MikeH

Funnily enough, that nearly happened on ROTS

Go easy on him. He’s never seen a Star War and routinely confuses R2 with 3PO 😉

Yeah, one of my favorite moments was hearing that awesome rendition of Rey’s theme blasting out over the IMAX sound system for the first time. That powerful counterpoint in the horns, wow. And of course they had to f*** it up.

....that hopefully they won't re-edit on the blu ray

I agree with Disco Stu! Christopher Lee is my favorite villain next to Telly's Blofeld. The fried mushroom...looks terribly interesting....

Scores 1. OHMSS (also happens to be my favorite score ever) 2. The Living Daylights 3. Man with the Golden Gun 4. A View to a Kill 5. Octopussy Movies 1. OHMSS 2. Dr. No 3. Man with the Golden Gun 4. From Russia With Love 5. Octopussy Yes, I love Golden Gun! Always have, always will! Since Barry had only a few weeks to do it he was even more streamlined than normal and it has a haunting quality to it. The opening harp notes are really evocative in their simplicity. I do enjoy David Arnold's work (especially TND and TWINE), don't care for Newman's approach. It's funny, growing up I listened to the Arnold Brosnan scores all the time but now it's mostly Barry. Also, I think George Martin's score for Live and Let Die is the best non-Barry one.

Success! I was able to ask Simon Franglen this question and he graciously provided some really interesting insights into their/James' process. He said the vast majority of cues where sampled instruments (like strings, woodwinds, harps, etc) stayed was because there was always a point in the process where certain cues worked emotionally in their virtual form and everyone was happy and satisfied. They felt no need to recreate it live and therefore would move on to the next cue (time pressures being what they are). Other reasons were for texture (oftentimes the synth version would sit better behind dialogue and have a more intimate sound), and of course money. Over half of the Titanic score was synth only because there was practically no music budget.

Fixed!

Williams and his trees...

Yeah, I might go back and listen to the original album and see how it compares. It's been awhile.

Psycho II The colors and textures are really interesting, even though I'm not too big a fan of the synth "bwaaazzooooooong" motif. However, the absolutely gorgeous main theme is what puts it at the top of my list. One of my top favorite themes of any composer.

Same here. 31, remembering the days of waiting 6 hours for the two-minute Titanic trailer to load, downloading Duel of the Fates only to discover that some jag-off mislabeled Carmina Burana, and punching a wall because my dial-up disconnected me seconds before I could snipe a last minute bid on the Thunderball Special Edition Laserdisc. Sweet Jesus, I even bought a 35mm trailer and a frame magnifier because I couldn't wait the extra few weeks it would take to show up on Quicktimes. Life may be smoother and faster now, but the drama was real. Will will never know, will he?

Thanks all! Yes, it's very interesting. NL197 you mentioned Bobby Fischer and I just started listening to that again this evening. Sure enough some cues are mainly synth and others are fully acoustic. One cue will have a synth oboe, the next will have a real one, etc. I didn't realize it was such a common pattern throughout his scores.

I've been on a Horner binge lately and I've noticed several cues contain sampled strings, woodwinds, and harps amidst an otherwise fully acoustic orchestral recording. A few that come to mind are Braveheart, Bicentennial Man, and Karate Kid. Some cues will have a totally live orchestra and others will have their sampled counterparts. To me it doesn't sound like these choices were made for 'color' reasons, it sounds more like not enough budget or super-late rewrites. Anyone have any thoughts on why he might have done this? Funnily enough though I've never been bothered by the synth choir in Titanic, probably because it's a consistent color throughout and also works in the new age-y way the score is written. But on the expanded Braveheart release it's a bit jarring and perplexing to go from the beautiful LSO strings to 90's synth strings and back from cue to cue.

CGI Director!

Great article! Good ol' Johnny "never seen a basketball game- never watched a horror film before Dracula- never seen a Star War" Williams. One of these days I half expect him to say, "Pizza? What's that?!" "I do classical pieces, and it's all by hand". My new favorite JW quote.

Music by John Williams (The Force Awakens, E.T., Jaws, and A Toast!)

Each concert will contain ten variations of "A Toast!"

Wow thanks Will. If I hadn't seen your message I would have waited till morning. Two tickets for Saturday night! $300 to hear the Schindler's List anecdote in person 😎

"A Toast!"

Don't sweat it. It's just a little public intimidation from Disney to not stray too far musically...or else we'll get Rogue One: 2 "the first time was only a warning..."

I prefer music writers of the half-cyborg variety. This is fantastic news! Powell will knock it out of the park.

I'm not crazy about the super-duper Mickey-mousing mode unless it's something operatic like the Prequels or purposefully over-the-top like Home Alone. I generally prefer it when he plays through a scene instead of musically duplicating every onscreen gesture.

Let's give Meco a Star War!