SF1_freeze

Avatar was one of the best movies in recent years and the visual effects were top notch. I watched it in IMAX 3D and it was quite an experience. Great and brave move by Cameron to not use close to viewer 3D effects. The 3D effects just supported the movie and it worked wonderfully. I wasn't too impressed with the score and will never buy the album release although the music worked well in the movie. I just consider it weak if i can only barely remember a single motif/theme of the film (the Love/Ewya theme).

Well, that sounds pretty harsh and i asume you don't like his Battlestar scores. I for one greatly enjoyed them and was very impressed by the variety of genres and musical styles he utilized. Especially his music for the fourth season and the series finale stood out with great themes and orchestrations which i have never heard before in a TV show. (I admit Lost music isn't bad too ) Considering his young age (30) and that he got a lot better between season 1 to 4 although he is not in a class near Williams or Shore, Bear McCreary could emerge as a great film composer in some years

Don't forget Bear Mc Creary who created a whole new percussion based style for Battlestar Galactica and slowly transformed it until the very orchestral series finale. Really outstanding work...

Episode I made me a Star Wars fan, so it was a great film for me. Now as an adult i can obviousley see the weaknesses (JarJar...) but i will always remember the great time i had in cinema 1999 watching TPM. Episode 3 by the way is certainly better than Return of the Jedi and the other prequels and so a worthy finish of the prequel trilogy

It was the foulest, most disgusting, over commercial, money-sucking enterprise that I've ever had the misfortune to witness. The music is relegated to the background behind the risible video & laser wank that surrounds it. I would rather remove my own eyeballs with a teaspoon than go anywhere near this vomit inducing suckfest ever again. Chill down boy, better leave your arrogance at home. It won't help if you are insulting everyone who likes the symphony with this rude and inappropriate comment.

My favourite Potter movie is POA. In my opinion it had the best magical atmosphere, a medieval touch, a great flow, amazing visuals and the exact right amount of color on screen. It also had the best score and very nice winter/christmas scenes. For me the scenes starting at the transistion to winter and ending after the Hogsmeade visit are among the best of the whole Potter films so far. I love the falling snow, the design of the village, the distant sound of the "a winter's spell" song, the short tour through the sweet shop and the whole winter/christmas atmosphere. The score in these scenes is also amazing, starting with the unreleased Hedwig's theme transforming into the unreleased statement of the Past theme and then lovely christmas-type music as Harry is shown the Marauder's map. Then there also is the nice source cue heard in the sweet shop and also (possibly rippable) much longer during a DVD featurette (tour through the sweet shop). A pity that the nice sounding " A winter's spell" is only heard in the distance while the trio walks through hogsmeade. That would be one of the tracks i'm most looking forward to for an exapnded release. Concerning Half Blood Prince: I liked the movie but was very dissapointed with the lack of action. I mean they could have made an attack on Hogwarts different enough to not be repeating themeselves in the DH part 2. So the film just lacked action and color. For me these films are a huge tour through the magical world of Harry Potter and fantasy. It shouldn't immitate reality too much in my opinion. If some of these films (like GOF) lack too much magic i won't really enjoy them. The magical atmosphere is mainly created through school scenes, color, visual effects and score. I there are a dull bombastic score and few school scenes (like in GOF) or if there is a lack of color and a green shade over the picture (HalfBloodPrince) it kills the magical atmosphere and makes the films less enjoable for me. In Half Blood Prince that is only a minor problem but in Goblet of fire that destroyed the whole film for me and so i rank it last of all Potter films. Half Blood Prince would probably be third place...

Um, are you kidding me? Deadliest Catch is one of the highest rated show on American cable right now...it's an entire show about catching damn fish! Again, are you kidding me, or do you lack reading skills and imagination? I can't imagine that would interest that many people, but maybe it does and i'm mistaken . For me a film/series about hunting fish would just not be very appealing nor interesting...

Moby Dick would be awful and boring... I don't think anyone would be interested in a story about hunting down a tremendous whale. Not very complex and probably not very epic. That was maybe interesting 40 years ago but not today with films like 2012 in the cinema. You don't make money with an underwhelming whale hunt if there are dozens of epic effect films out there

The Indy IV score did NOT suck.... (i would really like to know what drove you to the conclusion that it sucks) The score was very good, not great but a very fine and worthy effort for an Indiana Jones film with a lot standout pieces, a wealth of new material but also some boring underscore (but the other ones did have that too) And just please stop the worthless and unjustified Indy IV and Starwars Prequel bashing. They wouldn't have been that successful and loved by lots of people (maybe not on this board but in general) if they were so bad like most on this board propose... (Spielberg still can, he made Minority Report and Catch me if you Can in the 2000s and i consider them better than Close Encounters and a lot of his other films done in the 80's and 90's ... and i even like most of Indy IV)

I was blown away recently by "Anakin Is Free" from Starwars Episode 1 TPM. Shmi's theme is so beautiful and quite different than the usual Star Wars theme. In that track you also get Qui Gon's theme and the Force theme in one of the best statements ever . From 1:30 on Shmi's theme is BRILLIANT It's a shame that this wasn't even released on the OST-release.

Exactly what i was thinking

Tastes differ and that has to be accepted although it's amazing that you call exactly the Music when Galactica finds the Pegasus dreadful. For me these tracks were among the best of season two and in the episode they worked brilliantly. The Pegasus episode by the way is among my top 5 galactica episodes (Daybreak, The Hub, Faith, Pegasus, Pilot-Miniseries) Never saw a wellness salon where they played Battlestar Galactica though...

I think sending some of these questions to Conrad Pope would be worth a try. If we explain to him that he is probably the closest we can get to interview JW and that we have a site on the net... ( and all that stuff), i'm sure he wouldn't feel used too much. Maybe send some questions for him too, then the chances are a bit higher

I would ask: -> What do you remember about scoring Indiana Jones and the TOD? Was it difficult to capture the Indish flavour in the music. Parts of the soundtrack are especially unique and different from what you have done before and afterwards. It seemes as if you had a blast and were almost welling over with all sorts of different ideas, motives and themes. What is your own opinion about the score and also about the adaption of the Cole Porter song Anything Goes? -> Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban is so rich in musical styles and diversity. From Jazz to Renaissance and Mediaval Music you perfectly steered the music into a more grown up but amazingly similar magical direction as its predecessors. How did that different style in the same franchise came to be? Was there a wish from director Alfonso Cuaron not to repeat too much known Harry Potter music? -> Why isn't there a unique Starwars "Force Theme Concert Suite"? Now that we have seen all six Star Wars films the force theme is the most used and consitent theme apart from the Main theme and also used in every movie countless of times. Could you maybe write a Concert Suite just for all the Star Wars fans wishing their whole 2-3 minutes to be one with the force (musically)? -> What is your opinion on Soundtrack fans waiting years for some unreleased parts of soundtracks like a lot of your own. It often happened that great bombastic cues were left out of the album release. Was that done on purpose and with a more complete rerelase in mind or did these things just happen accidently caused by the strict scoring scedule?

That's interesting, i cannot PM you Trent. Why that???

Well, best movie of all time will have to be the best Star Wars movie: The Empire Strikes Back Apart of all the Star Warsyness it even gives you the rare outer space science fiction feeling (in the end when Luke and Leia look down onto the whole galaxy) - pure genious

I am far from being one of Santa's haters, but I found this one incredibly unimpressive. I don't have the Babel OST CD ,but for my list i tried to think about films with music i still remember and Babel came to my mind. It just worked so well in the movie and the three different ethnic flavours provided a lot diversity.

Why do you think no SW Prequel score is worthy of inclusion. I agree about AOTC but ROTS in my opinion is waaaay better and definetly one of the best scores in the decade. Of course JW used "old" themes (which was required, necessary and agreed about) but with fantastic new orchestrations. Every bit of non tracked music suits the film perfectly and makes it better and better. There is also the wealth of new motives composed for ROTS but often only used in specific scenes (Some people prefer more developed themes but with the original themes as present as they were that wasn't necessary exept Grievous-Theme and Battle of the Heroes) I dont know if you have heard some officially unreleased pieces but there was a lot of magnificent material missing on the album release. The best moments worth mentioning would be the music for the bunch of scenes culminating in Yoda's farewell from Kashyyyk, Obi Wan's good bye to Anakin on Coruscant and the in my opinion greatest moment --> Padme's Funeral / Building the Death Star (That track is pure genious.In it JW masterly weaves the instrumental Funeral theme, the Force theme and the Imperial March together .) My top score list (no specific order, just numbers): 1) Artificial Intelligence (JW) 2) The Fellowship of the Ring (Howard Shore) 3) The Prisoner of Azkaban (JW) 4) Star Wars III - The Revenge of the Sith (JW) 5) The Return of the King (Howard Shore) 6) Les Choristes (Bruno Coulais) 7) Gladiator (Hans Zimmer - The one score besides "The Lion King" he did very well ) 8) Babel (Gustavo Santaolalla) 9) Battlestar Galactica Season 4 / Series Finale Daybreak (Bear Mc Creary)

I even liked that techno bit, sounds cool for the scene it's playing :cool:

Great Interview, thanks for posting it. It's always nice to listen/read interviews with the maestro not asking him too much standard questions.

It's one of the greatest musical moments in all Star Wars films and probably the best part of the ROTS score ( but not released ...)

By the way, does anyone of you know if there are any JW interviews or informations available about the musical creation and/or the scoring process of TOD? In the JW interviews i know unfortunately no one asks him anything about TOD. On the DVD-interviews it's also a bit neglected. To my knowledge JW only spoke about the atonal score parts which were great fun for him and the orchestra like modern classical music, nothing more.

Well, to be honest i consider the TOD score better than Raiders, LC and KotCS. This score is in my personal "John Williams - top 5 scores" list. (In case anyone asks what's on my list (in no order): Star Wars ANH, Empire strikes Back, Prizoner of Azkaban, Superman, TOD) The wealth of creativity, new themes and motives, the unique flair in the score (because of the India connections), the adaption of Anything Goes and just the pure damned fun through the whole score and the movie are all reasons for my appreciatin of this masterpiece. It's just a perfect Adventure from start to finish

"The Force theme and DotF when the control ship is destroyed in TPM." Exactly what i was thinking. That's a brilliant example

There are no rules, but smart and good composers know how to maintain the identity of movie franchises. PoA also has the new medieval music which certainly isn't in Nutcracker and that's probably the most original for him in the 2000s era