Leia Sees Ghosts

So so so so so so so so happy Randy Newman is back! Now if only Noah Baumbach remembered him. 

Still need a tell-all about how the Age of Ultron score became as fucked as it did. One of the most dumbfounding film score productions I've ever seen.

He talks about the Good German at about 1:04:37 in this 2022 interview with Rick Beato. He describes it as his attempt at doing Max Steiner (whose music was used as the temp track) and his dad Alfred. It still bears his mark.

The Good German is somehow a very unique element in his oeuvre and something clearly made as a pastiche/callback to the Golden Age era, but there are his fingerprints all over it.
 
 
I think he spoke several times about how he approaches composition as improvisation and that he often felt limited when it was just strictly writing and performing what's on the page. He found his own unique way of jamming with a small band of preferred players and then write the orchestral parts around the beats and grooves that are sampled during these improv sessions. So it's the orchestra that sweetens the samples and not viceversa.

Whatever Thomas Newman comes up with, I am sure it will at least try to homage certain aspects of John Williams' style. But it won't necessarily be what majority of Williams fans would like. But it would be cool of him to at least adopt certain elements of what inspired Williams himself, if that makes sense. Whatever the outome, I am at the very least intrigued because, it is way more interesting when composers with strong voice of their own pay respects to other composers. I do enjoy a good impression once in a while it isn't really interesting beyond technical superficiality. I'll take strong personality over that any day.
 
Karol

I guess you haven't heard this yet:
 
Yavar

Very late to the party, but I find it astounding that there are people who think this score isn't gonna be great. The fact he was hired this early and at all is a really good sign that this won't be temped to high heaven. The argument that Thomas Newman "doesn't do big orchestral scores." when we have Little Women, Cinderella Man, The Good German, and several cues from Finding Nemo and Wall-E proving otherwise. 

I'm happy it's not a lesser-Zimmer clone who is just gonna follow the temp, or a composer who is just gonna do a John Williams pastiche cause Shawn Levy and the studio said "Just do John Williams!" without further instruction. The talk of multiple themes for this movie also makes me very very very very happy. 

"Why can't it be James Newton Howard?" Relax, we still have a new trilogy on the way. Maybe he'll do that. 

Very late to the party, but I find it astounding that there are people who think this score isn't gonna be great. The fact he was hired this early and at all is a really good sign that this won't be temped to high heaven. The argument that Thomas Newman "doesn't do big orchestral scores." when we have Little Women, Cinderella Man, The Good German, and several cues from Finding Nemo and Wall-E proving otherwise. 

I'm happy it's not a lesser-Zimmer clone who is just gonna follow the temp, or a composer who is just gonna do a John Williams pastiche cause Shawn Levy and the studio said "Just do John Williams!" without further instruction. The talk of multiple themes for this movie also makes me very very very very happy. 

"Why can't it be James Newton Howard?" Relax, we still have a new trilogy on the way. Maybe he'll do that. 

Very late to the party, but I find it astounding that there are people who think this score isn't gonna be great. The fact he was hired this early and at all is a really good sign that this won't be temped to high heaven. The argument that Thomas Newman "doesn't do big orchestral scores." when we have Little Women, Cinderella Man, The Good German, and several cues from Finding Nemo and Wall-E proving otherwise. 

I'm happy it's not a lesser-Zimmer clone who is just gonna follow the temp, or a composer who is just gonna do a John Williams pastiche cause Shawn Levy and the studio said "Just do John Williams!" without further instruction. The talk of multiple themes for this movie also makes me very very very very happy. 

"Why can't it be James Newton Howard?" Relax, we still have a new trilogy on the way. Maybe he'll do that. 

I think that besides the fact that Newman is an incredibly competent composer, one should also give a little credit to filmmakers to avoid the pitfalls of typecasting. While it’s true that all composers have their own set of skills and stuff that they do better than others, we should also have trust that they can rise to the occasion when it’s presented in front of themselves. So, Newman may have not written anything in the classic swashbuckling orchestral style of Star Wars so far, but who says that he will not be able to? 
 
Just think about John Williams in 1977… Beyond the adventure music in Jaws, there wasn’t anything in his oeuvre that was comparable to the type of style that Lucas was requesting for Star Wars. If George wouldn’t have taken the risk of trusting Williams, imagine what a different world we’d be living in.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8USkFF4/
 
Shawn Levy sat down with Kevin McCarthy (one of the best film journalists/interviewers who recently started his own podcast), and revealed that Thomas Newman will be doing the score for Star Wars: Straighter! In the interview clip above where the news is dropped, Levy makes clear that he wants the score to follow Williams' lead on having distinctive themes, but with its own musical identity that's classically inspired, but without being remixes of Williams cues:

 
 

I wonder who'll score this. Wouldn't mind if it's Brian Tyler, his score for the 2017 reboot was the only thing in that movie that was even remotely good. Probably my favorite score for a bad movie.

My heart wants Alan Silvestri back but he's a bit busy playing with superheroes.

I'm sure it took a lot of money and manipulation to get Cars up to a 77 Metacritic score. It would be harder to build the franchise if the first one was universally panned. After that, it's basically printing money. 

Scherzo For Undisclosed Conductor And Orchestra

Has it been officially confirmed that Spielberg is directing this film? Or do I risk something if I reveal it? 

The project should be called "Non-Disclosure Day".

Afterwards, on the film's IMDb page (I know this should be taken with a grain of salt), Michael Kahn was removed. Worth checking out. https://www.imdb.com/fr/title/tt15047880/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cst_sm
JB

“John Williams conducting music” has now become a breach of confidentiality… what a world we live in.

The musician pressured me to have everything deleted through Bespin, who was close to the forum. For my part, I regularly posted on the Facebook page. She was threatened with exclusion from future recordings, which is understandable  
 
 
 
JB

To be honest, it feels like where we were in 2008 with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull coming out in that post Star Wars Prequel period and thinking isn't it cool to be alive when another Williams score is coming out?

Spielberg: Johnny we need you for this
 
JW: oh Steven idk we've done UFOs so many times
 
Spielberg: Emily Blunt in a tight red dress.
 
*phone hits the floor. piano noises in the background*

I've seen the movie 5 times already. Gets better with each watch imo.

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