Yavar Moradi

I've seen the first two episodes now (sadly all that's out), and I LOVE this show, and its music. Just wonderful. Sad that a bunch of review-bombing trolls have made it the lowest rated MCU show on IMDb, because it is honestly one of the best. Love the cast (especially the whole Khan family), the creative direction, the eclectic score... love EVERYTHING about this show. My one little niggle about the score is that the main theme/motif reminds me of the beginning of a long-lined theme from Nami Melumad's Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond. But I'm sure that's just one of those musical coincidences that happens sometimes (like Broughton's Shadow Conspiracy/Young's Hard Rain/Callery's 24). Yavar

No, it's about execution. BB was executed well; GOT was not (at the end, at least). Yavar

Agreed except I think he was already at that point for the first Jurassic World (which I found to be a terrible movie, worse than the previous two Jurassic Park sequels -- Jake Johnson was the only halfway decent part of it, IMO). I remember really liking Pratt early on in the TV show Everwood. Yavar

Actually the Volume One album *does* include some season 2 Lower Decks music, because it came out so long after the release of the first season of the show! And I'll be honest...it's excellent scoring but a super frustrating album, with cues jumbled up totally out of order and NO narrative thread, musically. Some time I'll have to attempt a chronological playlist, which I think would really benefit this (imagine if LLL jumbled up the cues on an Orville soundtrack release, presenting everything totally out of order!) Here you go @JTWfan77: And yes, the regular series scoring is that good too -- it's very consistent. And there are sometimes HILARIOUS direct references to great pre-existing Star Trek music...check out this clip from the show starting around 1:24: Or this clip from the same episode (starting around 45 seconds in): Yavar

Some of this music (particularly the end credits suite) would be fun background music for a Mario Kart game. Yavar

Don't even get me started with stupid things Tyrion says in the last episode, lol... there's a good reason that episode is rated so shockingly low! Yavar

Of course not but it's the best live action Trek TV music there's been since Enterprise, at least (and hell maybe since Ron Jones left TNG). I might still prefer Chris Westlake's work on Star Trek: Lower Decks though. Yavar

I mean without this grand finale development, the last appearance of Ilia's Theme (one of the greatest things Goldsmith ever wrote) is ... in "Games"? I realize it's disguised here and there, and connects to the V'Ger material after Ilia becomes the probe. But the theme in recognizable form just...peters out. And that's not the kind of thing Goldsmith would usually do with such great thematic material; he liked developing his thematic material and giving it a journey! It's part of why he's my #1 favorite composer! And while the treatment of Ilia's Theme in TMP was always a disappointment to me even though I loved the score, it felt amazing to discover last year that his original instinct and approach to the score WAS to have a grand culmination of Ilia's Theme at the climax of the film! It felt strangely vindicating. By the way, there's some surprisingly good stuff on Disc 3 (Voyager) of this set too! While not on the level of The Orville or anything, the composers on Voyager were really allowed to stretch their musical talents more than on the latter half of TNG or first half of DS9. Yavar

I mean, there's *some* stuff in the original Star Wars that sounds not a million miles from PotA... I'm sure Stravinsky being part of the temp track was a part of that. But if you listen to the complete original Star Wars in particular, it's almost shocking how modernist and non-romantic some of the music is! Sadly I think it's unlikely we will ever get music like that again in a Star Wars score. It would add flavor, for sure. EDIT: Haha maybe I should catch up in reading a thread before I post a reply to an earlier post. Yavar

It's not where she ended up that was the big problem. It was how quickly and awkwardly she ended up there. It was *almost* as bad and clumsily done as Anakin's turn to the dark side in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Breaking Bad and Babylon 5 (with the character of Londo) did this gradually, believably, even sympathetically. Fewer people would have been angry about it with Game of Thrones if it had been executed better. Hell, the show had me on its side (though admittedly I forgave more than I normally would in season 7 and season 8 episode 1) all the way up to season 8, episode 3. Yavar

I think they'd then be guaranteed great sales for the Williams single disc, and very poor sales for that big box set... At the time these originally came out, Roger or someone at Intrada said that if they really sold like gangbusters and/or the missing Elfman score turned up, a fourth volume would be a possibility. For whatever reason, that fourth volume never came and I suspect Intrada is done with this. (I'm sure it also didn't help that their wonderful 3-CD 80s Twilight Zone set sold horribly.) Yavar

I've heard it but any comments I could make would be redundant with what I wrote above, to say nothing of the epic Goldsmith Odyssey Soundtrack Spotlight we will be releasing soon. This Spotlight would have been out last month, but unfortunately we had to bump our plans to record/edit it in favor of having the Matinee Spotlight (with special guest Joe Dante) ready in time for Intrada's release day, which I really wanted. Yavar

I agree that while Kraemer's mockups are well done, it's super frustrating it was not recorded at the original orchestral sessions. I honestly like this better than the version of The Meld which was used in the film! It actually allows Ilia's theme to reach a destination and have a true journey over the course of the score...which befits such a great theme and makes up for the generally disappointing treatment of the character herself in the film. It works PERFECTLY in context; I get that they changed it because they wanted to focus to be more on V'Ger, but I still would have preferred this personally. Yavar

Huh, the latter for me was a little different but still outstanding, to me. Maybe not *quite* on the level of Ratatouille or Up or The Incredibles (by the way his score for that sequel is also excellent and generally overlooked). Yavar

Actually no! Yavar

I liked it but again it feels like more of a background mood piece. I had the same reaction to the new Assassins Creed track. I liked getting a sense of her action music with "Piccadilly Circus" though -- thanks Jay! That has some drive to it so I look forward to hearing what she comes up with for this Predator prequel (which seems like a cool idea, certainly more interesting to me than any of the Predator films since the original). Yavar

The RedLetterMedia review comments on the same thing: Yavar

There's also "The Hunt" from Escape from the Planet of the Apes (second to last track)! And let's not ignore the fine Elfman franchise entry: Not that any of these are necessarily contenders against the great ones already listed here, but there's also... "The Hunt" from Beau Brummell by Richard Addinsell (Miklos Rozsa contributed some cues but not this one): http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/store/MP3/Box4/9-25_The_Hunt.mp3 Even better, a Rosenthal classic: Some Eidelman (not as good as other cues in the score though)... A Barry classic: A Bernstein classic: Some lovely Lunn... Short but exciting Powell: And here's a cool overlooked one (for a wonderful overlooked movie) for any synth fans here... Of course if we're less strict about the title there's lot of other good stuff like Elk Hunt from Jones's Last of the Mohicans or The Buffalo Hunt from Barry's Dances With Wolves (OR Rosenthal's The Return of the Man Called Horse) or The Pheasant Hunt from Williams's Empire of the Sun or The Rabbit Hunt from Frontiere's The Aviator or... The Easter Egg Hunt from Poledouris's Return to the Blue Lagoon... Yavar

Thanks! I liked those well enough; they created a cool video game background mood. I wish they were a bit more different from each other than they seem to be. I still don't get a sense of her range, or her ability to develop thematic material. But I'll remain cautiously optimistic for now. Yavar

Are you familiar with some of her existing work that you can point me towards? Yavar

I don’t have the Alias albums but I remember some absolutely dynamite scoring and great themes in the show. Yavar

Let's go Arnold! Yavar

I'd swap the last three out for Inside Out, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and the rest of his Medal of Honor scores...honestly some of his best stuff for that franchise is not in the original: Honestly, only a handful of Giacchino film scores (John Carter chief among them IMO) live up to the amazing quality of his Medal of Honor scores. Yavar

Oh you'll get no argument from me on Jurassic World. That's one of my least favorite Giacchino scores. His Lost World video game score from the 90s is far superior, lol... Yavar

Really? I thought this was one of the best themes of 2020: You think that's awkward and amateurish? Yavar