 minutes of unused music is all alternates from Heartbeeps, used for every BB-8 scene.

How'd I forget about AI? That definitely is in my top 3!

Whats everyone's favorite album releases - new or old - that came out this year? With the exception of not hearing The Force Awakens yet, my three favorites (in order from "least" to "greatest") are LLL's Millennium Volume 2 (Mark Snow), Varese's Jupiter Ascending (Michael Giacchino) and Intrada's Killing Season (Christopher Young).

More power to him. Obviously, its a case by case basis.

Interesting! I like both scores though find I'm happy with John Carter if I listen to the first five tracks and then the End Credits cue. Jupiter Ascending seems to have more going for it? JC - for all its many strengths - reminds me of someone's review of Patrick Doyle's The Last Legion, that every cue sounds like the climactic cue to the final scene in the film. Obviously a case of "your mileage may vary".

I legitimately like Giacchino's early stuff A LOT - but something happened after he worked on Lost where his orchestrations became annoyingly simple? Or lacking in some sort of orchestral building somehow. A perfect example is Speed Racer, which has these incredible moments of melody and ideas - but lack because they're lacking in either counterpoint or harmony. His Star Trek stuff (which I'm not a fan of at all) also sounds a bit too much like late Horner to me. Jupiter Ascending was a few steps in the right direction. His Apes score wasn't bad but I don't remember a damn thing about it (or the movie) either.

I approve.

You wouldn't go there if you knew the person who was running it. You?I know you're making a joke here but if you did a Google search, you'd find the person running that site is the lowest form of scum you'll ever come across. So pardon my outright level of offense to your flippant ignorance.

You wouldn't go there if you knew the person who was running it.

Huh. I didn't think an analogy would fall under the banner of religious mention but... Well, I'll refrain from it in the future.

Lucas is a very easy to understand kinda guy. The best thing about him is that he's stuck in 1976. The problem is the rest of the world has moved on and grown cynical (but not grown up - shit, we've probably regressed) and he hasn't really changed at all. The stupid fun things we'd have liked as kids in 1983 - double-bladed lightsabres! Christopher Lee! Big spaceship battles! - are now par the course for everyone from Luc Besson on up. And for all the problems with the Prequel trilogy, you can tell Lucas was trying hard to keep everything fresh. I've always said the original Star Wars movies were like the New Testament, and the prequels were Lucas going back to write the Old Testament to fill in blanks and lend greater credence to the stuff he first released. Admittedly, he took that to an unnecessary extreme - the Bluray edits are bloody absurd, lets be honest - but at the same time, Lucas was trying not to rehash his stories in the prequels. Story elements? Yes - Jedi and spaceships and the elements that make Star Wars what it is - but he also was writing a WWI scenario for the universe (making the original trilogy more WWII I guess?) with Trade Embargoes and all that. And when people didn't like it, he tried to make them happy - I swear to God, Episode II is a fucking mess but its written with all these things that has Lucas all but pleading with his audience to like him. Jango Fett is literally there just because teenagers think Boba Fett is cool. That sorta thing. And when it didn't work out and people criticized the prequels to an insane extent - he said "Fuck you" and left the table. I don't blame him, really, since the internet makes me say "Fuck you" on a daily basis. As to the Episode VII thing, well, maybe I'm a contrarian but I really don't give two rat-fucks about it in terms of story. The moment you remove the creator's original plan - be it good OR bad - you lose the intent and none of it matters. Proof of point: this new film seems to be recycling another "Death Star scenario", which is something everyone complained about with Return Of The Jedi 30 years ago. More of the same, but because it doesn't have Lucas attached, everyone is going to love it. And now Disney is going to whore out Star Wars just like it is Marvel and people will be sick to tears of it in about five years. Call me cynical but I liked Star Wars when it was being run into the ground by its creator instead of a faceless mouse on a far mountaintop who was playing for the cheap seats of fandom nostalgia.

I think this is mainly caused by Lucas' reportedly unsympathetic way to work with actors (one can easily tell from the footage in the documentaries), and having so few elements to work with. There were a lot of sets that consisted mainly on green or blue screens, and in this kind of situation you need a director with deep artistic insight and even motivational skills to help the performers. Of course, actors like Ian McDiarmid didn't seem affected by these issues, but they are also more experienced, and with considerable background in theatre work. I largely agree with this. I'm a pretty ardent defender of Lucas (though I acknolwedge his faults and the faults of the prequels and all that) and find the VERY haphazzard set-up and execution of the dreadful droid factory scene in Episode II (which shows Lucas lacking in directorial skills when talking to Portman) - but at the same time, like you said, some of the actors did a much better job. McGregory, McDiarmid, Neeson - they all did very well with their scenes. I always laugh at Ewan McGreggor's so-coy-its-forced "Thats... what I'm here for!" line in Episode II, which sold me on him as an actor of quality versus Portman's dinner theater rehearsal of "UR BREEKING MAH HART".

Probably because they were laughing too! Portman is a pretty bad actress, truthfully. She's doing the same schtick she's done since that Luc Beson film that started her career. McGreggor can basically sell ice to eskimos without even trying, so its a little unfair in terms of talent in that scene.

After Abrams attempted to (legally) hijack Trek from Paramount in a game of chicken, I'm a bit worried he got his way with this franchise instead. Hopefully Disney will keep their wits about them.

Is Bad Robot involved? I know Abrams is directing, but he's "for hire" on a franchise owned by Disney.

It all will be there. And fans who love Williams album assemblies won't care either way. 35 to 40 minute highlight reel is really all we need from a SW score after all. I half-agree with you. I'm still reminded that the first half of Indy 4's jungle chase isn't on the album and that still sticks in my craw.

I took the 18th off - more for taking a day to listen to the score - but I might sneak off to see it? If not then, then I have a lot of leave time between Christmas and New Years...

Obviously not. The only Williams most (nearly all) of them have ever heard of is John, not Vaughan, who's even more obscure than the likes of Victor Young and Erich Korngold (who they probably don't know any more of than Vaughan Williams). Nor should they necessarily know much about any of them, either. Not everyone delves as deeply into this particular hobby as many of us do. Some people just like hearing music from the movies they know. I'd have to disagree. The English have a much stronger pull toward history and their own culture than you think. The rest of the world does not eye classical music as suspiciously as people in the United Stated who are historically very anti-intellectual (and anti-history) in many regards. Classical and jazz and rock and pop are all intermixed culturally in most locales; just not here in the states where people are more often than not simply "into the newest thing".

IF thats a fake... then its a good one. Those sound pretty genuine. The soundclips are hard to say...

Is there a US equivalent to this website? I'd like to save a little coin if I can order within the US... ALSO

Great avatar, Ricard!

I know you're being flippant but the thing to remember is that RVW's The Lark Ascending is repeatedly voted in the UK as the most beautiful piece of classical music ever written. You'd think these same voters would know about, I dunno, Scott of the Antarctic?

I'm amazed anyone is taking any British poll seriously that leaves off any of Ralph Vaughan Williams's film music. The prologue to The 49th Parallel alone is better than 90% of what they listed. This is obviously just another list of "what do you remember" instead of any argument to actual quality.

Its not actually Episode VII music but music written specifically for the new Battlefront game! This seems to be from the demo...?

Tintin was a fun diversion I thought. It didn't change my life but it was a fun popcorn flick.