Adam S.

Question is, where in the film could he have had something along the equivalent of Slave Children's Crusade or Miracle of the Ark? Certainly not for the huge amount of time they are crawling around in caves and such. The Departure perhaps but notice that the scene doesn't show the characters at all which is what the Miracle of the Ark fed off of. In Raiders, the guy says "Its beatiful!" and the music is absolutely beautiful and so forth. The Departure didn't have a shot of the characters at all so the music becomes more like part of the sound design. I think that kind of thing applies for a lot of the movie and its one of the reasons the film is weaker IMO. There aren't as many scnenes that try to thrill us like Slave Children's Crusade or awe us like Miracle of the Ark and so forth. - Adam

Surely with the collective talent and imagination of Speilberg and Lucas, they could come up with a new idea for a project. It just seems that these are guys at the top of the business, could do anything they want, why are they contributing to a Hollywood ripe with sequels? I say they should move on and do something different. Start a new sci-fi franchise or something if they want something to entertain the masses. - Adam

KotCS isn't exactly PC if you ask me. A more PC version would have a nice, thoughtful indigenous person who helped Indiana Jones or something. As it is, Native Peruvians looked like mindless savages, more animal than human. I'm not complaining... I'm just saying the controversy with TOD had less to do with the racism I think but with the fact that a film aimed partially at kids depicted people's hearts getting taken out and with children being beaten and that kind of thing. As far as the effects go, I agree with the initial post and even the lighting was a problem where the characters didn't seem like they were interacting in the real world at times. If everything else had been good, I probably wouldn't have cared that much but when other things seem off, its just one more thing that makes it harder to get into the story. - Adam

Irina's Theme - starts out evil and sexy but becomes surprisingly pretty as the full orchestra comes in (I also love the Russian extension part on the Finale that people have mentioned though I noticed part of it gets cut off in the end credits) Jungle Chase - somewhat uneven but it has a lot of JW flourishes that I like in his action music, particularly as Irina's Theme keeps popping up. Journey to Akator - I love getting very different kinds of music like the Latin American source music. A nice reminder of how versatile he is. The Departure - somewhat anti-climatic but still an interesting piece - almost as much sound-design as anything in the way he used the orchestra Adventures of Mutt as no. 5 perhaps - the Hook similarity is distracting somewhat but Hook also had swashbuckling swordfights so I guess it makes sense - Adam

I need to examine the score more but here is a first guess at what JW might have been going for in this part of the finale. There's a version of Indy's theme where the 4th note goes down an octave instead of up like usual. And it seems like it was used when Mutt was swinging on vines and maybe elsewhere. Assuming that is to be loosely associated with Mutt than having that same variation appear as the counterpoint with the trumpet at the 8:21 version on the theme could be away of working in the theme in a way that signifies Indy and Mutt together. Or maybe not but its notable that this is the only time in the series that I can think of when we get that variation and it shows up several times in the new movie. Just a thought. But I really like that version whatever the case. - Adam

JW did a very good job, IMO. I give it a solid A. I was disappointed that the movie didn't allow for JW to have a bigger role in the storytelling - something that Speilberg did in different ways with the first 3 films. Too much time in the caves in the last hour and that's conveyed on the soundtrack. So it was a good score but less satisfying musically than the other scores, where there was more of a chance to breath life and emotion into their movies. But adjusting for the movie that JW was given, JW gave the movie a very good score with only very minor quibbles. - Adam

My interpretation is that JW thought of the theme as Henry's theme, has called it that in fact, but used in such a way that it was also related to the journey for enlightenment and that kind of thing which has an overlap with Henry anyway - so there's not as much of a contradiction as people are saying IMO. The secondary theme was needed for several scenes with Henry and Indy specifically where a different emotional effect was called for. The fact that he used it for KotCS would seem to confrim that JW intended the theme to be related to Henry. The prominence of the theme in Last Crusade for the pre-end credits and end credits is also a sign IMO that he intended the theme to be associated with a major character (Henry). Plus, it happens with lots of his themes, maybe the vast majority, that the name attached to the theme only paritally explains its actual role in the movie so I don't see Henry's theme as much different in that regard. - Adam

JW does mislabel his themes at times and, even when he doesn't, they can often be imprecise. In this case, I just think Henry's Theme (Knight's Theme) is kind of imprecise. Its loosely connected to Henry but functions in scenes that relate to his journey for enlightment or illumination or whatever. Henry's theme sounds better to me, otherwise its like saying that the knight is so important that it takes up a big portion of the end credits and that doesn't seem like what JW was going for. But I suppose its partly a semantic thing. I can see how there would be disagreement on this point. - Adam

I see, and I'd say its pretty closely tied to the latter 2 things and certainly that seems consistent with how JW used it in the KOTCS. - Adam

Ironically, the thing most people were worried about including me, Ford's age, ended up not being a factor for me at all. Ford came out looking great, I thought. He had some good lines and he seemed believable as Indiana Jones. His acting was top notch. So I think the film could have been done well but there were lots of other problems that one would have hoped could have been avoided. - Adam

I've always liked Last Crusade, not because its perfect, but because it takes the Indy series in a slightly new direction while being internally consistent for the most part. Last Crusade was the most colorful, had the good interplay between Indy and Connery and was an enjoyable film. The flaws seemed minor in comparison. KOTSC seemed like it was trying to get by too much on nostalgia, mixing in a lot of the right elements but without it adding up to a coherant whole.

The theme that appears in KOTCS, unless I'm going crazy which is possible, was Henry's theme. The grail theme had such a distinctly religious melody that it would seem odd to conflate the two. That's not to say JW used the father theme in 100% consistent way in Last Crusade but it seemed pretty clear to me that was supposed to represent the father's relationship to Indy in Last Crusade. But maybe I'm missing something in the discussion here. - Adam

It's a case of all the planets being aligned, Williams at his peak AND working with these creative young directors. I don't think you can say that one caused the other. It's belittling the work of a film composer to say that the music is good because the movies were good. We all know there are good movies with bad scores and bad movies with good scores. Star Wars would have been a mammoth hit with or without Williams, but thats not to say that Williams didn't contribute to its success by putting his signature themes all over it. By the late 70s he was up to the challenge of scoring such a landmark film. I think if Williams had scored Star Wars a decade earlier it would have sounded much different, adequate perhaps but not such an achievement on its own. Don't forget that Williams did score some box office duds and mediocre films in this period: 1941, Monsignor, Fury and even those scores are just fantastic. Some of the pieces of The Fury and Monsignor are as good as those in the fantasy action films. Those movies just didn't connect with the general public, but they are still terrific scores. Athletics and art is a poor comparison, an athlete only has a 15-20 period in his life in which he can compete or perform at his top level. Composers have written masterpieces at very young ages and very old ages and you simply don't need to be in good health to write great music. I think his scores are brilliant during this period. My point isn't to give all the credit to the films. My point is that I still think he is brilliant and I fail to see how Schindler's List, for example, wasn't suffiently inspired or creative or Sleepers or Memoirs of a Geisha and many others if one looks at how they functinoed with their films. Or for that matter, The Reivers seemed very inspired and fresh in 1969. I think the differences in our reactions can be accounted at least as much by the types of opportunities he's had and I think that gets underemphasized because the natural tendency is to judge his output purely as music rather than in the context of what opportunities and limitations each individual films afforded. He's at a disadvantage, I think, also in that the prequels were worse opportunities than the original triology IMO and the latest Indiana Jones film as well was a worse opportunity but of course the natural thing to do is to make straight comparisons with the earlier works and that leads to a seemingly rational conclusion that there's a decline. I don't think its obvious at all though I'm open-minded about it. I hear more of a technical evolution in his writing than any sort of prefound difference in creativity but its not an easy subject to judge. - Adam

People are different and have different tastes. One doesn't have to be a cynic to not get involved in a particular movie. Its good that lots of people are enjoying it and even critics (cynics if there ever were ones) seem to be giving it a favorable reviews of upwards of 80% (though I havent checked RottenTomatoes recently). - Adam

I agree with what Alan said. I also find it hard to ignore the fact that the period people generally call his Golden Period just happens to coincide with the period in which he was writing music to one blockbuster after another, where music had to play a big role. If he had scored movies like Sleepers, Fitzwilly and Munich it would be interesting to see if anybody called this a golden period. In other words, the Golden Period has at least as much to do with the films he was doing as it does the music, IMO. An example would be the sixties. Mostly light, forgettable comedy music and then he scores The Reivers which I doubt anybody would interpret as a bolt of inspiration and creativity. Much more likely that it was a product of the material and the opportunity that he happened to have at that moment. - Adam

Yeah, the father's theme was used appropriately, I thought, several times. I thought the CGI and the lighting were two things that also contributed to my detachment with the film. I don't remember the first 3 films every being lit so much it seemed like they were acting on a stage or something. That happened for parts of the film, including the beginning when I was trying to get my bearings with the film. And then there was a lot more CGI than I thought they had promised which was particularly distracting in the Jungle sequence, IMO. - Adam

The music does come right in like the album except maybe a little more of a delay. I suppose JW was trying to be more generically Latin American by putting the flute in there and changing the rythms a little bit. He wrote something closer to the Mariachi (Mexican) sound with his Mexican versions of The Long Goodbye. I kind of doubt Peruvian music would use trumpets like that, though. Oh well. - Adam

It is odd for JW to write a theme for Mutt that appears only once for a particularly swashbuckling scene. Its almost like he needed something to develop more melodic material off of to fill out the soundtrack and end credits. He used the downward version of Indys' theme more than a few times for Mutt, though, including in the concert piece which suggests that he sees Mutt as growing into the main theme role. I'd say its a very good score for an Indy film that didn't have the opportunities of the previous films to inject more heart and uplift. As a result the score is more heavy on the mystery and the jolts. He did what he had to do though. Another top notch score.

I had a feeling from hearing the soundtrack, that something wasn't right about this film. Having seen the film, I'm more convinced that JW had to score something very different than the first 3 films. There were some good scares and chuckles. Harrison Ford did great. But the tone of the movie wasn't right. The first 3 films had more scope and, though different from eachother in approach, also felt connected in its overall pathos. The latest movie felt too slight and wrongly paced. The tone of the movie never felt settled. Story was kind of convuluted which probably wouldn't have mattered if everything had been executed better but, anyway, that was my dissapointing impression. Easily the worst of the series for me. - Adam

I'm going to spend two weeks in a sealed off room without any sensory imput besides the white walls that surround me. By the time the film comes out I'll be so stimulation-starved, Speilberg and John Williams will likely create a visual and audio chemstry that will come close to exploding my brain - but in a good way of course. - Adam Actually, I don't think I've ever thought in terms of preparing for a movie beyond maybe sneaking in a soda to the theater or something like that.

The critical consensus is right enough that it makes sense to use it on movies that I'm not sure if I want to see. If a film rates above 90% on Rottentomatoes, I'm much more likely to see it. Its not fail-proof, but its one of the many ways a person can narrow down the films he or she sees so that they're not wasting their time viewing everything. So reviews can be a good tool, especially when you a wide swath of them to look at. In the case of Indiana Jones, I'll probably see the movie several times just for all the music and unreleased music, regardless. So I'm mainly curious to read reviews just to get a sense of where different people are coming from. I'll be more interested in the professional reviews, though, since the hardcore fans tend to bring all sorts of expectations into the movie which can make them overly-critical, or they can buy into the hype big-time and completely miss the boat as with the hyped reviews of the Star Wars prequels that came out early (EDIT : your point exactly Dole). - Adam

I agree about Marion's Theme. Never cared for it that much but I love the arrangment that we hear of it on the Finale. The Jungle Chase jumped out at me as well. Reminds me a little bit of the Hoth music in Empire Strikes Back with the frantic string/orchestral writing underneath everything. And that's about as good as it can get for JW action music for me but we'll see, its only 30 seconds. That's why I wanted to wait because it just makes you long for something cohesive that goes on for a minute at least. But I barely hesitated to listen to the tracks. The side of me that didn't want to hear first is even more weak and pathetic than I previously thought. - Adam

How is it that the only new Indy music that we know of leaking was to France? The most famous living American composer in a much anticipated American movie and the only people, outside those in involved in the movie, who seem to have heard it are people half-way around the world. Shouldn't we Americans be invading France or at least kicking them out of NATO or something? I may actually wait and not listen to clips though we'll see if I can really pull it off. Probably not. Not having them to listen to is probably the best thing that could continue to happen though my curiosity is high, no question about it. - Adam

It will be interesting to see how well Speilberg is able to emulate his earlier directing style. For some reason, I think he's going to have trouble doing it, consistently throughout the movie anyway, and, consequently, wer're going to hear a more modern-Speilberg type of score in many respects as well though I could be totally wrong. The tone in Lost World compared to Jurassic Park took a fairly dramatic change, for example, though it could be argued that was intentional on his part. But that's somewhat symbolic of his evolution in directing style for action though I realize he's trying to make a concerted effort to go back to his earlier style. I also think JW tends to be more of a barometer of how much movies have changed than other composers. Goldsmith, for example, talked about going for emotional penetration in an action sequence. I don't think he tied his music as closely into the kinetic and rythmic aspects of the film as JW does, for better or worse. But there's no doubt that JW's technique has evolved over the years but I have trouble saying its any better or worse. For example, would Memoirs of a Geisha really be better had he scored it in 1980? Its hard for me to imagine. And, of course, visa versa applies as well. One thing is for certain and that is that he was scoring an unprecedented number of popular, successful films during the 1975-1984 period and its hard not to conclude that that had a big impact on the results he achieved and the extent to which people are morel likely to identify with that period. - Adam

edit : Whoops- that's funny that I was prepared to take credit for a compliment. I should read posts more carefully. - Adam