Remco

It's really great, isn't it? I know enough about Williams's style of interviewing that a) his responses are often a little rehearsed and massaged and b) this one really does capture his incredible autobiographical memory and poetic sensibility towards his life and art. 
 
Also, I didn't know he remembered that the SW opening title initially began with that tiny run up! Who else remembers first listening to the "secret" track on the ANH Special Edition in 97 and just being blown away?!

I will admit a simple bias: I think Williams has suffered an injustice (yes, there are bigger injustices in the world, but an injustice nonetheless) with many, many of his past loses.  So, on any given year, including this year, I think Williams deserves to win to somehow balance out the past issues.  The completely rational part of my mind recognizes this as problematic, but here we are.  
 
I do think that since Williams has never won for an Indy score, all of it should be treated as original in the eyes of the Oscars.  If Shore could win for scores where the latter had copious amounts of themes from the previous or Santaolalla winning for two scores in the same general league of mediocrity then the damn Raider's March in DoD alone should secure an Oscar.
  

Huh? Genuinely puzzled by this. The award isn’t for the composer who reaches/tops their previous work; it’s for the best score of a given year… It’s entirely possible for JW to write a score that “doesn’t reach the heights of his most classic works,” and for that score to still happen to be better than the other contenders...

The primary difference would be John's score would be better written, and hence deserving of a nomination.

At 6:03 in this video, this imbecile says that there was not a single original composition in the entire Dial of Destiny score. What tiny amount of respect and good will I had for this guy disappeared in an instant. I usually prefer to restrain myself, but this fucking moron is so dense it’s unbelievable. I can’t even put into words how much his asinine comments rubbed me the wrong way.
 
After all the JW-hate going around due to his latest nomination, I thought to revisit the Dial score myself for the first time in a few months. Literally after the opening few minutes of the Prologue, I completely understand why this was nominated and even deserves a win. It’s incredible music, more sophisticated, evocative and thematically/orchestrally-competent than any other film score of 2023. And I personally love Ludwig’s Oppenheimer score! But to say JW doesn’t deserve a nomination for Dial on its own merits demonstrates the highest level of musical ignorance.
 
Also, Schaffrillas goes on to claim that there’s no way JW even wrote the Dial score because he’s “fucking 90 years old”. Once again, a relatively influential voice on the internet spreading the completely baseless lie that JW doesn’t write his own music anymore. The man has more talent and creativity than 10 other film composers put together, and for goodness’ sake, he’s in good health and touring the freaking world conducting symphony orchestras! So he’s more than capable of writing his own music, even if he uses a little additional help now and then, like he has done on several projects over the years (so it’s nothing new).
 
Just because he’s been nominated so frequently in the past for the incredible music he’s written does not mean he has no right to be nominated for his next masterwork. Imagine saying an incredible athlete shouldn’t be allowed to win the gold medal this year because they’ve won so many in the past and it’s time to give someone else a shot. Come on!! 
 
For all the talk of JW-bias, I sense a stronger than usual amount of anti-JW sentiment in much of the discussion I’ve seen online. And frankly, people being salty and flat out mad that a 91 year-old film composing legend is being nominated for an Oscar for an outstanding score, even if it’s for a less than stellar film, is baffling to me.

I also don't get the negativity here. The Dial of Destiny score by Williams is just awesome. Nothing I heard in Göransson's score for Oppenheimer comes close musically. Williams is still at the top of the game. And I believe, that he has been nominated because in the academy - in opposition to large parts of this forum - there are people who see this and know what they are talking about.
 
He might not win, and it might not be his best score and the Oscars might be ridiculous, but I believe that Williams musically wrote the best and most mature score of the year and he deserves to win.
My view.
 
Sometimes hard to believe, that we are in a John Williams fan forum here. 

JWFan is obviously biased but calling Reddit "more objective" is laughable. I think there's probably some autopilot factor in the voting but I'm certain the Academy composers could explain why they voted for Dial of Destiny better than r/movies could why he didn't deserve it. 
 
It's a double-edged sword because yes, Williams does get nominated for almost anything, but it also doesn't really happen with many other people. There are only a handful of figures who are that beloved and respected by their peers that they really will get singled out even if the movie around them isn't great. I know a lot of people think Williams is overrated, or Meryl Streep. I'm sure even some fashionistas have a bizarre axe to grind against Edith Head. But you do kinda have to have a certain something that can overlap skilled craftspeople with different tastes and fixations about their art, and Williams does have that. 
 
I think implying he gets nominated year after year after year just off his greatest hits reputation is the same fallacy as when people assume somebody who just died is about to sweep awards season. It's very rare. It's a lot of people voting, the work does need to have something to it. What else actually is out there like "Helena's Theme" right now? I suppose somebody could argue "Well if it wasn't by John Williams nobody would care" but I think if Michael Giacchino had written it, Reddit would be way more likely to cream their jeans over it and screaming that he equalled John Williams's Indy scores. While I think the more open-minded JWFanners among us would still be impressed with it, but would push back against the idea that it's as good as Williams's best work....which is how we mostly feel about it now. 
 
Now whether Giacchino would have gotten the Oscar nomination in a parallel universe where he wrote Williams's Dial of Destiny score, I don't think so. But I think there'd be perfectly reasonable arguing he'd have deserved it. 

The way I see it is that we know Ross wrote Pulse of the City because he is credited as its writer in the end credits. From that article we know that he also wrote The Airport cue that was replaced by JW's version because the protracted production afforded JW a generous time frame. For some reason, Pulse of the City wasn't replaced by a JW cue. Perhaps JW didn't have the time to write a new cue or maybe everyone involved was perfectly happy with Ross's music.
 
Based on the Pulse of the City credit for Ross in the end credits, I think it is reasonable to assume that had any more Ross composed cues remained in the final cut, they would also have been credited to Ross. I think it is also reasonable to assume that the OST was produced to only include cues composed by JW because Pulse of the City was excluded.
 
I am open to the idea that Ross arranged the material from the other movies but they are still JW compositions.

A true soundtrack fan never gets laid.

I wonder what a potential tracklist would be.
 
1. Main Title: New York, 1932 (4:06)
2. Dead Composers Anecdote (3:54)
3. John Meets Steven (2:34)
4. George's Theme (11:38)
5. Dead Composers Anecdote (Reprise) (3:54)
6. Arrival in Boston (4:35)
7. The Microediting Montage (15:48)
8. Dead Composers Anecdote (Reprise) (3:54)
9. Scherzo for Turtleneck and Orchestra (2:49)
10. The Lasik Scene (5:23)
11. Journey To Tanglewood (3:45)
12. Dead Composers Anecdote (Reprise) (3:54)
13. Welcome To Vienna (1:42)
14. Turning 90 and The Adventure Continues (7:03)
15. Dead Composers Anecdote (For Violin And Orchestra) (feat. Anne-Sophie Mutter) (4:21)

They should interview Abrams and ask him about nothing except the tracking in TROS, then scold him accordingly.

Wrong. All these are great scores, not just 'for his age' or anything.
 
Only the OST presentation is sub-par though, and so is the film mix (except for TLJ). 
 
I recently discovered Crystal Skull for myself, after years of believing the word of mouth that I read 15 years ago on the internet that 'Williams had lost it' or whatever. It is great too. Not every score can be a new Empire, but I think people like you simply raise the bar too astronomically high.

Johnny should do one of those three plus hour Joe Rogan podcasts too.

I don’t think any of us is looking to bring the hate, but if you’re open to a reasonable counterargument, I’ll give it a shot. 
 
Your depiction of us as too-easily-impressed JW fanboys misses the mark. It doesn’t help that you misrepresent the amount of self-plagiarism in JW’s music, specifically DoD.
 
We don’t treat every score JW writes with unquestioned, overjoyed praise. Off the top of my head, there was plenty of commentary in these boards about how slight BFG, The Post, and The Fabelmans all were. Folks here wasted no time identifying the handful of moments that JW lifted from his previous work for DoD, which led to (in my opinion) an overwrought reaction about JW’s supposedly deteriorating creative faculties. I seem to recall TROS being treated as the least of the sequel trilogy scores—although that’s actually due to JJ Abrams and the Mouse House screwing the movie up every which way possible.
 
Rather, what we appreciate and show genuine gratitude for is a man who continues to apply himself with the same level of commitment to the craft that he gave when he was half his age—composing music for characters and moments using ridiculous, outdated things like key changes, octatonic scales and woodwinds, rather than washes of interchangeable ‘moods’ written with drum loops; writing and shorthand-orchestrating every note with a pencil on paper; conducting every bar in the studio; and doing it week after week at an age when most of his birth cohort is already six feet under. It’s exactly this that prevents JW from ever being overrated. Being the consummate pro that he is, JW continues to be the same one-stop shop he’s always been, delivering each film exactly the music it needs (to the extent this era of “no such thing as picture lock” allows)—and if that music is ‘deficient’ in some way to some folks, it’s usually because JW either left out some choice cues in his OST program or because we all spent too long imagining what the music might be like to a movie we hadn’t seen in the months/years leading to that movie’s release and was ultimately disappointed in the material JW had to work with.

JW isn’t overrated here—he’s rated exactly at the level he deserves to be.

Wrong. All these are great scores, not just 'for his age' or anything.
 
Only the OST presentation is sub-par though, and so is the film mix (except for TLJ). 
 
I recently discovered Crystal Skull for myself, after years of believing the word of mouth that I read 15 years ago on the internet that 'Williams had lost it' or whatever. It is great too. Not every score can be a new Empire, but I think people like you simply raise the bar too astronomically high.

Within one sentence, you intentionally deligitimize criticism of JW's sliding quality by putting everything up against one of the greatest JW ever wrote, to then accuse the critics of putting the bar too high.
 
Now that's comedy.

Wrong. All these are great scores, not just 'for his age' or anything.
 
Only the OST presentation is sub-par though, and so is the film mix (except for TLJ). 
 
I recently discovered Crystal Skull for myself, after years of believing the word of mouth that I read 15 years ago on the internet that 'Williams had lost it' or whatever. It is great too. Not every score can be a new Empire, but I think people like you simply raise the bar too astronomically high.

Wrong. All these are great scores, not just 'for his age' or anything.
 
Only the OST presentation is sub-par though, and so is the film mix (except for TLJ). 
 
I recently discovered Crystal Skull for myself, after years of believing the word of mouth that I read 15 years ago on the internet that 'Williams had lost it' or whatever. It is great too. Not every score can be a new Empire, but I think people like you simply raise the bar too astronomically high.

Wrong. All these are great scores, not just 'for his age' or anything.
 
Only the OST presentation is sub-par though, and so is the film mix (except for TLJ). 
 
I recently discovered Crystal Skull for myself, after years of believing the word of mouth that I read 15 years ago on the internet that 'Williams had lost it' or whatever. It is great too. Not every score can be a new Empire, but I think people like you simply raise the bar too astronomically high.

Wrong. All these are great scores, not just 'for his age' or anything.
 
Only the OST presentation is sub-par though, and so is the film mix (except for TLJ). 
 
I recently discovered Crystal Skull for myself, after years of believing the word of mouth that I read 15 years ago on the internet that 'Williams had lost it' or whatever. It is great too. Not every score can be a new Empire, but I think people like you simply raise the bar too astronomically high.

Wrong. All these are great scores, not just 'for his age' or anything.
 
Only the OST presentation is sub-par though, and so is the film mix (except for TLJ). 
 
I recently discovered Crystal Skull for myself, after years of believing the word of mouth that I read 15 years ago on the internet that 'Williams had lost it' or whatever. It is great too. Not every score can be a new Empire, but I think people like you simply raise the bar too astronomically high.

Wrong. All these are great scores, not just 'for his age' or anything.
 
Only the OST presentation is sub-par though, and so is the film mix (except for TLJ). 
 
I recently discovered Crystal Skull for myself, after years of believing the word of mouth that I read 15 years ago on the internet that 'Williams had lost it' or whatever. It is great too. Not every score can be a new Empire, but I think people like you simply raise the bar too astronomically high.

You seem to be bringing plenty yourself. And I would also be careful to not confuse originality with quality. A well made chair is still a chair. Williams is a more subtle craftsman in his later years, and his intricacies and beauties less obvious, but his delight in the acute art of orchestration, harmony, rhythmic spontaneity, and melodic invention have not lessened in any of the examples I mentioned.