Tom Guernsey

One is enough. ;-)

Alice in Wonderland by Richard Hartley (his brother JR wrote a book about fly fishing...). One of a run of Hallmark (and probably other network) TV movies in the late 90s with delightful orchestral scores by Richard Hartley and Richard Harvey (neatly next to each other in iTunes). Hartley's score to Alice is much more playful than the somewhat urgent sound of Elfman's score for the Burton version, perhaps closer in spirit to the John Barry score for the 70s version. However, where those two composers are pretty readily identifiable, Hartley's score is more of a mashup of 80s and 90s feature scores, notably bits of Hook and Casper, plus others I've almost certainly missed. Not the most original, but charming and tuneful all the same. The songs are silly but fun and entirely appropriate.

Yeah exactly. It's not a revelatory expansion by any means so certainly not crushed having missed out. I'm sure some people will hate me for saying this, but there are some older expansions I missed out on where the later ones were significantly better. Perhaps notably the FSM release of Patton (rather oddly coupled with Frank DeVol's Flight of the Phoenix). I was initially disappointed to miss out on one of Jerry's best and most famous scores, but FSM only released the original film tracks which don't sound as good as the album recording made at the time which FSM did not include. Intrada's release included both and sounded better. I still find the original soundtrack album the most satisfying presentation of this score, even if it contains 10 minutes less music than the full score.

I'm so lucky to have been able to buy pretty much every expanded release I've wanted to get. Of recent releases, the only one I somehow missed out on was City Hall which seemed to be in print for about 5 minutes. Maybe it'll show up on digital download someday.

Maybe?!

Star Trek, Star Trek, Star Trek... and, as if by magic, he and his music appeared in my life. I remember being quite confused as to why Star Trek 2 didn't use his theme from TMP. I feel like he's slowly crept in to usurp JW as my favourite film composer, but let's call it a tie so everyone is equally happy/disappointed. I actually assumed the title of the thread meant encounter in person in which case it would be at the Museum of the Moving Image in, I guess 1997, around the time The Edge was released as he gave a talk about it alongside director Lee Tamahori (before he disappointed us all with Die Another Die... or The Another The as it is in Germany - sorry the Simpsons). They showed the opening titles with the Last of the Mohicans temp tracked, then with Jerry's (excellent) main titles music. I do remember Jerry expressing his dislike of temp tracking but otherwise talked generally about how he worked with the director and his composing process etc. Sadly too long ago to remember much of the details. However, I did get to shake his hand and he kindly signed Night Crossing for me. I have no idea why I chose that over TMP or something a bit more famous... but it's obviously a much treasured possession. Mr Southall went to the same event and I think he got Powder signed (as it had large white areas which seemed better suited to autographs from cranky, pony-tailed composers). However, we both agreed that he definitely signed it Jerry Dobson, which became something of a running joke during our time at uni.

Glad it's not just me who feels like that! And if you're gonna smother a film in music, at least make it decent music...

What a terrifying future awaits us all lol. I’m not in the least bit surprised he won but still felt it was actually badly scored, both in terms of the music and the spotting. Intrusive and relentless in the dialogue scenes without any dramatic ebb and flow, just constantly noodling away with buildup after buildup making the film feel like a super long trailer. Ah well I can resign myself to being out of touch with what makes an Oscar winning score in the 21st century and pay them no mind.

Honestly I don't know, although in my head it was at the Royal Albert Hall but that could just be because I've seen lots of film music concerts there. I agree that those three directors provided him with some fine ongoing collaborations, but none that quite hit the sweet spot of critical and commercial acclaim which JW has enjoyed. Also, JW's success probably got him offered better quality non-Spielberg/Lucas projects than Jerry, at least once you get to the 80s and 90s. I would concede that Jerry probably could have been a bit more discerning as to which projects he agreed to or could have done with a better agent! Of any other composers, I expect he was more pissed off at James Horner's success than JW given that the average quality of Horner's assignments were probably higher than Jerry's once he hit his post-Star Trek 2 stride. Jerry would almost certainly have felt that JW earned his success with a couple of decades of TV and the various comedies, disaster movies etc. that he did before hitting the big time, even if I'm sure Jerry would have liked some of that for himself!

Does anyone have any recommendations for a complete set of the Widor Organ Symphonies? I have a couple of random recordings of the famous 5th but would like to explore the others. Perhaps unwisely, I played the toccata from the 5th when I used to play the organ at a local church at the end of a service. I more or less got through it… our music teacher at school (as well as my church organ and later piano teacher) played it at least once a year at the end of assembly much to the delight of even the less musically inclined students. Although not as big a hit as when he played the theme from Jurassic Park or The Imperial March… both of which were ideal for the principal who was a dinosaur, wore a black gown and was probably evil.

Haha, yeah that's what I meant... d'oh. Well actually I meant it wasn't a lot more silly... but silly is in the eye of the beholder I guess.

Yeah, that's about it, it was the point when he realised he was working his arse off on films demanding lots of music that he thought were a bit silly and he should have been getting better gigs (which he did earlier in his career). To be fair, he was right, he really did deserve his own Spielberg or Lucas... Dante and Schaffner were probably his longest associations and gave him quite different challenges; working with Dante was almost certainly a lot of fun but was never going to go high brow and Schaffner provided kudos but not enough mainstream appeal. Plus he died in the late 1980s and his peak was the 1970s anyway. You could argue that Dante's peak was the 1980s too. But you're right, he wrote a terrific score for the Mummy and it's not like it's much less silly than Indiana Jones and it's certainly a hundred times better than King Solomon's Mines (and the Mummy is a better score too).

He definitely did say some negative things in the context of The Mummy at that concert - I was there. While I couldn't relate exactly what he said, I think it was more a comment at a general dislike of working on big, cheesy/popcorn movies. It wasn't that his experience on The Mummy was bad per se, but just a more general frustration and that film happened to be the straw that broke the camel's back. Appropriately enough...

Finally got round to seeing it albeit not in IMAX or at an especially astonishing cinema but it still looked and sounded great. Totally didn’t recognise Austin Butler but as someone pointed out, no matter how bald you think he is in this film he’s even more bald than that. Quite. He’s seemed to have got lots of plaudits for his performance but it didn’t seem any more than a somewhat standard sneering villain (good though he was). The more nuanced villain roles were more engaging even if they looked less good topless. My biggest issue with the film was that it was one of those films where I just couldn’t give two shits about any of the characters. Not through bad acting but it’s just a film that’s more about the ideas (how cults and messiahs are built, and prophesies willed into being etc). Timothy Chalamet was great as the lead and he certainly had the charisma to lead such a big movie but it was all so portentous that his journey from being relatively innocent and well meaning to someone fuelled by messianic zeal didn’t make as much impact somehow. It didn’t help that there were a few points where the narrative seemed to jump just a bit too quickly for the story to unfurl naturally (and not ashamed to admit I wasn’t quite sure who was where and how they got there a couple of times). It also almost felt like there was an obligation to put in some humour just to stave off the whole thing seeming like it was totally up its own arse but it wasn’t really enough for my liking. Plus some of the bad people seemed to just be dicks for the sake of it. They’d have been killed in an uprising years ago acting like that. Hans’ score had its moments but I don’t think the apparently endless themes are presented in a way that makes it possible to readily identify them with people or places or ideas beyond a few of the bigger melodies/ideas. I’ve read the posts, listened to the album several times and seen the film and I can’t say I could identify what theme represents what. Spoiler bit, although it’s one of those things you can see coming a mile off which is why I’m mentioning it for being so lame, but…

That’s no Klingon moon!

It is. I just listened to the suite and it really doesn’t do the score justice at all, whereas the suite for the first one is a belter. Just have to listen to the whole thing then. Oh no… 😮

Fucking hell it’s great reading so many positive comments in this thread and not just vacuous “they’re great” but plentiful reasons as to why they’re great and those details that make them great not just because they have good themes or are exciting or are beautiful or whatever, but an appreciation of all the craft that’s gone into them.

Quite. That whole cue is full of amazing textures (I can’t for the life of me work out why it’s not in the suite on the Serebrier album as it’s clearly one of the standout tracks of the score both musically and within the film).

Agree. And also above YouTube clips so if it’s not available where someone is, you can at least look it up elsewhere.

I’d agree. It’s a lot more natural sounding in the expanded edition. The extra music also makes it a more balanced listening experience (same with Solo) and gives the music room to breathe. One thing i especially love about the HTTYD scores (and other Powell scores of course) is how glorious the performance seems to be. Rich brass, especially the horns and absolutely gorgeous use of orchestral colour which is so vividly captured. I’ve mentioned it before but when the horns bring in the main theme in Test Drive about a minute in, I’ve rarely heard horn chords sounding so rich and resonant. Compare it to the (very well performed) Serebrier conducted compilation and the sound in that track isn’t nearly so gorgeous (and the Philharmonia is an excellent orchestra). Maybe he and Gavin Greenaway drive the orchestra harder for those sections but the results are wonderful.

Aha thank you. Clearly I was being dim. Makes sense now. Hopefully it’ll hit the target!

I backed at the third tier level. Figured I may as well take the opportunity to add a signed Christopher Young score to my collection and support what sounds like an amazing score. I must be being dim (no comments please…) but I couldn’t see where it explained the need for this to have a kickstarter (that @Richard Penna seems to have seen!).

Maybe this’ll inspire someone to do a new recording then… I always thought it was a pretty great score.

I’ve not seen the film but it seems like the “nice” person of Gen V. By coincidence I listened to the score the other day but honestly can’t remember a thing about it. Fun but pretty unremarkable.

I still can’t forgive them for calling the first one Jurassic World when it’s literally the first movie in the series about an actual operational park.