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Thumbs up if you think @Falstaft has the germ of an amazing podcast in this article. Imagine a primer on musical techniques of film scoring, with examples from Williams and others, illustrating elements of composition for the musically uninitiated. Rather than doing episodes on individual film scores like so many podcasts have, you could explore tools of the trade like stretto, fugue, ostinato, etc. The Underscore podcast feinted in this direction a bit before it fizzled, but your knowledge base could really make it soar. Think it over!

Heck of a montage for “Duel of the Fates”! They got ten films in there! (Sadly missed the relevant scene in Solo as far as I could tell.) This was a treat to watch even at fingernail size. I’ve never seen Williams at the Hollywood Bowl, but as a CSO four-timer, I can’t complain. Every year when these reports and videos surface, it’s like attending a wedding for someone you love: the happiness isn’t quite yours, but you’re glad it’s there and glad to crack off a piece of it for yourself.

So was anybody at opening night of this? What did they play? Nothing on Twitter yet. While we wait, though, feast your eyes on this poster... https://twitter.com/thecinemadoctor/status/1675546753196789761

I'm actually curious how this piece came together, @Falstaft. Did you cold-email the Times with a proposal? Did they come to you as a relevant expert, wanting something to pin to the release of the film? Was it always going to be a multimedia project? Did you have to give them specific timestamps for the music and video embeds? Let's hear the DVD extras on this!

Unbelievable, @Falstaft! This is a dream-come-true article presented in a dream-come-true format and, in a better world, would found a genre unto itself. You’ve found your true medium. I hope this leads to more opportunities like this for you, and I’m proud, in my mediated, anonymous, digital way, to know you.

Two other interesting elements here: for one thing, this one is not for a love interest, so it's not playing the same role that Marion's and Willie's themes (and maybe "The Austrian Way") play, or fitting into the same slot in the film's mosaic of archetypes. It's cool to have this melody in the score, and JW does incredible things with it, but its concert form is even more at odds with Helena's character than is Marion's (which could, as noted, plausibly describe Indy's feelings) or Willie's (which could plausibly describe her simplistic view of romance). Honestly, the script doesn't do much to establish even a familial love for Helena within Indy, something it could have accomplished with another flashback (or even a bit more time spent on the existing flashback to her childhood). A few nods in that direction could have explained the Golden Age love theme approach for the character. The second oddity is that this type of theme was clearly Mangold's request, per both his and Williams' claims. He must have just wanted that kind of Marion-type music in the film, which again makes it weird that he didn't provide any relationship in the story that demands music in that mode. Months ago someone here (perhaps in jest) theorized that Helena was going to be some sort of reincarnation of Helen of Troy, an idea that kept haunting me into the theater, justifying the musical approach in a way the actual story never did.

I saw the film last night after several listens through the soundtrack, and I'm glad I did some soundtrack study before seeing it. The discussion here helped crystallize several themes for me before going in, although I'd like to believe I would have picked out the Archimedes theme myself either way. The vast majority of the quotes went over my head in the moment, but I did notice two uses of "Ants!" from KOTCS—once when the Allied bomb falls through the roof in the prologue and once, weirdly, on the climactic plane—I believe while they're still in 1969. They both struck me as wildly out of place, considering how crafted that passage seems to be to evoke the specific threat of swarming insects. I'm glad this movie exists solely because it gave us the new portions of this score, and every bit is gold at this point, but the film was as disappointing as I expected it to be, with the exception of the final twenty minutes or so. The last scene was an actual tearjerker for me—some of the only genuinely surprising and affecting writing in the whole film. I agree with the post above and several reviews stating that Mangold's direction is nondescript. I love 3:10 to Yuma and Ford v. Ferrari, and Logan was well done, too, but Spielberg's absence is palpable here.

In my John-Williams-score-release-week content frenzy, I ended up back at the Filmtracks review of TLJ, and I understood for the first time why people say that “Peace and Purpose” contained the seeds of a full-on Kylo Ren concert suite. That third phrase that appears after the usual two sounds so inevitable once you notice it, and if you just tack on a second playing of the second phrase, you’ve got a nice little four-line stanza. Now add a nice B theme and presto! (I don’t think the existing mournful B theme is enough, though.)

Also geriatric Harrison Ford week!

Couldn't find a thread for this specific topic, so here goes: Just got back from seeing TFA LTP at the Chicago Symphony last night. Man, what a score to hear live! My brother and I assumed our usual CSO practice of loitering on the main floor, enjoying the atmosphere and legroom, until the real buyers of our seats arrived—but this time, they never came! So we enjoyed the whole movie from the fourth row! This was one of my last live Holy Grails among the available scores (Superman is still out there), and it was a delight. The opening chord blew the socks off the version on the sequel trilogy OSTs, Rey's Theme finally managed to overpower the sound of her speeder, and I was actually able to perceive Scherzo for X-Wings during the bombing run. The brass was fantastic as always, but Williams' action music for strings shone particularly brightly live (maybe because violins and cellos are about all you see from the main floor—but boy, do you see them! We managed to recognize and compliment a cellist on his way out of an alley after the show.) "Follow Me" and "The Falcon" were electric, and the live performance had a way of dragging this orchestrational novice into appreciating the athletic string figures that underpin the melody. Best of all, the unbelievable "Jedi Steps and Finale" (which nearly the entire house stayed to enjoy) ended with the revised—and apparently now, definitive—ending that's on John Morris Russell's "Voyage" recording, that bombastic and celebratory interpolation of Luke's theme into the usual fanfare that ends the finale in "A New Hope." It's my favorite Williams revision of all time! If you ever have the opportunity to see TFA live, don't miss it. This cemented that score as my favorite Williams work of the past 20 years. Now do Phantom Menace with live choir, cowards!

Wow, "The Big Country" live? What a treat!

Somehow this image sums up the miracle of the last seven or eight years more eloquently than almost anything else we’ve said here. Sixty-plus years of movies. Centuries Join Hands indeed. Michael Dukakis! And Hitler from TLC!

Did someone say "Love Theme from The Terminal"??!

Ha! I just think the jazz approach is so wildly different from its best moments as a straight love theme elsewhere in the score (see “Destiny…Canneloni”) that it would benefit from a more Golden Age treatment in extended suite form. It’s such a sweet melody when played straight that the piano and bass noodling seem to diminish it. (For comparison, consider how some listeners feel about the cadenzas and adornments in the Mutter arrangements vis-à-vis the originals.) Are we sure that “Jazz Autographs” is a concert suite and isn’t actually from the body of the score? I haven’t seen the movie since the theater.

Is it maybe David’s personal theme? Williams OSTs are so impersonal!

That’s fair, but I want a proper three minutes of strings and horns in the vein of Leia or Can You Read My Mind. What we get around the 2:00 mark of this piece, but the whole time.

There’s precedent for that, no? Clark’s Personal Theme? Maybe the Fedora Guy or Cross of Coronado motifs from TLC?

I think Williams' advanced age throws all previous considerations and comparisons out the window. I get the sense that everyone in his orbit is elated that he's producing anything, much less material of this quality, and is scrambling to present it in whatever form they can. Maybe that's overly charitable, but I'm going with it!

Love Theme From the Flipping Terminal!!!! Also Willie's Theme.

We do? Where?? Disney Music Licensing is still only playing 45 seconds, and no one has posted an Instagram link. Never mind. Download Links to the rescue!

What's the source on this? I have yet to see any discussion of a reshot ending except in wretched hives of scum and villainy like WeGotThisCovered.com. I'm not doubting it; I'm just curious.

Believe it or not, yeah! I’ve only seen ToD all the way through once, so this was hearing #2 lifetime for me of that initial stretch of music. In the meantime, I’ve fallen in love with the finale as heard on the Concord and eventually City Lights releases, so this sounded stilted and wrong to me at first, but I’m coming around on its charms.

Just caught the last 45 minutes of Temple of Doom on Pluto TV last night (possibly the best way to watch it!) and encountered the film version of the finale for the first time since the much earlier days of my JWFandom. At first I was put off by the different tempo and iffy sound quality, but now that I’ve looked into it a bit, I’m fascinated by the two different entrances of Short Round’s theme. So did Williams decide later (after the Prague recording) that juxtaposing the A theme with Short Round was too much and revise the arrangement? When, say, the City Lights Symphony Orchestra recorded it, the change was already made. But then when did the change happen? For my part, I like the Prague recording. The opening tempo matches the film, which is unlike any version of Raiders I’ve ever heard, and the slower take on Willie’s theme is refreshing, too. It leans into the gap between that gorgeous melody and the character’s flimsiness, or maybe heightens the perfection of the film’s realization of a tintype damsel-in-distress as seen through the eyes of an eight-year-old pulp reader.

This is decidely not a random encounter with John Williams' music, but it was a random encounter with...something today: (sadly, it does not use the theme as far in as I got)

"Indy's Great Escape"? Why aren't we fretting about Williams' self-plagiarizing his track titles? One might say he and Elfman are heading for a "Final Confrontation" in that competition...