midgemania

FWIW, I’m one of these people. When I first saw TROS in the cinema I had a strong, almost visceral, dislike of it. It felt cynical, rushed and corporate and like a microcosm of all of modern Disney’s worst instincts - an unfortunate but predictable end result of all of my concerns with TFA and TLJ. I’ve watched all 9 films again recently, in release order, and I have to say that I greatly enjoyed the sequel trilogy far more than I expected to. When taken as an episodic conclusion to 9 films of a great cinematic saga, TROS works much better. Most crucially, for me at least, it feels like a Star Wars movie - with all the positive and negative connotations that implies. Some of the major set pieces in TROS are right up there with anything else in the Star Wars canon, and the film never looks anything less than superb. I’m happy to say that I have mellowed in my strong dislike of it, and look forward to enjoying it more in years to come.

It’s nice to see HGW doing this sort of project again - I’m greatly looking forward to hearing what else he comes up with.

I have a couple of thoughts that first came to mind when I heard the behind the music trailer: 1) The vocals are not mixed in the same way as the movies. Here they primarily used a choir or vocal ensemble of singers. The sound of the recording stage is very prevalent in the sound, whereas in the movies it’s clearly a multitrack of perhaps 2-3 singers. Not sure exactly how many, but it gives them a presence and bite that is lacking from the game music. 2) The non-orchestral elements take a backseat to the orchestra, whereas in both film scores it’s a true hybrid approach, and they sound as if they were conceived simultaneously rather than added on after the fact. I think Toprak’s music is a fine achievement in and of itself, and I enjoyed listening to it. But it doesn’t feel like Avatar, which makes me slightly disappointed as I was really hoping it would sit alongside Horner and Franglen in the canon. EDIT to add - it’s also an extremely dense mix. The sound washes over you rather than giving you interesting pops of texture and colour to listen to - although I suppose that’s no bad thing for a game score.

If you’re talking about “Can You Read My Mind” - the lyrics set to the Love Theme from Superman - then thank you for picking the archetypal example of exactly what I’m talking about.

Can you name one? That’s a genuine question, because I can’t immediately think of any that don’t simply feel like someone has pasted lyrics over the top of a pre-existing theme. Perhaps “For Always” from A.I, but if that’s the gold standard example then I think it rather proves my point. Generally agreed, although there are at least SOME examples from Horner where it works - Titanic and An American Tale being 2 immediately obvious examples.

It may well be sacrilege to say it on this site, but I find every lyric to Williams’ music to be anodyne and unnecessary. I just don’t think his melodies lend themselves to vocalisation, and it always feels shoehorned in.

I can’t explain why, but this score is living with me a lot. I’m no great Zimmer fan (although I respect his production genius and impact on cinema, for better or worse), but this is him at his bombastic, cyclical-chord writing, Handel-plagiarising, 24-horn-because-why-the-fuck-not best, and I for one am delighted to hear it rather than the endless droning synth scores we’ve had in his latest reincarnation.

Respectfully, I disagree based on this small snippet. It doesn’t sound like it fits the textural soundscape or harmonic language of the Avatar movies to my ear at all. It’s like they wrote a checklist of what they think “Avatar” is - ethnic flutes, brash female vocals and hand percussion - but did it in a very predictable way. And I say this as someone who is a fan of Pinar Toprak, I think she’s very talented. I’ll reserve judgement until I hear the whole score - only time and a full listen will tell whether it enhances and enriches the Avatar canon.

Seems like a slightly extended edition of Way of Water is coming out for Christmas https://collider.com/avatar-the-way-of-water-collectors-edition-4k-steelbook-release-date/ “…12 deleted scenes will expand what we know about the sequel…” I’m hoping we’ll get to hear more of Franglen’s excellent score, but knowing Cameron we’ll almost certainly just get more hacked Horner from A1.

I wouldn’t hold my breath. The ever-increasing proliferation of DAW / keyboard-centric composers, the continuing use of mid-late noughties Zimmer in temp music, and the ubiquitous presence of RC alumni in the upper echelons of film scoring (many of whom probably had a large involvement in the “Zimmer” sound in the first place) mean that this approach to action will be around for a while yet.

I think I’ve said this elsewhere, but I just don’t think that Cameron can complete post-production on 3 whilst also shooting 4&5, which I presume is the plan like with 2&3. I’d also be willing to bet that 5 will be pushed to the end or 2032 instead of 2031 - same as the gap between 2&3.

Fry as Slughorn or Fudge would be excellent as well.

Yeah, they’ve aged poorly this is true. But I was more referring to the fact that the Potter TV series will most likely suffer from the same issues that plague the Star Wars and Marvel TV series’. Audiences have grown accustomed to a certain scale when it comes to these franchises, and the TV series’ are incapable of delivering on that due to budgetary constraints. Even an extraordinarily expensive series of TV has to spread a moderate feature film budget over 8-10 hours of content per season. I’m in the controversial minority of people who prefers the musical direction of movies 4-8 over the JW scores (with the exception of a large portion of Hooper’s contributions). I think the Williams scores to the first films ages them far more obviously than the later music, which integrates into the tone of the films much more comfortably. Of course, as standalone music the Williams scores are superior in almost every way.

I wonder whether they’ll go down the route of having Williams pen the title theme of the series, then get some other composer to do the grunt work. FWIW - I think having a similar (or the same) musical identity as the films will be a mistake. It’ll make the TV series feel even more like a lo-res version of the films than it presumably will already.

I’ve just watched this on digital at home, and it confirms (to my mind at least) what I’ve suspected previously, and mentioned in other posts. The music dub in this film is, in my opinion, the worst in Cameron’s career by some margin. I don’t know whether he didn’t have confidence in Franglen’s music, or they were rushed at the end, but it’s awful. The editing in some places is amateurish - brutal cross fades between Horner’s music from A1 and new Franglen music that pays no attention to key or rhythm. There’s also clearly some MIDI demo tracks in there. One of my favourite cues from the soundtrack is The Way of Water, yet in the movie it’s obviously a different, MIDI version. It’s so disappointing. The first time I saw Avatar 2 I didn’t absolutely love the music and thought it was serviceable, but grew to love it after the release of the expanded score. But it really doesn’t hold up to scrutiny at all without that scale in the cinema, and it’s almost all to do with the way it’s implemented in the movie. I so want to hear a version of The Hunt with Franglen’s score from the soundtrack - it’s so much more effective than the brutal hack of Hometree from A1.