222max

You can't be serious.

Gosh! Are there any other oldsters around here in my age group? Born 1962. Yeah, call me Gramps. Don't I get a gold watch or something?

Some cool moments but overall pretty standard and uninteresting stuff. Fortunately, he provided us with the far, far superior The Ghost and The Darkness.

I bought both of these scores at the same time in 1982 (on vinyl!!) and I immediately thought E.T. was the better score... at least I liked it much more. But over the years, especially with the Deluxe Release of Poltergeist I have come to appreciate that score more. I just find it much more intricate and layered, both from a thematic as well as structural standpoint. You're never going to have music play a more important role than it does in the E.T finale... That scene was cut to the music instead of vice-versa. But, for me, E.T. on disc is a score of highlights with lots of dead space in between. I tend to listen to Poltergeist form top to bottom as a single, complete work. And though E.T. has some killer moments in it I feel as if I've outgrown that score. Been there and done it. Things like Poltergeist appeal to me more these days. Maybe it's because I played E.T. to death when I was younger but I also believe, Poltergeist is just a more richly textured and thought-out work.

Total Recall score... no contest. One of the most volcanic, bone-crushing action scores of all time.

How can you even compare these two scores? Better in what ways?

Got mine today and am listening to it now. I'll weigh in with a review later. But the waltz is only a single dimension to this brilliant score.

I think Pelzter's talking about the score, not the movie itself.

We are getting prized releases pretty fast and furious either from Intrada or FSM or the odd other labels. But it takes time to get these productions together... often months or even years. Plus the mine is getting rather thin because so many holy grail scores have already been dug up. But never underestimate these guys, they always seem to come out with something that we never expected. I know I was blown away a few months ago when they announced Bernstein's Heavy Metal. And now, could it be that we'll FINALLY get Temple of Doom as it was meant to be? As long as these releases continue to sell-out we will keep getting treats like this.

I agree. There's tons of varied discussion at FSM and what I like about it is that there are enough differing viewpoints around to give it some objective balance. Dan Hobgood is the exception and not at all the typical poster at FSM. He is passionate about his views and I respect him for that but he does go overboard quite often. I've been frustrated when threads gets hijacked because he and Thor start one of their shoving matches. But the level of discussion at FSM is quite informed and critical. And as mentioned above there are some heavy hitters who weigh in on occasion. I think Williams and Goldsmith are equally respected there. If there's one composer who regularly gets a bloody nose there it's probably Hans Zimmer.

The Planet Krypton, The Fortress of Solitude and a few others are highlights in Williams' writings. The opening is still great, but it's also a bit blatant. I like it a lot, but I'm not mindlessly obsessed about it. Supergirl I didn't really appreciate until I heard it live. And the OST performance doesn't quite do it justice. Superman still stands as one of the most Olympian acheivements of Maestro Williams. But what makes it so for me is really the first half of the score. The Krypton, Smallville and North Pole material is just sublime. But that follows as I consider those the best parts of the movie as well. I'm less a fan of the Metropolis and superhero parts of the movie and that goes for the music as well. All the poetry and grandeur of the earlier parts is gone in favor of straight-forward action and campy villainy. That's also reflected in the music. It's not that the later is not good music, it is. But in relation to the Krypton and Americana bits of the first half of the score things are far less interesting for me in the second half. Consequently I usually only listen to disk one of Superman. But Williams scored what he was given to the best of his abilities and the same goes for Goldsmith with Supergirl. Supergirl, the movie, is a piece of trash pure and simple and doesn't offer a 10th of the scoring opportunities that Superman offered Williams. It shouldn't be surprising at all that Supergirl is the lesser score. But that doesn't mean it's not good music. Parts of it are easily equal to what Williams wrote but the score overall is just a second rate take on a similar character. But we're comparing one of Williams' best with one of Goldsmith's lesser efforts. The Boys from Brazil, written the same year as Superman and the very reason Goldsmith had to pass on Superman, is to me an equally great piece of scoring but in a completely different way. For those who were around at the time it was truly a gift to have both of these scores produced in the same year.

"Laugh it up fuzzball" But I have been hoping for a CD release of John Scott's Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan for years. I hope that happens soon.

Ooh. I hope there are no Austrian members here. You're gonna get it.

Wow this is such a Rosenkavalier (Strauss) Rip off! and thats a fact and not just a opinion! the chordshifting, the string writing, the horn-glissandi. And I know the opera pretty well, before anyone comes to the idea I just know the snippet from AI. well being a film about nazis you will say:"What music could be more appropriate?" but that's not a original piece. just a redone version of the original. The whole score is Straussian (in the same manner that Superman is Wagnarian or Star Wars is Korngoldian). It is stylistically Strauss but not a rip off in any specific way. Listen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLiWWrSFRko...feature=related I hear a very deliberate stylistic similarity but not at all a rip off. But the concept here is that Goldsmith took something very Austrian and turned it into a dark dance of evil. Imagine someone taking the Star Spangled banner and turning it inside out to good effect. Again, it's the idea which makes it work so well.

Opening Title Credits. Imagine being in a theater and this is the musical opening of the film you are about to see. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEgSwikTveM...feature=related Peck and Olivier in a vicious and bloody rumble. What's great is that it is left UNSCORED.

Music is subjective and a matter of taste, of course. But the idea here is also how well a score works with the images on screen. That is, after all the reason for its existence, not how it pleases on a CD. That said, one must truly appreciate what Goldsmith does as a composer of music for film. King Solomon's Mines is, of all the vast creations of Goldsmith, the absolute worst place to start in his canon. I have almost everything by Goldsmith. I also have almost everything by Williams, and Herrmann and Rozsa and Barry and Morricone as well. You just can't distill a composer's value to a mere statement once you've exposed yourself to the breadth and length of his output. Those who don't like Goldsmith have probably not heard enough of it. And there are a great many who still wouldn't care after they did hear more... that's the way it is. But I've always appreciated the concepts behind Jerry's music as much as the music itself. There's always an idea at work. The ones that aren't as successful are those where the idea was a weak one. Poo-poo something like Hollow Man all you want but there's a clear intellect at work in that score and so many others by Goldsmith. That's what made not only his music sound dynamically different than John Williams but also his whole approach and attitude to scoring a film. Both tastes are wonderful to explore.

That's right. I had the LP set of it which I bought back in 87. Then they released the 2 LP version on 2 CDs and after that they edited it down to one CD. Like I mentioned, I can't remember how much much they cut out... seems to me around 10-15 minutes or so.

Not that I'm aware of but as Scissorhands mentioned, I haven't seen the film. I've got 20 tracks listed in iTunes, but two are somewhat identical. "The Future" and King Richard" have identical endings, roughly the last 3 minutes. Whoops. I misread. Sorry. Actually I have the original 2 LP set of Lionheart from which they made the single CD (The Epic Symphonic Score one) and there's quite a bit that was left off the CD. I can't remember now how much because I haven't listened to my LPs in years now. The CD edit is still a good representation of the score though. And yes... Lionheart the movie IS indeed terrible. In fact, if you enjoy Goldsmith's score I advise you never to see the film because I guarantee you that whatever visuals the music created in your head the movie will in no way live up to those visions. The scale of the film is far far smaller than that of Goldsmith's magnificent score. Once again a case of the composer seeing a far grander movie in his head than the one he was actually presented with.

I don't know, I have never seen the movie (and I doubt anyone here has). It looks terrible... The movie is a bit outlandish with a ham fisted performance by Gregory Peck but it's not at all terrible, especially compared to today's numb-minded thrillers. Goldsmith's score is a brilliant combination of menace and humor.

Anything from the Goldsmith/Schaffner partnership is great and Boys from Brazil is one of the greatest. Ordered.

Perfectly average score. Lots of business but little substance. I listened to Raiders just a couple of days ago and it was so much of a great experience that it made me not even want to bother with Crystal Skull.

I can't really decide for myself who the greatest Movie villain is but I do have my favorites. Right now The Joker (The Dark Knight) is my favorite because he's such a fascinating character. After him is a minor villain but I just loved how he was portrayed... that one being "The Operative" from Serenity. He was a bad guy who grabbed me from the first frame and I loved every minute of him in the movie. Plus, he was a guy who knew he was evil, knew what he did was evil and accepted that as his role. Then when he learned that everything he had believed in and had done was based on was a lie he then changed. I know the role of the bad guy is to make you hate him but I like bad guys I can almost root for.

It was actually the one scene from the movie which kind of awed me (although the imploding pyramid has been done before: The Mummy Returns, and the UFO rising out of the ground has also:X-Files, Fight The Future). And I think the scoring is also one of the few moments when the music is allowed to push a scene. As to whether the sequence belongs in this film or another doesn't really matter. I like it just fine.

I absolutely do remember that. Check him out in this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_PuAqRQLKA. Years later when I saw him in serious roles I knew he looked familiar but I never would have thought he had gone from Children's TV to big screen acting. But then again, most of our biggest, most talented stars had very humble beginnings.

This is not the thread or occasion to argue these points.