crocodile

If you listen very closely to the harp at the end under the final held brass notes, the album version has simple consistent ascending scales (1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9), but the film version pays with it a bit (1-break-2-break-3-4-5-6-7). The timing also differs a little. The opening is also a different take but just another great performance of the same material the same way. The middle (0:48-2:22) is the same take.
 
 
 
 
I've listened to the OST for this score at work not long before it was announced but wasn't entirely impressed. Then after the LLL ended up on... sites, I listened and liked it more but it was a bit much at first. Then I watched the movie for the first time (pretty fun, great screen presences, clever way to split the character into a young fighter and older detective) while following along with the tracklist, and then I felt I'd probably love this so I finally bought it. And I do.
 
Probably the most striking element on this first "proper" listen to me was the main Zorro theme - before the first proper cue ends, it's already ubiquitous, and completely obvious that this is the Zorro theme, as if it's been that since the silent movies and Disney series and all the others. I felt that Horner has done here what JW has for Superman and Elfman for Batman, but unlike with those there are no new takes on the character yet to live in its shadow.
 
Anyway, score's really fun and a really solid foundation, can't wait to hear Legend in 258 years when the AFM shit is revised!

So, since I bought Zorro, which is now the latest Horner score I own, and I was planning on relistening to a few of his scores anyway, I decided to just make it an all-out Horner marathon, going through all his scores I own!
 
Wrath of Khan (+ my Search for Spock suite) - It really already has it all, doesn't it? Gentle emotional stuff, TOS-esque underscore, Danger Motif and experimentation for Khan, and awesome action that really draws you in with its consistent tempo but changing emphasised beats, kickass theme usage, back and forth good guy/bad guy music, satisfyingly timed hits...
 
Krull - and here of course he just turns it all up to 11. "I have pretty much free reign and the LSO? Cool. Let's see how good they really are. I will break them." Thankfully they can keep up with the insane barrage of high-octane action, lush love theme and long-lined Korngoldian fanfares thrown out left and right! Man, I can't imagine what it must've been like to see this wunderkind come out of nowhere and immediately come to such career peaks in only a handful of years!
 
Cocoon - I adore the arc of this score, how all the hinted at themes come into their own and the sound grows from gentle beginnings to a tragic midpoint, a resolved heroic third act and a bittersweet farewell finale.
 
Aliens - It's Aliens. What else is there to say?
 
Willow - Again I love the arc of the score, the orchestral writing and also all the weird other sounds it incorporates.
 
Sneakers - Holy shit why am I not listening to this more? Wonderful minimalistic texturework, breezy fun and just enough tension.
 
Jumanji - Again I just love his creativity with textures and ability to create flow and tension even while somewhat restraindely underplaying the mayhem onscreen.
 
Titanic - What stood out to me this time was how much I now like all the deliberately used synth textures!

It was a very odd episode, very chaotic. I bet this will all lead somewhere. It's odd how it shofts between two different storylines.
 
And yes, Storm is one of the greatest characters. It's heartening to see her done right again. The live action version was so disappointing.
 
Karol

I went for a walk the other day and put on Call of the Wild. This score gets better every time I listen to it. It's very coherent and has a massive soaring heart. It's almost like a HTTYD but with banjos. I didn't exactly love it when it first came out but that has certainly changed.
 
Karol

I went for a walk the other day and put on Call of the Wild. This score gets better every time I listen to it. It's very coherent and has a massive soaring heart. It's almost like a HTTYD but with banjos. I didn't exactly love it when it first came out but that has certainly changed.
 
Karol

It's definitely a challenge, given how frustratingly incomplete and jumbled the score's presentation is. I'm not approaching any of the 9 as if they need any special defending. But in the case of TROS, I do feel I can offer a small corrective to what I see as a kind of mistreatment of Williams's swan song, both by the filmmakers and (more vexingly to me) the general public.
 
 
 
I doubt there will be an audiobook -- it'd be unprecedented if there were for this particular book series (the Oxford Music/Media line). Though who knows... with AI emulation these days, maybe someone could enter all the text in and have it read back to you in the voice of Ian McDiarmid!
 
There certainly will be an online companion though that has lots of short clips and such on it.
 
 
 
I'm sure I'll cite Kalinak's chapter somewhere, though it's not especially central to what I'm doing. I don't know Evensen's SW/Wagner work, though, trust me, that angle is something I've got plenty to say about. Particularly since I think a lot of the existing scholarly treatment of the Williams/Wagner connection is at best superficial. But the man is a black hole: get too close and he completely dominates whatever subject you thought you were writing about before. So I'm trying to take care to keep the focus on JW rather than him.

I went for a walk the other day and put on Call of the Wild. This score gets better every time I listen to it. It's very coherent and has a massive soaring heart. It's almost like a HTTYD but with banjos. I didn't exactly love it when it first came out but that has certainly changed.
 
Karol

I went for a walk the other day and put on Call of the Wild. This score gets better every time I listen to it. It's very coherent and has a massive soaring heart. It's almost like a HTTYD but with banjos. I didn't exactly love it when it first came out but that has certainly changed.
 
Karol

I went for a walk the other day and put on Call of the Wild. This score gets better every time I listen to it. It's very coherent and has a massive soaring heart. It's almost like a HTTYD but with banjos. I didn't exactly love it when it first came out but that has certainly changed.
 
Karol

I went for a walk the other day and put on Call of the Wild. This score gets better every time I listen to it. It's very coherent and has a massive soaring heart. It's almost like a HTTYD but with banjos. I didn't exactly love it when it first came out but that has certainly changed.
 
Karol

Got back home today after a couple of weeks and finally opened this delivery from Varese:
 

 
Karol 

Got back home today after a couple of weeks and finally opened this delivery from Varese:
 

 
Karol 

Travelling this morning and listening to John Williams' pastoral trilogy (of sorts): Heidi, Jane Eyre and The River. All quite lovely, I might add, but you all already knew that.
 
Also listened to @Taikomochi's excellent edit of Dial of Destiny. 
 
Karol

Travelling this morning and listening to John Williams' pastoral trilogy (of sorts): Heidi, Jane Eyre and The River. All quite lovely, I might add, but you all already knew that.
 
Also listened to @Taikomochi's excellent edit of Dial of Destiny. 
 
Karol

Guess I will need to update the thread title again... 🙄
 
Karol

Fantastic. A long overdue project. Congratulations Frank! 
 
Karol

Guess I will need to update the thread title again... 🙄
 
Karol

The happy news I cryptically alluded to last week is now something I can make official: I just signed a book contract with OUP for 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘬𝘺𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘚𝘺𝘮𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘦𝘴: 𝘔𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘳 𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘴!   It's a book it feels like I've been writing in my head for a long, long time -- since middle school, kinda? And unless Williams somehow returns to write another entry in the series, I'm treating it a chance to provide a properly 𝘴𝘺𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘤 investigation into these scores, all nine of them.   Even Rise of Skywalker?? 𝘌𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 Rise of Skywalker!   My hope is this book does some justice to the complexity, challenge, and sheer magic of this music.   Now, back to the grindstone!   https://www.facebook.com/Falstaft/posts/pfbid0L6wUjeDDxj6AmhwHh1f9obrVMJfYbPx4GJM8YaEWiZtqxwp37A88monPFVDxBQ26l  
Congratulations, @Falstaft!

Aliens. This a music from a man who is at the brink of murdering his director.
 
Karol

That is probably very true. It reminds me a bit of the situation with Ancient One in Doctor Strange in which director tried to avoid Asian stereotypes/charicatures by casting a white female in the role and ended up being accused of whitewashing. Whether his approached was right, it's a fair debate. But it proves that there's no avoiding criticism one way or another.
 
Karol

That is probably very true. It reminds me a bit of the situation with Ancient One in Doctor Strange in which director tried to avoid Asian stereotypes/charicatures by casting a white female in the role and ended up being accused of whitewashing. Whether his approached was right, it's a fair debate. But it proves that there's no avoiding criticism one way or another.
 
Karol

That is probably very true. It reminds me a bit of the situation with Ancient One in Doctor Strange in which director tried to avoid Asian stereotypes/charicatures by casting a white female in the role and ended up being accused of whitewashing. Whether his approached was right, it's a fair debate. But it proves that there's no avoiding criticism one way or another.
 
Karol

That is probably very true. It reminds me a bit of the situation with Ancient One in Doctor Strange in which director tried to avoid Asian stereotypes/charicatures by casting a white female in the role and ended up being accused of whitewashing. Whether his approached was right, it's a fair debate. But it proves that there's no avoiding criticism one way or another.
 
Karol

That, had they cast MENA actors, the same people would make the opposite criticism: "Look at how they hired MENA people only to put them in roles that ridicule Muslim religious fervour (Stilgar), demonise it (pretty much all the others), fetishize them and put a white saviour at their head."