HunterTech

Listening to Mancini's Lifeforce for the first time in many years. Sweet jesus, definitely magnum opus material. Crazy that a film like it got a score such as this! 
 
 
This track alone is enough to jettison the score into one of my favorite music works ever...it's got so much going on: the thrill and mystery of the unknown, the slowly unravelling dread that comes from satisfying the wrong curiosities, all done with the devout patience and momentum of a true master. Goddamn, goddamn, this is how you do an orchestral setpiece! There are also some great moments of urgency and bravado to round out the score and really dial it in as Mancini's answer to the ever burgeoning list of space opera scores at the time.
 
The sound of 80's LSO smears its recognizable hand grease all over this score: thick, pungent brass chords with strings that pierce the atmosphere to aggressively present low winds makes you remember why this was the orchestra that everyone tried to get for their films.
 
Highly recommended!

But as Bilbo said, politics and personal attacks have always been out of scope and not allowed on the main boards. Yet some members have been very persistent in turning threads in political directions, by making quasi-veiled insinuations and posting links to external articles that deliberately put a controversial political spin on a subject. It's hard for the moderators to keep track of all that stuff, and then it's hard to judge at which point exactly a thread became explicitly political or who is to blame for it (insofar as blame helps in preventing this thing from happening again and again). All the new rules do is make it clear that it's the intent of a post that matters, so that nobody can say "but the post that I wrote that also linked to that article that says the tritonus is a PC conspiracy wasn't political", when it was clearly intended to fuel the political discussion that ultimately derailed a thread.

Man, I'm going to miss when you could assign an intellectual disability to any poster you didn't agree with after calling them the hard c-word. The sort of discourse that really brings out the best in people. Made for some fine reading material too. If those weren't the glory days I don't know what was. Truly a classier time.
 
 
 
 

Many chances were given to keep off-topic discussion contained in the off-topic subforums.  But several users continually kept bringing them into the wider forum, an action which was probably always the central point of interest with them.  So, restrictions on those behaviors became necessary I and many others feel.  

Correction: completely devoid of a bad sense of humor.

FWIW, I was happy to see the new rules.  Granted, I'm largely a lurker, but I'd started visiting less and less (even swearing off the site entirely) because the content of some posts was really getting to me.  I just felt increasingly unwelcome, even in the shadows.  Here's hoping change is good!

I mean, I don't think the rules specifically forbid anyone from quietly discussing personal COVID-19 matters. Just the ones where things can easily spiral out of control, really.

(Also, I'm sure you could just easily message the peeps you care most about.)

I've actually found a promo with a lot of Badelt's contributions for the score. Several being presumably the demos he had submitted for consideration of being hired for the full gig, but a lot of it also being his original overlays for some of Kamen's cues. Turns out that the final edits of these tracks use the additions very differently, often removing and repurposing some of the more egregious parts in areas.
 
I actually wonder if some of the electronic work could be Kamen's, given there's a couple of bits and pieces on the supposed "film mix" leak that don't show up on the promo. It's also likely that Badelt simply has refused to post his full body of work for the film, as he doesn't seem to have acknowledged the project on later iterations of his website.
 
KB's name wasn't on the front of the original OST either, since his official credit on the score wasn't as an additional composer. While I see him being listed on the album for "electronic drums" (not credited within the film itself, it seems), I thought I saw something about him being some form of synth programmer somewhere.
 
I really do hope this is the unaltered Kamen score, as while the Badelt add ons don't bother me too much, I figure the end result likely could be improved without them being present. We'll just have to see what the tracklist and final set ends up being. Hopefully some discussion in the booklet about the production history of the music and the source master for the release.
 
EDIT: So the official credit for Klaus on the album is "Additional Electronic Percussion." Anything about him being a music/synth programmer is just people misremembering. I'm wondering if there is an odd legal reason for Badelt to only be credited in this manner.

Correction: completely devoid of a bad sense of humor.

Source

Yay X-Men! I'll probably actually order that once it becomes available.

My thing is more that I'm one of those people that essentially only buys CDs as an item to display and occasionally look at after ripping them, given my general preference for digital music players, as well as not having much space around the room to get much disc sets. So I tend to get super picky about what I want to buy, especially if it's a set that is known for having issues. For example, I own the Superman Returns LLL set purely because of my admiration of the score, in spite of finding it basically unlistenable. Given how relatively new I am to this film score business, I am sure my thought process could change once I get more acquainted with the medium. Heck, I am considering grabbing the LLL Elfman Batman set in spite of having a custom for 89.

You gotta take into account all the EU stuff that propped up the Boba Fett character and expanded his people (until George word of mouth retconned Jango to be a fake Mandalorian), his appearance in the movies was really only just the beginning.
 
Fett has one underrated moment in ESB I like quite a bit. Watch the scene where Luke is sneaking through Cloud City, he peaks out a corner and makes a bit of noise and immediately pushes himself back as Boba walks past. As Boba is walking, watch what his head does, it jerks to the direction of the sound and then he keeps walking off frame which lulls Luke into a false sense of security. Then the moment Luke moves back out the corner, Boba pops up and shoots at him because he’s expecting him, and frankly if it wasn’t for Jedi reflexes I think Luke might be dead.
 
I genuinely do not understand what you mean by this. Are you saying that if there’s a disconnect between what you think is better made and what you personally prefer, that you can’t make people care about your favourite movie? Doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of distinguishing between ‘best’ and ‘favourite’?

Stop with the flattery. This forum aspires to become moderately used.

Spider-Man 3 -- Christopher Young
 
Still bummed that this doesn't have a proper release. He deconstructs and plays around with Elfman's thematic material more -- but still in that musical family. It's amazing how many themes Young composed for the film (that got cut out) -- and it's all wonderful. The lack of electronic percussion doesn't hurt the score.
 
I actually prefer his arrangement of Elfman's opening titles theme over Elfman's original two.

I'm not hating on Boba Fett, but he's always considered as one of the coolest SW characters, though when Phasma died in TLJ after having significantly more screen time in two films it's "wasted potential", "bad writing" and a "sh*t character". 

Am I the only one around here who likes the score for Social Network? I do prefer HTTYD by far but one does not prevent the other.

I've seen nothing trend about Boseman so far, or even Hopkins for that matter. Guessing that'll be tomorrow's outrage instead of today.
 

Ah yes, Black Panther was an indie film that totally got little recognition. Didn't win awards whatsoever.

(I figure the choices this year was more like "some for them, some for us" in terms of handing out the awards.)

I voted No. but this has nothing to do with current composers and their various styles. There are outstanding composers out there.
 
I voted no because the current process of film making itself inherently prevents any great score to be written (or heard). 

Anyway, to try and get this back to the original discussion about the "best film score" and the general state of film music past, present, and future…
 
Many (most?) of use are here because we are *musically* interested in film music. To me, film music has traditionally been an extension or spin-off of classical music - opera is often cited as the most closely related genre (certainly in part because of Wagner's groundwork in narrative thematic writing, and Korngold's early successes in opera, which he then incorporated in the genesis of the Hollywood sound). But tone poems (cf. Richard Strauss) have at least as much claim (and perhaps Strauss' own most film like opera writing in Elektra are passages that happen in the past, or off stage, and are conveyed purely musically). There's stage music as well, which is essentially film music for non-films, although usually not as closely matched to the action. And there's narrative ballet: Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet is perhaps the most film music like non-film work I've experienced, because at least in the John Cranko staging at the Vienna State Opera essentially plays like a silent film. The story and even details of the dialogue are silently acted out and purely (but totally understandably) narrated by the music, and the action sequences are perfectly timed (it is, after all, a ballet).
 
What at least almost all of these have in common is that they were written by composers who were composers first, "musical supporters" second. Tone poems, except for being based on an external source, were entirely constructed by the composer. In opera, at least the music and timings were the composer's doings, even if the libretto was written by someone else - but Strauss worked closely with his librettists, asking for dramaturgical changes and also discussing details of timing in relation to the stage descriptions (which is part of why I usually object to stagings that try to tell their own story at the expense (!) of the original conception), and Wagner (and some others) of course wrote their own librettos for full control.
 
Combine that with the first generations of film composers coming from a concert background and being "classically trained", and you got narrative writing that, like a good opera or ballet, tells and supports the story based on the story's narrative, yet absolutely were meant to also have enough musical merit to be able to stand on their own (here is where I most strongly disagree with Thor about film and stage music deriving its *musical* structure from the story's *narrative* structure and therefore having artistic worth when presented in this structure).
 
For decades, most films had room for this kind of score, partly because of their prevailing style, but also because of technical aspects: Originally the necessity of music because film had no sound besides the distracting noise of the projector, later because foley technology on its own could not yet reproduce real world sound extensively enough to be convincing on its own.
 
Compared to this "traditional" kind of score (which obviously dominated the Golden Age but was still prevalent until at least the 1990s), modern films do not "need" music as much as those of earlier decades did. They are often more "realistic" than earlier films, making a prominent melodic score stand out more and possibly distract. Also, films that go for a larger than life experience (and thus could support a more prominent score) are also usually littered with loud sound effects that leave little room for music that goes beyond basic rhythms or sound design (Harald Kloser once described his score for an action sequence in (I believe) The Day After Tomorrow and explained that basically the only thing he could do in it that would be at all noticeable in the sound mix was change the rhythm at key moments). At the same time, because they are less reliant on music, many films have not only stopped using the wall to wall scores that were fashionable for a while (at least for certain genres), but reduced the music even further to a few key moments, leaving little opportunity for actual musical development or a narrative music arc. The fact that fewer and fewer composer are "classically trained" these days (and that the mere idea of considering such a training not a strict necessity for all composers, but a major factor in the artistic success of most of the good ones, has a rather elitist and outdated aura now) also doesn't help in crafting a coherent musical work from these reduced opportunities, and here at least I am convinced that Zimmer and Co are, overall, less capable, and also less interested (or perhaps even aware) in these things than their predecessor. Goldsmith could famously take a 2 hour drama and spot it so sparesly that the score only began after one hour, totalled 30 minutes, and yet formed a substantial musical narrative from beginning to end, but I'd venture that most composers today lack the necessary training/craft/experience/call it what you will to perform at a similar level.
 
That's usually no problem for the films. A good film doesn't always need a good score, and a bad film, while perhaps made more tolerable (or even partially admirable) by a good score, remains a bad film (although it may give us a great score to listen to away from it as a byproduct). More importantly, a modern film can be supported by a score with no higher musical aspirations whatsoever. From what little I can remember, I consider Zimmer's Dunkirk high effective sound design, just not something musically relevant. Here we also come to the clash between "traditional" music and ambient music/sound design. I'm not generally a fan of the latter, but unlike some I don't automatically categorise it as a bad score - even when I don't find much musical relevance in it.
 
That kind of music (including some works that I like, more that I can appreciate, and many where I just don't see the musical merit) has its fans, of course, but I do wonder if there is something like an "ambient film score fan"? I.e. someone who specifically likes ambient film music, rather than just liking that sort of music in general, including those cases where it's been applied to a film? I wouldn't see the reason, or necessity, for it, at least (unless we're talking about people who like film music because of the films and the filmic associations the music triggers in them).
 
But "narrative classical film music", broadly speaking, as a sub genre of classical music, is something that has traditionally established certain characteristics that can easily "hook" people and turn them into "film music fans". I still argue it's not distinct enough from "classical" music for me to understand why some people like the one and not the other (unless you argue that film music is "easier" because it requires no attention span, which would roughly translate to the elitist claim that film music is artistically worthless because it lacks the structure of "true" classical music - a view which I obviously don't subscribe to), but it *is* distinctive enough to make people seek out more of the sort, *and* branch out into other forms of classical music as well. John Mauceri has argued the the Hollywood film score isn't late Romantic or post Romantic but in fact the peak of Romantic music. I would agree at least insofar that traditional Hollywood film music has for decades been one of the best areas for composers who wanted to write substantial orchestral music while still building on a mainly tonal, "Romantic" foundation (with still much room for avant-garde and modernism).
 
And for those of us who are fans of that approach in particular (which I'd argue is the closest that film music has come to a somewhat distinctly definable musical genre), I definitely would argue that current film music isn't "what it used to be": Because most films don't need it, because most studios don't want it, because many current films don't have the room, or the production process, for "fully musically developed" scores, and because as a result much fewer composers who have the necessary skill and craft are still actively working in this business. Those who do remain and may have what it needs to write scores that can compete, in "artistic merit", with the greats of earlier generations share a much reduced set of opportunities that call for such scores. On that count I would argue that the current state and the current trends of films and film music don't look so great for people interested in film music of the kind and for the reasons I ramblingly (sorry) described above. But who knows what new trends may appear in 10, or 20, or 500 years. Elmer Bernstein asked "Whatever happened to great movie music" in 1972 - and just look what the next couple of years brought.
 

Lol do they? The abundance of "John WIlliams ripped off ________" hot takes might beg to differ...
 
I think the real issue here is one of consensus. Which is always evolving but has become way more diffuse with social media. It's so rare to see anything get immediately canonized in this way anymore. When it does, there are always people who love to shrug it off. So I do think any attempt at an "all time" discussion obviously has to factor in staying power to begin with, at least to go beyond just trying to mount arguments for why our own favorites rule and others drool.
 
Like, after 20 years, I suppose it's safe to say The Lord of the Rings as a whole are the most recent scores to reasonably and consistently get the "all time" treatment. You could mention it alongside Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, and Star Wars and it's not like anybody would think you were trying to make fetch happen. But of course you will still find people to shout "MEHHHH!" (and then again, it's not like even JWFan cares much about GWTW or LoA either, anyway.) So the question is, are those people willing to acknowledge that it's canonized despite their cries of indifference? Does it matter whether or not they do?
 
Alternatively....look, I actually think it's pretty interesting to look back at 2010 and realize that three scores from that year in particular seem to get a lot of mentions and used as reference points in a variety of film and music discussion circles: How to Train Your Dragon, Inception, and The Social Network.
 
The "everybody likes different things" shit cuts both ways. If people are singing a soundtrack's praises to the high heavens on one side and absolutely fuming about it on the other, after 10 years, and its influence continues to be felt, then it's gotten under people's skins like nothing else. I don't know how long it'll take to reckon with Reznor/Ross and Zimmer instead of acting like there's nothing there but those scores aren't going away. At this point, I daresay the traditionalists are only adding to their mystique.
 
Personally, I don't listen to those three scores, but I won't pretend like they haven't hit harder than just about anything to come out in the last ten years, including scores I prefer by this site's namesake during that time. In that way, if we're asking whether or not it's still possible for a score to land with acclaim and popularity and generate discussion, debate, and analysis for years and the haters can go fuck themselves, then yes, it's possible.
 
If you're asking whether or not a new score could be written for a film in the current industry that would play like gangbusters to JWFan specifically, surpassing all the things we fell in love with, breaking emotional walls and appealing to our more critical minds, gaining everyone's love or at least their begrudging respect...I doubt it?

If someone went back in time, to the 1930s, and played composers such as Korngold, and Steiner, a piece of music that was more like a chamber piece, with a lot of dissonant, screeching strings, they would have laughed in your face. Fast forward to 2021, and PSYCHO is (quite rightly so) considered to be among the greatest film scores ever written.
It can happen. It probably won't, but it can.

No and Yes, I think.
 
No, because "Best Film Score Of All Time" hasn't happened yet and won't ever truly happen, because (and I know you don't seem to want to hear this) it is entirely subjective. Sure, there are some things that can be technically and objectively flawless, but I don't think there's a single film score that literally everyone loves. And if you asked all of us what the Best Film Score of All Time is so far, then we'd all have different answers and debate about it endlessly.
 
I answered yes, because I honestly I feel like history repeats itself and things that fall out of fashion will always come back into fashion at some point. Vinyls managed to come back around, people make music today with cassette tapes and decks, etc. I think, if you're concerned about traditional orchestral scores, that there absolutely can be a film that would require one, and it could be a stellar score. It's possible, which was the question. So yes. But regardless, we could have some pretty stellar scores written in the next 9 years whether they're orchestral or not. That's a long time, so yeah it's certainly possible.
 
Do I think it's likely or will happen specifically in the next 9 years? Probably not, but it's possible. What the hell do I know?
 
 

No, because a "best film score of all time" was never was gonna exist to begin with. Sure, there's the legitimate question of how much exceptional music we'll actually see within this decade, but the amount of conflict over what's the best film score of each prior year is something no one can agree on as is. So what the hell is the point of arguing over a span of years that has barely even started? Especially since I can already tell that a sizable chunk of people here are likely gonna dismiss or be unaware of the many efforts that'll release anyway (the prevailing attitudes of this thread currently aren't proving me wrong so far), so how much of this comes from a genuine place honestly?

Besides, even if we get a healthy amount of great and interesting scores, we're living in times where what we can define a film score as is not what it would've been 10 years ago. Would a synth dominated score even be within the top 10 of everybody's lists? Or something that manages to use RCP tropes in a refreshing and more sophisticated manner? Is something low key the way to go? Or is something energetic and bombastic the answer? And would it be a work that particularly affected the masses strongly, or would it be something only a true music fan could appreciate? There's just too many parameters that would likely prevent the question from being an easy one to answer for a lot of people.

 

This poll has helped me to better understand the three demographics of film score listeners that make up JW Fan, and for that I am truly thankful. Observe: