SF1_freeze

How do you know how much was done during pick-ups? Is there a list out there? Do you have a link? True, compared to Dune 1 and 2, the Starwars Sequels were really really bad. The OT and PT of course are another story.

😄 Please don't forget, that i am only nitpicking here about what's in my opinion missing for Dune 2 for a 5 star rating (or 10/10). In my review post i gave the film 4 out of 5 stars (8/10). So for me it was a very good film, but no galaxy spanning sci fi epic and the score was servicable with a great love theme but a dissapointing rest and a rather bad sound of the music in general. And i think you didn' read my post careful enough, because i never had a problem with the planet Dune itself. I wrote before that Dune/Arrakis was realized very well, including design, epicness and ecosystem. My main problems were the design and realization of all the other planets, houses, space, societies,... which in my opinion were done mostly bad, bland, lazy and boring. If you have a galaxy spanning storyline and only one planet is done great and the others are not, then sorry you don't deserve to be called a sci-fi masterpiece.

It's so funny when people, who are not able or don't want to enter a meaningful debate, instead try to put other people's opinion down like bullies. Let's hope you just had a bad day and that's not your standard behaviour, when encountering differing opinions you don't seem to agree with.

I couldn't disagree more with you on this. Dune is no where close to the real Sci-Fi or Fantasy epics like Starwars or LotR, because it lacks the basic ingredients that made them great: A visually appealing and sprawling technologically advanced galaxy, with different societies, planets and eco-systems, that are shown in a way appropriate to the story. A musical thematic score that covers the whole scope of an epic and not like Dune only includes 2 or 3 themes within a big pot of loud and noisy nondescript action material or just atmospheric background "music" which is more sound design than anything else. The films design and scope only works great on planet Dune/Arrakis themselve (which is of course also the most important part)! For all other parts (other planets, societs, cities, technology, space travel, space scenes), which a real sci-fi epic should have, Dune failed hard. I guess this can't be due to budget, but more due to a lack of vision and design capabilities on Villeneuves part. Tell but don't show doesn't work in a sprawling Sci-Fi epic unless you never visit the bigger planets and the more powerful societies. But if you do show them, you have to make it convincing not like a small budget indie-film or a low budget TV-show. Caladan should have big cities, a big space port, industrial areas, civilian live, etc.. In Villeneuves Dune Caladan is visually completely boring and badly designed. It is shown as an empty planet with a small medieval castle on a rock, with no cities, no civil life and no sense of visual awe and wonder As a viewer from their Home planet it makes no sense that this house could have a powerful army or any influence on the other great houses. Then suddenly they show the Atreides army and ships on a remote landing field again without any buildings, hangars, cities or a space port acommodating them. This makes no sense. The Imperial Homeworld with the Emperors residence is even worse. Nothing is shown there, like in a low budget tv show. Only one residence building carefully filmed that you don't see anything away in the distance, like as if they had no budget for any visual effect shots. It's feels like a remote small residence complex on a lonely planet without anyone else there. This is the opposite of what a real sprawling Sci-Fi epic would do and this undermines Dunes scope in a big way. The Harkonnen Homeworld at least shows a big industrial and city complex, but it doesn't feel real and lived in. It feels like a big facade so that Villeneuve can do his artsy cinematography. You never have the impression that anyone could really live there or that there is any civil life or society there, that would make any sense.

The film was good, but sadly no masterpiece. I would still give it 4 from 5 stars. Chani and Paul and the Fremen storylines were the highlight. This was done very very well. The visual spectacle was amazing and the sound effects great. My favorite scenes were magical moments, like when Paul talks to Chani about Caladan before their first kiss or when Paul unites the Fremen but honours his late father and fully embraces his Atreides legacy. The Emperor was badly played and badly shown, as a very weak feeble old man manipulated by the Bene Gesserit and his daughter. He was a weakling and i didn't like this portrayal at all. The music was servicable but in the end very dissappointing. The love theme was the best part, but it all sounded so artifical and overproduced but still somewhat reduced in scope and was really badly mixed. At the potentially most promising and beautiful track at the end of the film, the epic chimes could hardly be heard, because the mix was atrocious and it ruined it all as lots of instruments were covered by a big nasty wall of noise. Sometimes i think that since Hans Zimmer went on Tour, he lost the last bit of touch in terms of orchestral film scoring and now fully emraces the cheaper sounding loud and overproduced Zimmer on Tour Sound. This includes lots of artifical instruments, loudness, main melody lines carried by soloists and orchestral elements dissappear behind a wall of noise into the background. Visually the film looks somehow bland and boring, devoid of any colour and wonder. This works ok for the planet Dune but fails for the bigger galaxy stuff. The set design for Dune was great, for the Harkonnen planet ok and bland, but for the rest of the locations (Emperor planet) the set design was really weak and again far too ancient/stoney looking, like in a low budget medieval film. The Emperors residence was done like in a low budget tv show without a single full establishing shot showing anything apart from the outside of the residence building. No sprawling Imperial city, no metropolis or space port, nothing.... The Emperors Throne room was also horribly designed like a dark, worn down old damaged temple hall. This looked nothing like a throne room of a galaxy wide ruler... I really missed a sense of wonder and awe visually and in the set design, which is something i expect from a science fiction film which takes place in outer space and on different planets. This holds the film back and the feeling of a sprawling galaxy wide epic never came.

A big THANK YOU for continuing your absolutely amazing podcast! I have discovered Art of the Score in 2021 and was astonished how detailled and high quality your work in disecting a score really is. The musical insight, background info, piano examples and explanations are fantastic and make for great little "educational" segments. For me, this stands as THE benchmark film score podcast, period. I hoped that someday you would continue with it and i'm so happy that you now do. Please continue further and don't make us wait so long between episodes. A few new episodes a year would be great. In terms of a wishlist for future episodes, the Home Alone scores would make for a great Christmas podcast, the Lord of the Rings scores seem inevitable (but would be a massive undertaking) and an Ennio Morricone episode would also be great. Was the *different* type of episode (where you aksed ony of the composers) ever released or did i miss it?

Yes, this melody exactly. It also appears at the start of the smees concertina medley and of course in the instrumental low below. In the mockup it appears when Smee marches starts, what a pity this version wasn't recorded, it's great.

Received my Set finally, absolutely fantastic! Thank you to all the people involved for making this gem a reality! One of my favorite new discoveries are the low below B theme appareances (don't know a better name, how do you call it?). I like this upbeat piraty melody better than the main low below theme (A theme?), which appears in the refrain and is as far as i know the only part carried over into the film. Or did you encounter any moments of this B theme in the final film soundtrack?

This gives me time for my list :) 1. The Empire Strikes Back 2. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom 3. Jurassic Park 4. Star Wars 5. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 6. Raiders of the Lost Ark 7. Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace 8. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial 9. Home Alone 10. War Horse

There was purgatory in the show but not on the island. Everything on the island was real. The flash sideways were no afterlife, they were the purgatory for most of the Lost characters. They were sort of soulmates that had to solve their remaining issues in purgatory after they all died in the real world. In purgatory they had to atone for their sins (which they didn't manage to do while still alive) and to find each other. In the end most of them did that and atoned, found each other, met in the church and are ready to move on into the afterlife/heaven/... Ben didnt because he still wasnt ready yet as he has not sufficiently atoned for all his sins and evil stuff. Not all characters had to go to purgatory/flash sideways like Eko who solved his stuff already on the island before he died and went directly into the afterlife.

Even though InTheCity refused to post his interview, we now have another 2023 interview about William Lyons work with John Williams on PoA https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/composer-spotlight-william-lyons/ And by chance i found another very short older one from 2009, which went under all our radar https://www.sfcv.org/articles/artist-spotlight/interview-william-lyons-eclectic-about-early-music 2023 INTERVIEW The historical score is a tricky thing to get right. Composers must all decide whether to dedicate themselves to historical authenticity or, in sacrificing this, seek to evoke the mood of an era. More often than not, Hollywood film composers opt for the latter. But for decades now, composer, arranger and historical advisor William Lyons has been relentlessly vouching for the former. If you haven’t heard Lyons’ music for films like The Favourite and Elizabeth: The Golden Age, then you’ve almost certainly heard him plucking some intricately-strung lute or blowing a shawm in one of John William’s scores for the original Harry Potter films. When not researching, teaching or composing music for the stage and screen, Lyons provides expert historical advice to world-class film composers, helping them to create the most accurate and immersive score possible. You were the historical advisor to John Williams on The Prisoner of Azkaban. How was he to work with? “He called me and said he’d heard my work with The Dufay Collective, who did a lot of medieval stuff. One of the recordings we’d done had this loud band of shawms on it, and he’d heard this record and had decided this sound world was perfect for The Prisoner Of Azkaban. So we had a long conversation, he sent me his ideas, and I did some idiomatic arrangements. I then sent those back, and he did his version of them. It went like that, back and forth, for a while, and then we got the players together and had this wonderful day in Abbey Road. “A lot of people accuse John Williams of lifting his music form here and there, but what he actually does is take a style and work within that style very effectively. I worked with him as a musician on a couple of other Harry Potter films, and one of the things I noticed is that he knows the instruments he’s working with inside out. A lot of people use an arranger and an orchestrator to work out their demoed themes, but he knew exactly what he wanted. And he was really invested in the historic aspect of it in terms of the harmonies and the modal style of the music. A lot of the instruments I play are considered primitive. They’re proto-flutes or proto-bassoons or whatever. There are composers out there who think if it hasn’t got the full three-octave range of a flute, then it’s not a proper instrument. John Williams wasn’t like that. He was great and one of the very few composers who have been a joy to work with. Alexander Desplat is another”. 2009 INTERVIEW Tell us about your work in film. I don’t spend a lot of time doing film, but it’s great fun. I’ve played on soundtracks and have recently been an advisor on Elizabeth: The Golden Age and Pride and Prejudice. Shrek was brilliant; I brought my daughter into the recording studio and she got a sneak peek of the film, which she really enjoyed [Lyons expects another child in December]. Harry Potter 3 was one of the best experiences I’ve had, because I worked with the great composer John Williams. My role is to advise on historical context — the instruments to use, the type of music that would be played, how the musicians would stand, etcetera ...

Last one was during the cooking show "The Taste" on German TV. If i remember correctly, they played a bit of Catch me if you can.

If the OST is available, before i see the film on june 29th, i won't be able to resist listening to it. At least this will reduce the immediate dissappointment, if a favorite moment remains unreleased, because i already know during watching the film.

Beautiful Violin version, really really looking forward to the OST and film now

The Harry Potter Scores, especially Goblet of Fire and DH part 2...i think it was rumored JW was pretty close to score these two. Other than that a James Bond score would have really been nice. While i think a LotR JW score would of course have been extremely interesting, Howard Shore did such a perfect job, that i can't think that JW LotR scores would have been better.

I have to say i adore all the new JW music for this film (which i will only be able to see when it starts in our cinemas in Austria in March). The music is just so beautiful, magical, simple and uplifting. A real (much too short) gem, which leaves me wanting more... more extensive development of these themes, more extensive arrangements,... It seems like a wonderful appetizer to a more extensive score that you crave but will never come, it is that good.

Honestly the trailer itself is great and the first music part before the Indy Theme kicks in works quite well (even though it fulfills all the standard generic trailer music tropes). But the Indy Theme in this slowed and spread out version with this low budget synth brass is a major head scratcher. The major behind the scenes drama at Disney and chaos at Lucasfilm seem to continue to result in these ongoing quality hickups that should have never passed the upper management.

Ordered Amistad but from a European retailer and really looking forward to it. Such a wealth of unreleased material. I still remember some great underscore music when i watched the film for the first and only time about 8-10 years ago. And finally also the gorgeous guitar source cue gets released.

It says a lot that you support and even propone an entertainment for the dumb, for the easily entertained "switch off your brain" people. An entertainment perfect for lazy producers, lazy writers and lazy directors...who would otherwise deservedly be out of a job. I'm the opposite, i want care, excellence and quality. Not the minimum effort. I want the maximum effort in a believable and great story that makes sense and follows the rules set for the chosen fantasy world. If a story makes no sense anymore, then you can't respect it or believe anything you see or read anymore. Such a story is dead and such a franchise loses the deep fanbase that really cares.

Read the last part of my post, In RotJ Kenobi tells Luke that he has hidden Leia and Luke from Vader/Anakin That is at the end of ROTS and at that point Obi Wan seems to know that Vader/Anakin is still alive. Otherwise why would they need to hide the kids from a dead man? Padme says there is still good in Anakin on her deathbed, directly after the birth of Leia and Luke. Why would she say that about a dead Vader/Anakin. That also confirms that she and Obi Wan know that Vader/Anakin is alive.

That's not between the lines. Obi Wan knows it. You should rewatch RotS. The Kenobi writers show their absolute and true incompetence by creating another huge plot hole and story mistake. This results in the end of Kenobi Episode 2 making no sense and directly conflicting with RotS. After recalibrating the code to warn Jedi to stay away from Coruscant, Kenobi views a security recording of Anakin killing Jedi and younglings in temple. It then cuts to Anakin kneeling before Darth Sidious/Palpatine. Sidious tells him, “You have done well, my new apprentice. Now, Lord Vader, go and bring peace to the Empire. After viewing the security footage, Yoda tells Obi-Wan, “Twisted by the dark side young Skywalker has become. The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.” Obi-Wan is then tasked with killing Darth Vader by Yoda as he sets out to face off against Darth Sidious. That means since that point of time Obi Wan knows that Anakin is called Darth Vader, even though at this point he is still without mask and injuries. Later on when the name of the guy with the mask gets known as Darth Vader in the Galaxy, Obi Wan of course pieces it together that this must be Anakin! In RotJ, Kenobi makes it abundantly clear to Luke that he knew Vader was alive when Luke questions him about the other that Yoda spoke of. Kenobi tells Luke, “The other he spoke of is your twin sister.” Luke retorts, “But I have no sister.” Kenobi then explains, “To protect you both from the emperor, you were hidden from your father when you were born.” (see https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/06/06/obi-wan-kenobi-writer-appears-to-be-oblivious-of-revenge-of-the-sith-has-no-clue-kenobi-knew-anakin-was-darth-vader/) They obviously wouldn't hide Leia and Luke from Anakin, if the believed Anakin to be dead. Also Padme says that "there is still good in him" when she dies. Why would she say that to Obi Wan that there is still good in Anakin, when they think Anakin is dead? So this dialogue in RotJ and also RotS confirms that Obi Wan knew that Anakin is Vader at the end of RotS and that the Kenobi writers are completely incompetent, because this is a huge story mistake.

Good job, as others have mentioned i also would prefer a more condensed version, like for example Crimes of Grindelwald Theme could be one Theme instead of 5 different theme parts, etc... I must say the biggest problem (in the best possible sense) i often have with JNH scores is that i feel he doesn't really recognize what his strongest themes and material are and often puts lesser melodies in the spotlight with many appearances, while degrading his best thematic material to only very few appearances. Take for example the in my opinion best theme of fantastic beasts, which i would call "Newts Main Theme", which in your document is a combination of "Newts Theme" and the "Case Theme". For me your "Case Theme" is in fact Newts Main Theme and your Newts Theme is in fact just an underlying Motif which acts as a lead in to the Newts Main Theme. Newts Main Theme only plays three times in the film, the main theme motif four times and it doesn't feature even once in Crimes of Grindelwald (!)...a colossal wasted opportunity in my view This theme in my opinion would even have made for a great fantastic beasts main theme. Then there is the "Grimes of Grindelwald Theme" which in my opinion is one of the best musical pieces of the last few years...it really is the absolute highlight of Crimes of Grindelwald and only plays two short times, one of which are the end credits. What's going on there, why isn't this all over the score... the quality of this theme would merit that but instead it is completely wasted... Or remember the Maleficient flies theme which is also shamefully underused but still the best musical piece of both Maleficient films. JNH is a great composer but i would wish that his Dinosaur or Waterworld sensibilities would return again (where he let his best themes stand in the spotlight and play out)

Can anyone tell me, if this universe acc. to book is supposed to make any sense at all? I watched the film and nothing in this science fiction world really adds up. A science fiction world, where the Atreides the supposedly most powerful house of the galaxy and threat to its emperor lives on an empty planet on an island in an medieval castle. It's an empty ireland like world without cities, people, villages etc.... wtf? There is no civilian live at all - its like the whole science fiction world is sort of dead. All the worldbuilding won't help if the world and universe it tries to build is sorta dead and makes no sense. It completely took me out of the film. Dune the most important planet in the galaxy has only one city with only one spice raffinery??? Suppose they have a big fire and the raffinery burns down, the spice supply for the whole galaxy is gone without a single alternative? There is technology to space travel but the soldiers still fight with swords and dont have guns? Only three Atreides guards guard the shield in front of its door, the most important defense facility for the Atreides forces? No guard station or watch post, nothing. There is not even password protection or a two or three way/step deactivation procedure... nothing. There is no plan B with an alternate Atreides base in case they got attacked? All Atreides forces and ships are in one place with no backup at all? The score was really dissappointing, droning around with no identity no life and not one single memorable moment. Cinematography and acting was great, the characters too. All in all sadly the film and this science fiction world is only a shining facade with not much behind... but maybe it is that way in the book too (which i never read).

Still waiting for my set to arrive (together with lots of stuff i still had on my list, like Monsignor, the River, WotW, Images and Always.) Concerning Eiger Sanction did someone combine film soundtrack and OST in a playlist or would that be too repetitious. Or do you rather listen to the film score and the OST separately each with its own playlist? Concerning all the other sets mentioned above i basically have similar questions how and what to combine. I guess i will search the individual threads for some playlist recommendations. And i usually always prefer film chronology and source music included at the proper spots in my playlists.

My list still is pretty much the same as several years ago, in ranked order: 1) The Empire Strikes Back 2) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom 3) Jurassic Park 4) Star Wars 5) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 6) Raiders of the Lost Ark 7) The Phantom Menace 8) ET 9) Home Alone 10) War Horse and damn, Temple of Doom is so mindblowingly good. Only in terms of themes TESB beats it. I guess Temple of Doom also must be one of the hardest scores to play in orginal film tempo (see mine car chase). The roller coaster ride of the film was perfectly matched in terms of score. From the recent scores (post 2000) PoA and War Horse were the ones that really went beyond. PoA is just a fireworks of creativity, nuance, emotion and freshness that in my opinion is unmatched in JW career (and also unique in terms of the medieval feel to it). War Horse is just beautiful, like drinking a warm fresh coffee in the morning sun, while looking through the window into a green lush spring countryside with the sun rays shining and shimmering through the coffee steam. Just beautiful performances, themes, freshness and style. Someone on JWFAN then described it like the the first sip of fresh water after a long (musical) drought - which means the years 2006-2011 where with KotCS in 2008 only one new JW score got released.