Yavar Moradi

I feel the same way. Jerry's been my favorite for over a decade now and there are still a few scores I'm not really familiar with. Plus I'm now in the phase where to get deeper appreciation of his work, I've started making a point of seeing more of the films he scored...even inferior ones. Yavar

Well I participated. I've heard (and own) almost every Goldsmith score so if I picked the middle option, it's because I wasn't sure if the score was essential for *you* to own or not. Also, will you be doing another of these for his pre-1979 scores, because there are a ton of hidden gems from the previous two decades you didn't cover here. I'll start you right off with Breakout and High Velocity, if you don't have those. If muscular brass action writing gets you going, don't miss 'em...they're among my most listened to Goldsmith scores, and I think the Prometheus releases are complete or near-complete. Yavar

I completely agree with you. What you've written describes accurately the kind of love I have for Jerry Goldsmith's music. I do love a number of other living composers, but since Jerry left us, Powell is the single composer who stands out making me feel that way no matter the assignment. Not even the great JW has that distinction. Yavar

96% of the time I do prefer Goldsmith scores in complete & chronologial form, so I didn't make the judgement to excise things lightly. Yavar

Yeah, but even excising the 20 minutes like I said, there's still plenty of suspense left over for contrast. Some tracks like Odds and Ends mix some minutes of suspense with awesome action. You just don't need *that* much suspense for contrast. Then it's lacking contrast -- too many suspense cues in a row. In my humble opinion. Sometimes I do listen to the complete score again just for the heck of it. Yavar

I agree with this. I almost always prefer Goldsmith scores in complete form, but there's just a little too much textural suspense music in this one. I take out about 20 min of it and all of a sudden it's a great listen! This would've made a killer original 48 minute album...if the right cues had been selected. Might have almost even lived up to Varese's hype at the time (remember?)... but instead somehow those 20 minutes of boring suspense made it onto the album while many great highlights were left off. Therefore the complete DE is essential, even if it's good to edit it down. Now as for TMP...maaybe there's a cue or two by Fred Steiner that could be lost without too much problem to the program. But the vast majority of the score stays. Love all the Herrmannesque V'ger material. Yavar

Quartet said on Papillon at least that they were only allowed to do 1000 units by the rights holders. Yavar

If you started at the beginning, it's no wonder! The first had pretty bad music in general, cliched horror stingers and such. Season 2 was a bit of a step up but the show and the score didn't really get good until halfway through the season -- probably right after you gave up watching, sadly. Then season 3 IMO was even better. Season 4 while generally a step down after that, actually had some of Christophe Beck's strongest and most creative and unique scores, such as Restless (very experimental season finale) and Hush (largely silent episode where the music carried everything because the premise was monsters that steal people's voices). Yavar

I unexpectedly loved the first one and have been looking forward to the sequel ever since. Yavar

I enjoyed the episode in a surface level sort of way, but I too was disappointed what they did with Lorca. I had thought he was going to be revealed as a sort of semi-good yet still ambitious and ambiguous mirror universe character (kinda like mirror Spock). But instead he seemed hardly any different from Emperor Phillipa, so there weren't stakes for the outcome really. It would have been cool if he was revealed as mirror but then the twist was that he wanted to make the mirror universe more like the universe he had visited...and then, if they still wanted to kill him off, I would have felt something about it instead of a character and plot thread just...ended. Also disappointed they (apparently?) killed off mirror Voq and Sarek -- there could have been a lot more interesting developments there. I was really intrigued by the possibilities of Klingons and other non-humans being the protagonists in the mirror universe. Does anyone else feel like the Ash/Voq stuff is going to end up being some sort of awkward explanation for why Klingons don't look alien in TOS? When the admiral shows up at the end of the episode, the way she acts suspicious of the crew makes me thing the tech was used on many other Klingons to make them appear human. Maybe it becomes super widespread for infiltration purposes, and then these showrunners act like by TOS time, the Klingons just decided to keep their new look and speak English? So by that logic, then sometime before TMP there's a Klingon political movement to go back to their roots, and somehow they grow the ridges back but hybridize it a little so they don't look like terrifying monsters? It's gonna be weird if they go for something like that but I just have a feeling... Yavar

The OST is in fact the same recording (I think the last time Goldsmith did a separate recording for album was Masada in 1981), but I agree the score is quite badass in complete form. Yavar

I totally agree. Each album should be a packed two disc set, at least. There's just that much great music in this show. Yavar

Why not? Fits the clues better than anything else except maaaybe Roger Rabbit. Two discs for the complete score (definitely action-packed) and then a third disc for the original album -- unnecessary IMO but probably contractually obligated since it is now owned by UMG (past UMG perpetuity albums were required to be included on their own separate disc). Not a Disney film but "from the vaults" fits since it would be in their vaults now. Yavar

Here's the Disney live action Robin Hood on YouTube: The preview you can see has the end of the confrontation with Little John. It's really charming and you can tell they were consciously doing something different from Errol Flynn. Here's the hilarious Friar Tuck meeting and subsequent action scene (two parts) with some good music: I guess the closest thing there is to a main theme you hear at 1:40 with a little development after -- it's really more of a fanfare/hunting call than a full fledged theme, but it works great in the movie. The main title is actually a song sung by Alan-a-Dale. I usually don't like title songs, but I actually really like this one. I also really like how they emphasize Robin Hood more as a woodsman and archer than some kind of Zorro with a blade. Yavar

http://disneysrobin.blogspot.com/2009/08/clifton-parker-1905-1989.html?m=1 Nice bits about the score (very different from Korngold or Kamen) in the comment section of this article...sadly I can't find any samples online but the film itself is actually available for streaming at multiple sites. I highly recommend it -- it's actually by far my favorite film adaptation of the story. Prince of Thieves is dumb in so many ways of course but I actually even prefer this by far to the more corny Errol Flynn film (like I said I prefer The Sea Hawk). The live story is 1000% more natural and Peter Finch ("I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" guy from Network) is a pretty good Sheriff of Nottingham. I also like that it's a younger Robin (played wonderfully by Richard Todd) and his father is actually alive with him at the start. Agree with you on hoping for more official Korngold releases...LLL mentioned they were working on some Korngold a couple years back. Fingers crossed... Yavar

John Carter was a great score for a really underrated film. Half-baked how? I think it's really well baked and even the ending works for me emotionally speaking, though they was clearly planning planning on a sequel which will alas never come to be.

I totally agree, which is why I rate the Sea Hawk personally much higher (film too, for that matter)...the other reason is that Korngold cribbed his concert works quite a bit (Sursum Corda in particular) for Robin Hood so it feels more patchwork to me whereas Sea Hawk has lots of variety but feels more cohesive. Main theme alone, I actually prefer Kamen to Korngold, shockingly enough. Clifton Parker's totally unreleased score to the 50s live action Disney Robin Hood is also very good...hopefully Intrada will consider releasing it someday. Yavar

I actually enjoy Chain Reaction and how Goldsmith used the electric guitar in the score. The DE was a noticeable improvement for the score as well. On the other hand I understand why other people enjoy KSM and it does have its moments...I just haven't really been able to warm to it in general. Yavar

Off the top of my head I can't even think of any other Deluxe Edition that got an Encore release, Goldsmith or not. The Encore series is still fairly young and doesn't have all that many titles in it. I do hope Varese encores their DE of The Burbs for those who missed it though...such an awesome score and it plays great in complete form. Of course I'd prefer they continue to make DEs of other Goldsmith scores that haven't received one yet. Yavar

Intrada has been tackling WB titles for years now...most recently they licensed that amazing 11 score 4 disc Waxman set from them. Yavar

I agree with Thor on those two being the best of the bunch, though I like the others too (better in their expanded versions, of course!) Most fans love King Solomon's Mines but it's probably my least favorite of the five. Yavar

The fact that Varese released Runaway no less than three times (the last two of them in complete form) is a pretty good argument that eventually they'll get around to tackling *all* of the Goldsmith scores they control. Man I really hope they get a move on... Yavar

Obviously. That's exactly what LLL is doing with 100 Rifles, which they've already done with other Goldsmith westerns. Yavar

Well there's not very much Goldsmith at Fox left, because Fox has been accessible to the specialty labels longest of all the studios. What's left is probably just problematic titles or ones they don't think have much for sales potential. But here's hopin' this lights a candle under their butts to do S*P*Y*S complete. Seriously though...I enjoy that zany score a lot, and if there's any chance John Scott saved a copy of his own score for the film, it would make a cool twofer. The Chairman would be the biggie to expand, but there seem to be elements issues. Only the album program has apparently survived in stereo...and even for that the tapes themselves were lost and all CD issues have just been cleaned up LP rips -- with the exception of the Varese Goldsmith at Fox box suite, which was in mono from tapes but only included one previously unreleased cue totaling less than a minute in length. Take Her, She's Mine was reported as lost in the Varese box liner notes. Now we've seen superior new technology help to salvage other Fox scores (and sometimes salvage more of ones that came out partially in the past like Friedhofer's Rains of Ranchipur or Goldsmith's Fate Is the Hunter). So maybe there's a chance for that to come out from Kritzerland or Quartet...someone who would take a chance releasing a lightweight comedy score just because it has Goldsmith's name on it. But probably still lost in all likelihood. That for me leaves complete releases for two TV projects perhaps most likely to be spurred by this development: the TV movie A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (only a half hour score, albeit a lovely intimate one, and Varese released half of it in their box) and the short-lived Anna and the King show, which Goldsmith scored three episodes of and which must surely contain more original music by him. Yavar

Well, they often do! That's how I was able to compile this thread at FSM: http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=111632&archive=0 Yavar