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PokeDocMatt

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Posts posted by PokeDocMatt

  1. The crawl… goodness. Just a block of text sliding up the screen. At least make it fade into the distance. And what was that opening bridge scene, Star Trek?? There was something else off with the first episode… oh yeah. Let’s spend three minutes watching a video game style solve a puzzle to reveal the treasure. Added nothing to the character or plot. 
     

    Still, I have hope. 

  2. 1. MI:3. Stakes are set high from the opening act with the death of his protege. It’s personal. Saving humanity is the secondary plot. This is Ethan at his best when the things most dear are threatened. Great score to boot!

    2. Rogue Nation.  Because there is a flute gun!

    3. Ghost Protocol. Great fun! 
    4. The Original

    5. Fallout. It’s fine. It just doesn’t know what it wants to be. 
    6. The utterly ignorable MI:2. 

  3. I watched the Criterion 4k edition of The Piano last night. With the mute main character, the amount of silence in the film and the slow pacing was even more reliant on the score by Michael Nyman. It’s lovely music but it is bizarrely anachronistic. If they would have developed the “traumatized musical genius” as an explanation for the way Ada plays the piano, maybe I would have understood it. But it was just distracting from an otherwise gorgeous and aesthetically consistent film. 
     

    Maybe the more modern piano music with unusual tonal shifts and chord progressions was intentional. That’s probably the case. But assuming it was an unintentional decision and not specifically artistic, I wonder if it was Nyman  or Campion who just didn’t know better. 

  4. I picked up 4k Avatar 1 and 2 for my home theater room. Started 1 tonight. I’m impressed at how well it has aged, from a technical/visual standpoint. There are so many gorgeous shots, it makes me wish Cameron would have lingered on them longer. Dolby atmos is enthralling from the first few seconds. Horner’s score is still goosebump inducing. When Jake first transfers to his Avatar and is running, I feel it with him, the new world that’s just been opened up to him. The score makes this Wizard of Oz esque about face, from black and white milataristic hopelessness, to full color audio, organic and full of life. 
     

    I can’t wait to watch Way of Water again. My first viewing at my rural, crappy, under-maintained theater was a let down. I’m sure the experience will be better at home. I think  Tom Cruise would even understand if he saw what I had to put up with at the local cinema… 

  5. 59 minutes ago, Jay said:

    Along the way I found another shrine, and also my first well.  I had no idea what to expect, but it's kind of neat that they are apparently just little rooms with some loot inside and then you just ascend back out.  The planning that must have been involved so you can ascend out anywhere but still have the above ground area make sense...

    I always spend the first few seconds in a well looking around trying to figure out how I’m going to get out. Then I remember… :whistle:
     

    I found Hoz leading a merry little militia on their way to attack a fort and joined in the assault. That was fun! I think he said they were planning another raid, but I’ll just wait to come across them in my slow explorations again. 

  6. 41 minutes ago, Jay said:

    Or if you mean the final ascent, I exited some cave and there was a vine I could climb up, the only surface that wasn't slippery

    Ah yes. I think my kid and I were too eager to build something! Going to be a mixed bag with the many solution options. We’ll probably brute force a slow painful solution too often!!

  7. 50 minutes ago, Jay said:

    Another two hours or so in, 

     

    The game definitely throws a lot at you in the starting area; not just the three abities but all the Zonai device building, Zonai charges, Zonaite (looks like there's gonna be more currencies to worry about than in BOTW), etc. I feel like I got the hang of some things and others I'm kinda winging it for now

     

    I made my way up to the Ascend shrine and got that to end the night. Along the way it was interesting to see how caves work. And a had a aha moment where I realized why there's so many rocks lying around everywhere; I kept picking them up looking for koroks or gems underneath, but now I realize it's to fisetonto weapons! It seems like they changed the weapon durability by making it easier to make any weak weapon stronger. I'm already a bit overwhelmed with all the combo possibilities but I'm sure it won't be long until I find some go-tos.

     

    Im glad the koroks are back, I've found one hiding, and two others I had to reunite with their friends. It'll be interesting to see how early you find a way to trade them in, and if what you get is the same as BOTW. 

     

    I have to say my biggest issue now is the lack of a glider. I had another moment when I fell to my death; I was up high and wanted to get to the ground below. I though the height wasn't enough to kill me; I was wrong. I can't wait to be able to fall to safety again - and glide across gaps. 

     

    Looking forward to leaving the starting area when I resume. I used up all my cold resistant food getting to the shrine, so hopefully I can get down to warm weather without freezing to death... (I did find a one-use cooking pot, so I'll use that if I have to) 

    Jay how’d you make it to the ascend shrine? My 4 year old wanted to make a really long single file log bridge so that’s what we did. It’s fun to have him come up with solutions or ideas. I’m at the same spot you are, but I have a lot more hot pepper meals to get me through some more exploration of the cold area. Speaking of… my least favorite thing about the start of BotW was the time pressure in a cold environment early on. I’m a little bummed about this again, I know it will be fine. I vastly prefer exploration and curiosity satisfying without any kind of pressure. Im a slow player. Don’t want to face that baddie right now? No worries! Want to see how high I can climb with some stamina boosts? Sure! Anyways cheers and happy exploring!

  8. 9 minutes ago, itsevilr said:

    Anyone know any soundtracks that are available in Dolby Atmos on Apple Music? So far I’ve stumbled upon:

     

    Dune

    Dune sketchbook

    Black Panther Wakanda Forever 

    Ant Man Quantumania

    Avatar The Way of Water

    No Time to Die

    Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3

    The Social Network

    Lightyear 

    Invasion (Season 1)

    Obi-Wan Kenobi (Season 1)

     


    any other? 

     Star Wars 4-6 just came out! :rock:

  9. Gordy Haab has convinced me that he “gets” JW in a way few (no?) other mainstream media composers do. The intricacy, both from his orchestration and harmonies, is light years beyond Balfe, Giacchino, and even Powell. What a breath of fresh air this score is. I love his other Star Wars work too, but this cakes the cake so far. Don’t know anything about this Stephen Barton fellow or how they shared the workload, but maybe he deserves just as much kudos. 

  10. Did anyone else feel that there were scenes, especially in the third act, where the CGI noticeably stepped down in quality? I’m not sure if it was more the bad set my up in my rural, struggling theater or if they ran out of time to polish it. Could also have been that I didn’t see it in 3D…

     

    I wish I would have waited to see it in my home theater. I think it would have been more of a spectacle. 

  11. I don’t particularly care who does Rogue Squadron (as long as it’s not Rian Johnson), I just want it made. Disney and Kennedy are clueless if they think that a Rogue Squadron film wouldn’t have a good chance of being commercially successful and a fantastic film. Of all the “legacy” Star Wars media, Rogue Squadron, from the books to the comics to the video games, probably had some of the greatest reach. 

  12. My soundtrack interest was formed when iTunes was first released, and for the longest time, I’d check every Friday/Tuesday for new soundtracks from Films, TV, and video games. A lot of my limited teenage income when to digital albums in those days!
     

    But now, I’ve got a large library with lots of good music, Spotify, etc… and I feel like I’ve lost touch with new releases. I’m not talking about expansions, deluxe editions. Just new music. I get a lot of info from this forum. Sometimes my interest gets piqued and I’ll check something out. 
     

    Spotify seems to be useless for finding new scores unless I’m explicitly looking for a specific album. Unless I’m looking in the wrong place? 
     

    Do you have a favorite or frequently used resource or website to discover new soundtracks?

  13. Well, episode 2 was back to being Mando-esque travel to a new planet and dink around for the whole episode just to leave it at the end. The pacing of the first episode, different locations, beautiful cinematography, showing the sacrifice and dedication of Ben’s monotony… it was the best Disney+ SW episode yet. But then right back to bad chase scenes and just plot getting jerked along.
     

    Also Leia better hit her head real hard and forget this whole thing happened otherwise her holo message to start ANH is just ridiculous. Are they going to shoehorn a fix, or just continue to ignore the reason that all this exists in the first place - A New Hope. That’s what Rogue One got right. It didn’t mess with a single thing about the OT. It filled in the gaps and made the story MORE powerful. I hope this series doesn’t force a story where there clearly shouldn’t have been one. 

  14. 3 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

    As JW is a master of interesting harmonic progressions, I think he would have come up with a more refined key change towards the end.

    The final chord also sounds like it arrives just a bit too early. Doesn’t have the space to arrive at the culminating moment. It’s anticlimactic for me actually. JW wouldn’t have done this, but an editor might have…

     

    EDIT - just listened to it again, it really sounds like a poorly spliced edit. Wonder what it was supposed to do.

  15. Revisiting the OST, and immediately, I’m struck by the rubato of the piano introduction. It is such a breath of fresh air to hear artistic expression and phrasing rather than a rigid, metronomic attempt to recreate a virtual mock-up with pesky human performers who need to be purged of their individuality. Something that is missing in most of today’s modern scores, or at least the ones that I try to familiarize myself with. 
     

    I am really quite hopeful the remaster brings to life some of the churning bass strings, which have this early A.I. quality to them. 

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