HunterTech

Have you heard of Michael Bay? He’s an American director who can film 4 minutes of car-shaped robots beating the piss out of each other with as few as 950 shots. You wanna talk about talent…

@bruce marshallseems to think that every time someone who has the 2012 and buys the 2022 that a baby seal is clubbed to death with a bag full of kittens. We're sorry we hurt you, Bruce.
 
 
I wrote elsewhere: "I A-B'd the album version of Main Title / Klingon Attack and Ilia's theme. I can hear the difference. I may even prefer the new one. I don't have the best equipment or the most sophisticated ear. But if you just played one or the other for me I'm not sure I'd be able to tell you which one it is."
 
I you have the 2012 then yes, this is possibly indulgent. (Decadent is a bit far.) If this is your only option (and really, that's who this is for) then get it. It's one of the greatest scores of all time. (Interesting how so many of the greatest scores of all time came out around the time I was 10.)
 
If I HAD to choose then I would have picked the 2012. Sometimes more is more.
 
Hey, I haven't bought Star Wars since 1997.
 
@Amer I just loaded up Total logic side by side. Really, I can't hear a difference at all. Mike indicated that there might be some tweaks here and there in the main program, but the selling point was supposed to be (other than, you know, having Star Trek: The Motion Picture) that the LP program had been reconstructed.
 
I suppose I could load up the 1999 (or even the 198x) but believe it or not, I have other things to do today.

I haven't seen Hong Sang Soo or Enter the Void. I've seen Bela Tarr's films and many an arthouse sequence shot. I'm not even talking about oners specifically, though, it's just a fluidly directed musical, can't get enough of that. 

Dude, the Apple dongle is a legitimate DAC. I'm sensing you might be a bit confused, since DAC (Digital-to-analog converter) and DAP (Digital Audio Player) are two different (though related) things. Google the former, and you'll see a lot of similar looking devices. If it's the latter you really want, you might have to start looking on second hand shops, since I think FiiO has been slowly moving away from dedicated players a bit. Doesn't help that they discontinue their devices so often, so you would need to be super quick in getting a unit.
 
With how much these devices can cost, a quick cheap Android phone with a micro SD card slot and a USB-C port really ought to save some serious cash.

Except freedom of speech means people are just as entitled to call someone out as they are to spout contentious opinions. After all, it only protects you from getting arrested over it. Nothing more.
 
Now let's get off this train before we risk seriously violating forum rules over a detour in conversation that wasn't necessary.

The "low-brow tentpoles" are raking in billions of dollars. Do they really need their Oscars on top of that?
 
We're already taking away screenings from the little guys (cough Spider-man cough), let them at least have the awards...when the stars align, they can really give life and momentum to the films, filmmakers and independent studios (i.e. Parasite). 
 
I'm really glad that a film like Drive My Car, which I admired but didn't love, is now actually part of a larger demographic conversation thanks to the surprise nominations its nabbed.

I love Dragon Racing. And Powell said once in an interview they used all the themes from the 1st film on purpose. In that way you're re-introduced to the Dragons world in the first 5 minutes.
 
After that the themes from the first film are used more sparingly. He then takes his time to introduce the new themes for the 2nd film. It's very clever. And the whole track is brilliantly put together. As is 'Armada Battle' from the 3rd score for me. A 9 minute cue full of thematic brilliance with grand statements off themes from all 3 films

Except freedom of speech means people are just as entitled to call someone out as they are to spout contentious opinions. After all, it only protects you from getting arrested over it. Nothing more.
 
Now let's get off this train before we risk seriously violating forum rules over a detour in conversation that wasn't necessary.

For a forum that generally takes Joe Kraemer's words seriously, I'm surprised no bothered to mention the fact he did actually say in a recorded interview that Giacchino was one of the people he could say still wrote everything by themselves.
 
Which probably used to be true, since that was years ago, and this industry has presumably gotten so ruthless to where he has to be more reliant on additional composers to meet deadlines.
 
(And that's not even getting into the speculation regarding if someone like Tim Simonec was the one pulling all the strings in his earlier work).

Except freedom of speech means people are just as entitled to call someone out as they are to spout contentious opinions. After all, it only protects you from getting arrested over it. Nothing more.
 
Now let's get off this train before we risk seriously violating forum rules over a detour in conversation that wasn't necessary.

For a forum that generally takes Joe Kraemer's words seriously, I'm surprised no bothered to mention the fact he did actually say in a recorded interview that Giacchino was one of the people he could say still wrote everything by themselves.
 
Which probably used to be true, since that was years ago, and this industry has presumably gotten so ruthless to where he has to be more reliant on additional composers to meet deadlines.
 
(And that's not even getting into the speculation regarding if someone like Tim Simonec was the one pulling all the strings in his earlier work).

As for some of these other composers like JNH, Silvestri, Eflman - let me speculate. 

I think the gutter trash garbage state the American film and tv industry is also in large part a cause - as are terrifying technology changes. 

Take Episode 9. We know Williams had a terrible time on it because the edit was changing dramatically and drastically from day to day to day. When does Williams even score it? There is no locked picture till premiere night in many of these case. I know it is truly shocking but this is just a standard state of affairs these days. There is no pencil down moment anymore where the edit is locked and the film is sent to the composer. That is just a fantasy now. These days a film can be edited literally until the last moment in premieres or is dropped on streaming and often is. Even a release these days is not final final final. As with digital technology, we have seen edits AFTER RELEASE TOO. Withs streaming it is easy, just replace the file on the server. With Cinemas too it is sadly easy these days. Most theaters use digital projection. Just transmit a new version to theaters to voila. Even No Way Home has been known to send some improved VFX shots to theaters after release.
 
So essentially a window to score the film that was set aside in the past DOES NOT EXIST ANYMORE. 
 
What is the result of this?
 
Your score is never done until the moment of recording (if recording with the orchestra - we know even that is going away as more and more people are using syths.)
 
So this is why some of the name composers might use additional composers - 
 
JNH will write the cue. Then revise it. Then revise it again. And again. And again. And again. And again - the 9th time. 10th time. 11th time. 15th time.
 
There will come a time when he would be like - and very legitimately - I HAVE FUCKING DONE MY WORK. THIS ISN'T WORTH MY TIME OR DIGNITY ANYMORE. Here additional composer - the cue is 90% there. The director can't stop fiddling with the scene. For versions 16 through 40 - you make the adjustments - which can be taking notes off here, adding few there, lowering brass here because the Sound VFX guy wants his bullet sound, increasing tempo here because the cut is sooner. 
 
This is the pure minutiae of it. And many composers have done this work too - painstakingly. JNH himself wrote the main title of Fantastic Beasts 41 times.
 
But can you blame him if he feels - that on Hunger Games 4, cue 58, version 27 - he feels. That's it. I am giving this to an assistant to adjust. 
 
I should hasten to add, in this case - it would still be JNH's work. But in Zimmer's case - the entire cue is assigned to the additional composer. It is almost a reverse relationship. The additional composer writes first and then Zimmer comes in and makes adjustments. In that case - the credit should go to the additional composer for the cue - he fucking wrote it. 

It is truly a sorry business now - film and music scoring. We know the sheer reckless horrifying abandon these large 300 million dollar movies work on - fiddling till the last second. No good film scoring is possible due to such circumstances and the monster of additional composers is as much of the result of the director's schizophrenia as it is of the composers's laziness and lack of talent.

@Manakin Skywalker That's a generally good summation, but there's a few details I'd like to correct. Namely, Elfman would've already called it quits by the time Young and John Debney came onboard to do the rescores for SM2. Raimi had been specifically pressuring Danny to ape the temp track, which he absolutely refused to do. Additionally, there's also a chance that he simply refused to budge on how a few scenes were approached, as no other temp tracks besides the Hellraiser cues for the lab sequence has been recognized for the remaining additional tracks. Elfman did fully finish his initial work, so all this would've happened once he decided to walk out.

As for SM3, as far as the compositions go, he absolutely didn't write a single unique note for it. Everything that is referenced from the previous two films are either full on re-recordings that were adjusted to the picture (ala Superman II) or so different in arrangement that it stylistically doesn't sound like him. The former is especially taken to the next level with Deborah Lurie's contributions to the theatrical cut, as just about most of her work is based on tracks that appear in the official score releases for 1 and 2. And if that wasn't enough: a good amount of scenes that originally had Young underscore got replaced with music that is tracked from the first two flicks. This is mostly better detailed in the official music section from the end credits.

That being said: there is nothing to actually indicate that Elfman barred any release of the music. Namely because just about any copyright information you can find on random SM3 cues from YT points to it all being owned by a company associated with Sony. Heck, there is actually an interview with Young stating that Sony would only release the music if there was enough demand for it, implying that it more had to do with them not trusting Young to sell units like Elfman does. Also, there is the possibility of film scores sales being at a low at the time as a reason for Sony deciding not to go with it (which might be backed up by the fact Spidey 2 is strangely difficult to find on CD these days for such a high profile release).
 
And to end off on a confusing note: one of the many promos you can find for SM3 (mainly based on Lurie's work) has a cue variant that is literally titled "7M67 DE Happy Ending (Danny Elfman)." I legitimately have no idea what to make of it, besides my theory that it was an idea that was considered for the ending sequence in SM2 (another theory being that this was something Young had considered at one point during a time when the film had a final swing scene like the previous entries). But we have no way of verifying that without the full sheets, as well as really knowing just why it's specifically labeled as that. It isn't what the movie uses though, so even if it actually was composed by the man, it didn't make it to the screen.
 

Funny you say all that: I believe Deborah Lurie has been an assistant to both Young and Elfman at different points. Which in turn makes it an easy link between the two composers, as she might've possibly been a consultant initially before being hired to do the rescores.

I've never heard any of the particular rumors mentioned here, but the tidbit about the responsibility theme fascinates me, given I always felt it was chosen to play in very specific moments in the film.

All that being said: in an FSM interview, Young only mentioned having Raimi as his guide for which Elfman themes to use and when. I doubt it's an NDA thing, as he was candid about Sony being responsible for bringing Lurie and Debney onboard and why they did so, as well as the general timeframe for when they would've all been working separately. So either it didn't happen, or it was so brief and early on that Chris himself didn't think it made much of an impact at the end of the day.

That's a score I need to give a more thorough revisit eventually. I attribute it as one of those from the mid 2000s that subconsciously informed my love for the medium. Never heard the original album, and the complete never was the more enthralling of listens (especially since the LLL release sucks), so I might give that playlist a go after I listen to the OST.

Agreed. Glad to see very well-known shady practices aired out in the public...but it very much still lets the biggest perpretators of the system off the hook. Kind of a "this whole game sucks...but we can't do anything about it" situation.
 
At least a more concentrated attack on streaming giants (cough cough) and its abysmal treatment of composer royalties and copyright would be more useful.
 
 
Inevitable indeed. Classical music and literature have the benefit of having years afforded to them for development and the financial support from patrons to support this process. Film music suffers from crunching that timeline to a mere matter of weeks, and actively in service of a multi-million dollar corporate machine. It is very very tough for massive blockbusters to allow the kind singular creative "auteurship" for its composers. That's the kind of thing you have to look to smaller, more independent features for.
 
And yes, credit, and primarily names on cue sheets need to happen more often...because that's how co-composers, ghostwriters, etc can make a living. And even when folks like Zimmer and Giacchino do that for their co-composers, it's still their names and brands that get showered with "genius", deification, and the endless barrage of high-profile work.
 
It is a hard ladder to climb up, being an A-list composer's assistant...requires many years of patience, and varying levels of success.

Superman Returns by John Ottman. I overall enjoy the presentation on the OST album but it is missing certain important cues. On the other hand, the LLL is bit unwieldy and contains some portions I don't really need. I wanted to created an expanded 1-CD album to include everything I need. Originally, tried to create a playlist based on the OST with some additional tracks from the LLL set but the results were some odd and unbalanced in terms of listening experience. Then, I decided to create a list off the LLL based on the same material but it was too long due to all the previously micro-edited bits being now restored. In the end, I just used that second (chronological playlist) as a basis but swapped some of the needlessly long tracks for their shortened OST counterparts in order to trim it all down to much more manageable length. I always liked Lex Luthor's theme so decided to use every (I think) cue with the variation from the score to give it bit more presence. I also included some cues that heavily leaned on JW material (He's Back, for example) to make it even "more Superman" score (if that makes sense).
 
Overall, I was attempting to make it comprehensive, but lean. One thing I hate to lose from my playlist is the lovely Little Secrets/Power of the Sun album edit but decided to go with the strictly chronological presentation for this to make it coherent. Think it flows rather nicely.
 
Think this will end up being my definitive playlist for casual listening (might still tinker it a little). If you fancy checking it out here it is:
 
1. As Time Goes By/The Planet Krypton (1:24) --- (LLL) 
2. Main Titles (2:47) --- (LLL)
3. Dying Wish (2:43) --- (LLL)
4. Tell Me Everything (3:12) --- (OST)
5. Memories (3:06) --- (OST)
6. Rough Flight (5:11)  --- (OST)
7. He's Back (1:39) --- (LLL)
8. You're Not One of Them (2:21) --- (OST)
9. Bank Job (2:19) --- (OST)
10. Kitty Decoy (3:40) --- (LLL)
11. Supermania (1:08) --- (LLL)
12. Little Secrets (1:09) --- (LLL)
13. How Could You Leave Us? (5:47) --- (OST)
14. Not Like the Train Set (5:11) --- (OST)
15. We Have to Go/Who to Save? (3:00) --- (LLL)
16. Metropolis Mayhem (4:05) --- (LLL)
17. So Long Superman (5:29) --- (OST)
18. Saving Superman/The Power of the Sun (5:31) --- (LLL)
19. Saving the World (6:23) --- (LLL)
20. In the Hands of Mortals (1:18) --- (LLL)
21. I Wanted You to Know (2:55) --- (OST)
22. Lex's Paradise/Change of Heart/Parting Words (4:57) --- (LLL)
23. Reprise/Fly Away (4:17) --- (LLL)
 
Total time: 79 minutes and 29 seconds.
 
(I believe track 21 is actually an alternate to 22 but I wanted to have both Lex's theme and Superman's theme at the end without having to use the end credits again).
 
The score perhaps not as good as it should have been. But then, all the non-JW sequels/reboots are a step down from maestro's standards so what else is new. Ottman was never really going to be on the level. So you end up with a mixture of Williams, Horner and Goldsmith in one messy stew...with a sprinkle of Zimmer, even. It is quite a mix. Having said that, I think he shows a remarkable enthusiasm for the material and injects the limp movie with some genuine emotion. Yes, I can hear some temp track here and there. But it does have heart, despite all the deficiencies. So I can't really hate this score.
 
EDIT: Added track 15 (We Have to Go/Who to Save?). Forgot about this one. The unfortunate side effect of that is that we have to similar statements of Superman's fanfare in two consecutive tracks but it's still lesser evil. So the programme is 3 minutes longer... Might try to remove something instead. Perhaps go for the OST version of Saving the World? It contains the only vital part of the track and I'm not sure we need The Thin Red Line rip-off bit at the end. Or might just get rid of track 1. We'll see.
 
Karol

The article is clearly not meant as a value judgment on the Zimmer approach to the music itself, which after all is really just a modern "outsourced contractor" version of the golden age studio music departments.  There's nothing really wrong with this if only credits were clear and fair.  Being a film/tv composer of prominence today requires essentially being a small business owner, which is not something all these creative types are cut out for.  A company like RCP, if it were run more fairly and transparently, could do a lot of good providing the infrastructure and bureaucracy necessary for a composer to carry out the job.  But that's a big "if."

Yes, it's an interesting article but ultimately is filled with the same generalized insinuations that we always see around this subject.  No one will get specific.

Bruce: in your never ending crusade to "humor" the C&C enthusiasts, doesn't it ever occur to you that this might be for the people who missed these releases the first time around? It's not like ST isn't a big enough property to where there's feasibly enough fans to warrant the high amount of units being ordered and sold.

@Manakin Skywalker That's a generally good summation, but there's a few details I'd like to correct. Namely, Elfman would've already called it quits by the time Young and John Debney came onboard to do the rescores for SM2. Raimi had been specifically pressuring Danny to ape the temp track, which he absolutely refused to do. Additionally, there's also a chance that he simply refused to budge on how a few scenes were approached, as no other temp tracks besides the Hellraiser cues for the lab sequence has been recognized for the remaining additional tracks. Elfman did fully finish his initial work, so all this would've happened once he decided to walk out.

As for SM3, as far as the compositions go, he absolutely didn't write a single unique note for it. Everything that is referenced from the previous two films are either full on re-recordings that were adjusted to the picture (ala Superman II) or so different in arrangement that it stylistically doesn't sound like him. The former is especially taken to the next level with Deborah Lurie's contributions to the theatrical cut, as just about most of her work is based on tracks that appear in the official score releases for 1 and 2. And if that wasn't enough: a good amount of scenes that originally had Young underscore got replaced with music that is tracked from the first two flicks. This is mostly better detailed in the official music section from the end credits.

That being said: there is nothing to actually indicate that Elfman barred any release of the music. Namely because just about any copyright information you can find on random SM3 cues from YT points to it all being owned by a company associated with Sony. Heck, there is actually an interview with Young stating that Sony would only release the music if there was enough demand for it, implying that it more had to do with them not trusting Young to sell units like Elfman does. Also, there is the possibility of film scores sales being at a low at the time as a reason for Sony deciding not to go with it (which might be backed up by the fact Spidey 2 is strangely difficult to find on CD these days for such a high profile release).
 
And to end off on a confusing note: one of the many promos you can find for SM3 (mainly based on Lurie's work) has a cue variant that is literally titled "7M67 DE Happy Ending (Danny Elfman)." I legitimately have no idea what to make of it, besides my theory that it was an idea that was considered for the ending sequence in SM2 (another theory being that this was something Young had considered at one point during a time when the film had a final swing scene like the previous entries). But we have no way of verifying that without the full sheets, as well as really knowing just why it's specifically labeled as that. It isn't what the movie uses though, so even if it actually was composed by the man, it didn't make it to the screen.
 

Funny you say all that: I believe Deborah Lurie has been an assistant to both Young and Elfman at different points. Which in turn makes it an easy link between the two composers, as she might've possibly been a consultant initially before being hired to do the rescores.

I've never heard any of the particular rumors mentioned here, but the tidbit about the responsibility theme fascinates me, given I always felt it was chosen to play in very specific moments in the film.

All that being said: in an FSM interview, Young only mentioned having Raimi as his guide for which Elfman themes to use and when. I doubt it's an NDA thing, as he was candid about Sony being responsible for bringing Lurie and Debney onboard and why they did so, as well as the general timeframe for when they would've all been working separately. So either it didn't happen, or it was so brief and early on that Chris himself didn't think it made much of an impact at the end of the day.

Elfman wasn't essentially relaced at the end of Spiderman 2, he left.  True he was getting more and more agitated at the business of film scoring which includes having to please producers and others not particularly involved on the creatives weighing in resulting in umpteenth revisions on complicated cues and that happened a lot on Spidey 3 too.  Set pieces are huge investments for studios as tons of planning of budget go into them plus they can be the first big action seen in an action film full of audience anticipation.  The first big action set piece on Spidey 2 was the elevated train (the first set piece in Spidey 3 was Harry and Peter's fight).  Elfman followed the scene and slowed the music down as the train slowed which execs felt made the scene anti-climactic.  Young amped up the energy (tempo, clusters, and volume) as the train slowed because it was running out of track which was preferred.  It was clear that Raimi and execs preferred Elfman for Spidey 3 but the rift was common knowledge and frequently referred to.  He wanted nothing to do with Raimi at that time so Young as did Raimi's Drag Me to Hell, etc.  As far as I remember, none of Elfman's music was recorded for Spidey 3, it was tracked in from the other films.  Young's theme has a big hole where Elfman's music when then play and the music editor edited in Elfman's music from previous films so Elfman does show up in cue sheet credit but for preexisting music.  The session and project were very intense and chaotic so that might have changed later but that was my memory.  Raimi and Young were both jerked around by the execs on Spidey 3 and the no soundtrack was released because the film was poorly received by fans and Sony didn't think it would make money as the landscape was shifting to digital downloads rather than physical cd's and almost all soundtracks except for Pirates of the Caribbean were not that profitable in the changing landscape.  A soundtrack master was produced and delivered; Sony declined to make a soundtrack.   If the reception was better, they would have felt it could make money and they likely would have opted to release the soundtrack.

@Manakin Skywalker That's a generally good summation, but there's a few details I'd like to correct. Namely, Elfman would've already called it quits by the time Young and John Debney came onboard to do the rescores for SM2. Raimi had been specifically pressuring Danny to ape the temp track, which he absolutely refused to do. Additionally, there's also a chance that he simply refused to budge on how a few scenes were approached, as no other temp tracks besides the Hellraiser cues for the lab sequence has been recognized for the remaining additional tracks. Elfman did fully finish his initial work, so all this would've happened once he decided to walk out.

As for SM3, as far as the compositions go, he absolutely didn't write a single unique note for it. Everything that is referenced from the previous two films are either full on re-recordings that were adjusted to the picture (ala Superman II) or so different in arrangement that it stylistically doesn't sound like him. The former is especially taken to the next level with Deborah Lurie's contributions to the theatrical cut, as just about most of her work is based on tracks that appear in the official score releases for 1 and 2. And if that wasn't enough: a good amount of scenes that originally had Young underscore got replaced with music that is tracked from the first two flicks. This is mostly better detailed in the official music section from the end credits.

That being said: there is nothing to actually indicate that Elfman barred any release of the music. Namely because just about any copyright information you can find on random SM3 cues from YT points to it all being owned by a company associated with Sony. Heck, there is actually an interview with Young stating that Sony would only release the music if there was enough demand for it, implying that it more had to do with them not trusting Young to sell units like Elfman does. Also, there is the possibility of film scores sales being at a low at the time as a reason for Sony deciding not to go with it (which might be backed up by the fact Spidey 2 is strangely difficult to find on CD these days for such a high profile release).
 
And to end off on a confusing note: one of the many promos you can find for SM3 (mainly based on Lurie's work) has a cue variant that is literally titled "7M67 DE Happy Ending (Danny Elfman)." I legitimately have no idea what to make of it, besides my theory that it was an idea that was considered for the ending sequence in SM2 (another theory being that this was something Young had considered at one point during a time when the film had a final swing scene like the previous entries). But we have no way of verifying that without the full sheets, as well as really knowing just why it's specifically labeled as that. It isn't what the movie uses though, so even if it actually was composed by the man, it didn't make it to the screen.
 

Funny you say all that: I believe Deborah Lurie has been an assistant to both Young and Elfman at different points. Which in turn makes it an easy link between the two composers, as she might've possibly been a consultant initially before being hired to do the rescores.

I've never heard any of the particular rumors mentioned here, but the tidbit about the responsibility theme fascinates me, given I always felt it was chosen to play in very specific moments in the film.

All that being said: in an FSM interview, Young only mentioned having Raimi as his guide for which Elfman themes to use and when. I doubt it's an NDA thing, as he was candid about Sony being responsible for bringing Lurie and Debney onboard and why they did so, as well as the general timeframe for when they would've all been working separately. So either it didn't happen, or it was so brief and early on that Chris himself didn't think it made much of an impact at the end of the day.

@Manakin Skywalker That's a generally good summation, but there's a few details I'd like to correct. Namely, Elfman would've already called it quits by the time Young and John Debney came onboard to do the rescores for SM2. Raimi had been specifically pressuring Danny to ape the temp track, which he absolutely refused to do. Additionally, there's also a chance that he simply refused to budge on how a few scenes were approached, as no other temp tracks besides the Hellraiser cues for the lab sequence has been recognized for the remaining additional tracks. Elfman did fully finish his initial work, so all this would've happened once he decided to walk out.

As for SM3, as far as the compositions go, he absolutely didn't write a single unique note for it. Everything that is referenced from the previous two films are either full on re-recordings that were adjusted to the picture (ala Superman II) or so different in arrangement that it stylistically doesn't sound like him. The former is especially taken to the next level with Deborah Lurie's contributions to the theatrical cut, as just about most of her work is based on tracks that appear in the official score releases for 1 and 2. And if that wasn't enough: a good amount of scenes that originally had Young underscore got replaced with music that is tracked from the first two flicks. This is mostly better detailed in the official music section from the end credits.

That being said: there is nothing to actually indicate that Elfman barred any release of the music. Namely because just about any copyright information you can find on random SM3 cues from YT points to it all being owned by a company associated with Sony. Heck, there is actually an interview with Young stating that Sony would only release the music if there was enough demand for it, implying that it more had to do with them not trusting Young to sell units like Elfman does. Also, there is the possibility of film scores sales being at a low at the time as a reason for Sony deciding not to go with it (which might be backed up by the fact Spidey 2 is strangely difficult to find on CD these days for such a high profile release).
 
And to end off on a confusing note: one of the many promos you can find for SM3 (mainly based on Lurie's work) has a cue variant that is literally titled "7M67 DE Happy Ending (Danny Elfman)." I legitimately have no idea what to make of it, besides my theory that it was an idea that was considered for the ending sequence in SM2 (another theory being that this was something Young had considered at one point during a time when the film had a final swing scene like the previous entries). But we have no way of verifying that without the full sheets, as well as really knowing just why it's specifically labeled as that. It isn't what the movie uses though, so even if it actually was composed by the man, it didn't make it to the screen.
 

Funny you say all that: I believe Deborah Lurie has been an assistant to both Young and Elfman at different points. Which in turn makes it an easy link between the two composers, as she might've possibly been a consultant initially before being hired to do the rescores.

I've never heard any of the particular rumors mentioned here, but the tidbit about the responsibility theme fascinates me, given I always felt it was chosen to play in very specific moments in the film.

All that being said: in an FSM interview, Young only mentioned having Raimi as his guide for which Elfman themes to use and when. I doubt it's an NDA thing, as he was candid about Sony being responsible for bringing Lurie and Debney onboard and why they did so, as well as the general timeframe for when they would've all been working separately. So either it didn't happen, or it was so brief and early on that Chris himself didn't think it made much of an impact at the end of the day.

@Manakin Skywalker That's a generally good summation, but there's a few details I'd like to correct. Namely, Elfman would've already called it quits by the time Young and John Debney came onboard to do the rescores for SM2. Raimi had been specifically pressuring Danny to ape the temp track, which he absolutely refused to do. Additionally, there's also a chance that he simply refused to budge on how a few scenes were approached, as no other temp tracks besides the Hellraiser cues for the lab sequence has been recognized for the remaining additional tracks. Elfman did fully finish his initial work, so all this would've happened once he decided to walk out.

As for SM3, as far as the compositions go, he absolutely didn't write a single unique note for it. Everything that is referenced from the previous two films are either full on re-recordings that were adjusted to the picture (ala Superman II) or so different in arrangement that it stylistically doesn't sound like him. The former is especially taken to the next level with Deborah Lurie's contributions to the theatrical cut, as just about most of her work is based on tracks that appear in the official score releases for 1 and 2. And if that wasn't enough: a good amount of scenes that originally had Young underscore got replaced with music that is tracked from the first two flicks. This is mostly better detailed in the official music section from the end credits.

That being said: there is nothing to actually indicate that Elfman barred any release of the music. Namely because just about any copyright information you can find on random SM3 cues from YT points to it all being owned by a company associated with Sony. Heck, there is actually an interview with Young stating that Sony would only release the music if there was enough demand for it, implying that it more had to do with them not trusting Young to sell units like Elfman does. Also, there is the possibility of film scores sales being at a low at the time as a reason for Sony deciding not to go with it (which might be backed up by the fact Spidey 2 is strangely difficult to find on CD these days for such a high profile release).
 
And to end off on a confusing note: one of the many promos you can find for SM3 (mainly based on Lurie's work) has a cue variant that is literally titled "7M67 DE Happy Ending (Danny Elfman)." I legitimately have no idea what to make of it, besides my theory that it was an idea that was considered for the ending sequence in SM2 (another theory being that this was something Young had considered at one point during a time when the film had a final swing scene like the previous entries). But we have no way of verifying that without the full sheets, as well as really knowing just why it's specifically labeled as that. It isn't what the movie uses though, so even if it actually was composed by the man, it didn't make it to the screen.
 

Funny you say all that: I believe Deborah Lurie has been an assistant to both Young and Elfman at different points. Which in turn makes it an easy link between the two composers, as she might've possibly been a consultant initially before being hired to do the rescores.

I've never heard any of the particular rumors mentioned here, but the tidbit about the responsibility theme fascinates me, given I always felt it was chosen to play in very specific moments in the film.

All that being said: in an FSM interview, Young only mentioned having Raimi as his guide for which Elfman themes to use and when. I doubt it's an NDA thing, as he was candid about Sony being responsible for bringing Lurie and Debney onboard and why they did so, as well as the general timeframe for when they would've all been working separately. So either it didn't happen, or it was so brief and early on that Chris himself didn't think it made much of an impact at the end of the day.

@Manakin Skywalker That's a generally good summation, but there's a few details I'd like to correct. Namely, Elfman would've already called it quits by the time Young and John Debney came onboard to do the rescores for SM2. Raimi had been specifically pressuring Danny to ape the temp track, which he absolutely refused to do. Additionally, there's also a chance that he simply refused to budge on how a few scenes were approached, as no other temp tracks besides the Hellraiser cues for the lab sequence has been recognized for the remaining additional tracks. Elfman did fully finish his initial work, so all this would've happened once he decided to walk out.

As for SM3, as far as the compositions go, he absolutely didn't write a single unique note for it. Everything that is referenced from the previous two films are either full on re-recordings that were adjusted to the picture (ala Superman II) or so different in arrangement that it stylistically doesn't sound like him. The former is especially taken to the next level with Deborah Lurie's contributions to the theatrical cut, as just about most of her work is based on tracks that appear in the official score releases for 1 and 2. And if that wasn't enough: a good amount of scenes that originally had Young underscore got replaced with music that is tracked from the first two flicks. This is mostly better detailed in the official music section from the end credits.

That being said: there is nothing to actually indicate that Elfman barred any release of the music. Namely because just about any copyright information you can find on random SM3 cues from YT points to it all being owned by a company associated with Sony. Heck, there is actually an interview with Young stating that Sony would only release the music if there was enough demand for it, implying that it more had to do with them not trusting Young to sell units like Elfman does. Also, there is the possibility of film scores sales being at a low at the time as a reason for Sony deciding not to go with it (which might be backed up by the fact Spidey 2 is strangely difficult to find on CD these days for such a high profile release).
 
And to end off on a confusing note: one of the many promos you can find for SM3 (mainly based on Lurie's work) has a cue variant that is literally titled "7M67 DE Happy Ending (Danny Elfman)." I legitimately have no idea what to make of it, besides my theory that it was an idea that was considered for the ending sequence in SM2 (another theory being that this was something Young had considered at one point during a time when the film had a final swing scene like the previous entries). But we have no way of verifying that without the full sheets, as well as really knowing just why it's specifically labeled as that. It isn't what the movie uses though, so even if it actually was composed by the man, it didn't make it to the screen.
 

Funny you say all that: I believe Deborah Lurie has been an assistant to both Young and Elfman at different points. Which in turn makes it an easy link between the two composers, as she might've possibly been a consultant initially before being hired to do the rescores.

I've never heard any of the particular rumors mentioned here, but the tidbit about the responsibility theme fascinates me, given I always felt it was chosen to play in very specific moments in the film.

All that being said: in an FSM interview, Young only mentioned having Raimi as his guide for which Elfman themes to use and when. I doubt it's an NDA thing, as he was candid about Sony being responsible for bringing Lurie and Debney onboard and why they did so, as well as the general timeframe for when they would've all been working separately. So either it didn't happen, or it was so brief and early on that Chris himself didn't think it made much of an impact at the end of the day.