Docteur Qui

I’m surprised to be saying this but 5 episodes in and Picard Season 3 is actually…good? Definitely still has problems and a few non-Trekisms but it has improved significantly
 
That new showrunner is making a tremendous difference
 
Been enjoying the action tremendously more, one on one ship fights with interesting and creative tactics are infinitely more compelling than giant fleet battles
 
This show finally feels like it’s justifying it’s existence, these feel like worthwhile continuations of the TNG characters. I haven’t watched all of TNG myself and I’m impressed that despite there being what seems like some pretty deep cuts, the show is doing a good enough job giving me enough context to still care and feel the history without dumping exposition in a way that would feel unnatural for these characters
 
Music is better, visuals are better (and more restrained!), set design is better, writing is better, pacing is better, and the editing is better
 
A remarkable glow up from the absolute dreck of the previous two seasons. I’m still reeling from the fact that despite featuring more old characters than the previous seasons they’re integrated in an incredibly natural and worthwhile way that my brain isn’t even registering fan service 

So after getting several recommendations, I’ve binged the released episodes of the current season and I’m shocked to admit — I kind of love it. It’s nice to see these characters so well realized in a story that actually takes them seriously and doesn’t suck.
 
Anyway, what spoilery themes do y’all think are holding the album up? The DS9 and or Voyager themes? The danger motif? The theme from X-Men: The Animated Series?

I've been playing Hogwarts Legacy a lot lately. I'm pleasantly surprised (as others are) at how firmly rooted the music is in Williams' language for the series, particularly the first two films. However it's lacking strong cohesion, and repeatedly suffers from cues that are blatant soundalikes. The composers are very good at emulating Williams' music, but they're also good at emulating the likes of Thomas Newman and James Newton Howard in other parts of the game, as well as nods to Hooper and Doyle's contributions to Potter. Unfortunately it creates the overall effect of a rather unoriginal sound that stylistically swerves wildly on a frequent basis.
 
One minute you'll be trotting through the Forbidden Forest to something resembling Hooper's "Room of Requirement" and the next you're hearing the new-age harmonies and swells of Thomas Newman in the actual Room of Requirement. It's a rather jarring experience in my opinion, and I wish that there was a little more consistency in the musical approach. I'm also not at all fan of the cue that plays whenever you do the flying time trials - I have nothing against MIDI tracks when they're done well (as many cues in this score are), but blatant Williams rip-offs should at the very least be recorded with a real orchestra, otherwise his classic orchestration sounds terrible. It's too much, especially that awful french horn part playing right in the top register. 
 
But on the whole it's pretty good as an overall game music experience, and some cues are rather fantastic. I love the eerie Swamp music in the RoR, it uses the chords of Hedwig's Theme but slowed down, creating a very otherworldly sound.

OK, I'm more excited for the score now
 
Koji Kondo, the original writer of this music, who I adore and am friends with, was a big part of this. I would talk to him back and forth: "Okay, what about this? What do you think if I did this for this?" because I wanted to incorporate things. Sometimes it's invisible, [or] just like an Easter egg. The harp might be doing a line from the select screen on Mario Kart that only happens when you're in the waiting room. There's a part [in the movie] where Mario and Luigi are in a waiting room, and I thought it'd be cool [if] within the score that's actually a mystery score, you hear the harp playing the waiting room music. I wanted to completely dive in and make [the film's music] a feast for people that watch it 1,000 times, or Mario fans, but [ensure it] also works on a dramatic level.
This score is big. It's orchestral, it's got choir, and it's got bands, it's got Italian instruments, accordions, live drums, mandolins, and whistling human voices. Also, I'm using eight-bit [sounds]. I'll be playing the drums, and all of a sudden the tom fill is just eight-bit tom fills. It's really eclectic, but at the same time, the goal was that it would work on a level that a score like [John Williams' score for] E.T. [does]. It has a transcendent nature; it is not limited by the polyphony you have on an eight-bit thing. It's not just porting over melodies from a game to a movie. It had to be so much more to capture what this film is.

https://screenrant.com/super-mario-bros-movie-composer-interview/

It's become insufferably annoying to read any posts he makes these days because he only ever talks about one thing.
 
The man who used to give interesting insight into the movies he watched, the scores he listened to, and the games he played, as well as interesting stories about his personal life including his dating adventures, has now become the old man who yells at a cloud about the same thing over and over again and does nothing else here.

What a waste.

How about you watch the movie before deciding if the film won on its own merit or not?

How about you watch the movie before deciding if the film won on its own merit or not?

Short Round also used some martial arts on a few Thuggee in ToD, so it wouldn't be out of nowhere for the character either.

Because the actor is an extremely accomplished film martial artist? Have you seen Everything Everywhere All At Once?

I think probably my favourite use of it was when Homer used a 'gadget' (taken from a case embossed with 'H J S') to suck out the middle of a wedding cake. 

Damn, I miss when the show was funny.  

Close enough for recognition, but not close enough for legal action. lol. 

I know the exact one you're talking about, it makes me laugh every time

Dear lord I've been listening to this theme for nearly three decades and I only just realised that it's in 3. It is a slow 3 as you point out - the score dictates a 3/2 time signature in both of those cues - and as such isn't a waltz, which is why I suppose it's doesn't feel like it's in 3 like many of the other examples. Funnily enough Buckbeak's Flight has the exact same time signature, and is obviously very much of a piece with the E.T. flying theme, but I always knew that one was in 3 (or at least 6, which is how I count it).

There's one they used to use in the Simpsons when anything vaguely 'Bondy' was happening. I liked it. 

The theme is in a slow 3 (counting the first 3 melody notes as the main beats), so it's really any rendition that's in that meter. It can have a slightly different feel at that tempo, but I would say the feeling of 3's is still prominent. Take the ones at the end of The Magic of Halloween:
 
 
Or the one at the end of The Rescue and Bike Chase:
 
 

I think you missed one: Love/Romantic themes.
 
 

I'll try to organise this a bit but it's kind of random rambling
 
Lately for some reason this just came into my head. I don't think it's wrong to say that 4 is the standard meter of western music, has been for quite some time. To deviate from it, a conscious decision has to be made - so why is it made, when is is usually used?. To me it usually suggests circularity or momentum, like a flywheel, but the most obvious association is with the waltz, a floaty, elegant, high-class dance with circular motion around multiple axes.
 
The first category that comes from the floaty elegance is flight, something still dreamy and unachievable to us if we think of birds or spaceships instead of mechanical industrial airplanes which really haven't been special for a while. Examples are Hedwig's Theme, Fawkes the Phoenix, Vermithrax's (rejected) flying motif (interesting because it emphasises the beauty of the villain) which is a reworking of North's rejected 2001 docking scene (which was replaced by Strauss' Blue Danube), STTMP's Enterprise material (no doubt inspired by the 2001 Strauss usage), Romantic Flight, Flying with Mother and Furies in Love for the "romantic" flying scenes from the HTTYDs, and Flying with Chewie.
 
The second category is an evolution of this that disassociates from flight specifically, and is more about general somewhat childish, maybe playful fairytale beauty. Examples I gathered here are Kiki's Delivery Service (okay, still flight but I hope you get what I mean), the hero's theme from Legend (an unusual choice), Two Socks' theme from Dances with Wolves, the Enola/Dry Land theme from Waterworld, Hide and Seek, the Blue Fairy theme and The Reunion from AI (the former interrupted by less obviously structured tempo bits for David's mechanical nature and Monica's uncomfortableness with it), the Falcon reveal from Solo, Call of the Wild's main theme, Nori Brandyfoot's theme, and I'd also include Return of the King's opening here, it just has this quality for me.
 
Another offshoot from the waltz/flying association could be usages in higher intensity action pieces, for the chase going well or things going right. Examples here are the Fellowship theme's appearances in Balin's Tomb (bonus clever points for the way it's embedded between two bits of the orcs' jagged rhythm, 1-2-3, 1-2, 1-2-3, 1-2 suddenly switching to the well-ordered 1-2-3, 1-2-3, then back again) and The Three Hunters, much of Curse of the Black Pearl for Jack's brilliant on-the-fly plans where everything falls into place, and Corellia Chase.
 
So far these have been positive, but there's also subversive ways to use it, or intentionally still using the circularity and momentum but without the beauty and elegance, sort of just as "things are proceeding towards the goal", be that neutral or negative. Here I'm thinking of the Corleone Waltz (initially used for the way Vito's respected, elegant and well-oiled machine runs, then for Michael building his own machine from the ground up), The Fury's main theme for the way the supernatural powers grow and are used for worse and worse goals, Images' main theme for the main character's downward spiral and slipping grip on reality, half the STTMP score but let's say the cues where the Enterprise is venturing into the cloud towards V'Ger to find out anything they can about it, Monsignor's theme for the main character's morals becoming more and more compromised, Presumed Innocent for the web of intrigues and crimes slowly being uncovered but still going on without resolution or an end in sight
 
And then there's the final "perversion" of the waltz, the dark action cue where things are going wrong fast. There's the lumbering music for the blimp in Black Sunday (which somewhat like the Balin's Tomb example, clears up/fully realises the mostly jagged rhythms of the terrorist motif), North by Northwest with its madcap chases, the original version of Out the Door from Alien, To Scarborough from Dracula, the Chamber of Secrets theme, and the most tense/hopeless part of STAR WARS in Battle of Yavin, when Luke begins its trench run and Vader picks off Wedge and Biggs.
 
I'd also add hungarian director Zoltán Fábri, multiple of whose films feature a handcrank or automated music machine playing a waltz as a symbol for the Hand of Fate pushing everything along whether we like it or not.
 
So... uhh, did I have any point? Not really. Can you help me with finding one?

Seems like a no-brainer for them to do some kind of Short Round thing, in addition to his rumoured late addition to DoD. I imagine Quan would be super keen, and considering the failure of the Willow reboot and the diminishing returns that is the Star Wars machine, Lucasfilm would be silly not to capitalise on the moment he's having. It's not like they have any other avenues to exploit the Indy IP... although knowing Disney we could end up with Sallah: Origins in 2030.

Why is calling out problematic racist portrayals necessarily left-wing? I know people on the right who are able to easily recognize "dated" racist portrayals in Hollywood. (Lots of them LOVE criticizing holier-than-thou leftist Hollywood for its hypocrisy, in fact.) If I say that I have trouble appreciating Birth of a Nation for its cinematic strengths and historical importance due to its blatant racism, is that me promoting some side's political agenda, or is that just me accurately recognizing racism and saying I have a problem with it?
 
For this forum to be wholly un-political, can racism ever be discussed or acknowledged at all? Does discussing Hollywood's historic racist portrayal of Native Americans in the western genre also constitute "left-wing political posting" at this point? Or is it commonly accepted historical fact? I fail to see how discussing the problematic portrayal of Indians in Temple of Doom is any different.
 
 
The subject came up because someone floated the notion that all this (deserved!) widespread love for Ke Huy Quan constituted a general critical re-evaluation and validation of the "black sheep" or "red-headed stepchild" of the Indiana Jones franchise (as it has long been widely considered to be... even by the director!):
 
 
And I felt the need to reply and make clear that, for ME (and I've been making plenty of posts celebrating Quan here and elsewhere), that was very much NOT the case, that my celebration of him being such a great part of that movie does NOT mean that I celebrate that movie on the whole and think that its problems have been rectified with the passage of time. That it hasn't "aged well" in retrospect; quite the opposite if anything. (Though many reviewers at the time called it out for how problematic it was, and I don't think that the Christian Science Monitor guy whose review I quoted wrote his review with an obvious political agenda.) Fair enough fodder for discussion in a forum discussing films and their music?
 
Yavar

So it's been inferred that I'm a racist because I can enjoy Temple Of Doom for what it is. This place takes me to the fucking fair sometimes. 

Devil's advocate: why is Raiders not lambasted for racism when it portrays white people as nazis who actively want to look into the Ark?

A quick Google search led me to this review from 1984 when the film was released. Since you only seem to be okay with judging these matters from the time something came out, here you go (with some bolding by me):
https://www.csmonitor.com/1984/0531/053116.html
 
"'Temple of Doom' sinks into sexism, racism.
By David Sterritt
May 31, 1984
 
THE idea behind ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' was to revive the thrills and fun of the old Saturday-matinee serials. The same impulse runs through its boisterous sequel, ''Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.''
 
The new picture isn't just nostalgic, though. It's downright backward. Nobody expects deep philosophies from Steven Spielberg, who directed it, or George Lucas, who dreamed up the story. But moviegoers deserve more than the racism, sexism, and all-purpose mayhem on view here - failings that offset the razor-sharp action and technical brilliance also visible.
As before, the hero (Harrison Ford) is an archaeologist with a yen for adventure. His task is to restore a holy stone to an Indian village, and if he fails, a gang of brutal cultists will take over the world.
The religious twist recalls ''Raiders,'' of course, with its wacky mixture of Nazi conspiracy and Old Testament history. The similar hokum in ''Temple of Doom'' shows how drastically Hollywood has lost touch with reality. In the age of ''Star Wars,'' mere good guys vs. bad guys - or even struggles between nations - aren't enough anymore. The gimmick has to be apocalyptic, and sure enough, the ''Temple'' villains want nothing less than to overthrow ''the Hebrew God and the Christian God'' and set up their own deity instead.
There's no mention of other religions, by the way, and that's one measure of the movie's narrow attitude toward ''foreigners.'' Indiana Jones is shown as a great white hero, battling evil Chinese at first, then rescuing the hordes of India from a foe they're helpless to face by themselves. The message is plain: White people are good, yellow people are shifty, brown people are weak or sinister. Some lesson for the '80s!
Women don't fare any better. There's one in the story, played by Kate Capshaw , but when she isn't mooning over Indiana or fussing over a broken fingernail, she's whining and shrieking at hardships that real men - or even little boys, like Indiana's sidekick - take bravely in stride. Not since Fay Wray met King Kong has a heroine done so much screaming. Our hero actually complains about the noise, and pauses for a chuckle from the audience.
I don't impute bad motives to Spielberg or Lucas in these matters, or to Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, who wrote the screenplay. I think they just got carried away by their enthusiasm for old Hollywood conventions.
Enthusiasm without perspective is childish, though, and ''Temple of Doom'' is a very childish movie. Just look at the yucky ''special effects'' - not only the gleeful violence, but the creepy insects and ridiculously repulsive foods, often rubbed in the heroine's face. Indeed, as if the filmmakers were pining for their own kiddie years, they give a surrogate family to Indiana - with that yelping woman as the mommy and a sidekick called Short Round as the child.
In all this, ''Temple'' recalls last year's ''Return of the Jedi,'' which also featured a few gross-outs before closing with a sweet family snapshot. So look out, folks, it's a trend. Our most popular moviemakers are shuffling back toward infancy - where's the fun in stuffy grown-up values like maturity, sensitivity, and plain common sense"
 
 
 
Here's modern nuanced view from an archaeologist on Quora which is actually much kinder to the film:
https://www.quora.com/Is-Indiana-Jones-and-The-Temple-Of-Doom-racist?share=1
Patrick Wiley
Masters in Archaeological Studies, Yale University (Graduated 2019)
 
"In impact Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was absolutely racist, in intent however I don’t think it was.
Even at its release the film was controversial and denounced for having an inaccurate and offensive portrayal of Indian culture. On its surface this seems self evident, but in light of some statements by the filmmakers and a crucial deleted scene it’s actually a bit more complex than that. In addition, the character of Short-Round comes across as a bad Asian stereotype although I don’t get the impression that this was intentional either.
First, I’ll address Shorty, since the former controversy is far more significant and will take more time. He is perhaps the most annoying character in the Indiana Jones cinematic franchise. His accent seems extremely exaggerated. I have no idea if this was Jonathan Ke Quan’s actual accent at the time, the result of his acting, or something the filmmakers pushed for. Either way he certainly falls into the “wacky, annoying foreigner” trope, even if he wasn’t meant to. Were it not for this characterization Shorty would be a largely positive figure and arguably the true hero of the film since he’s integral in freeing the enslaved children and breaking Indy out of his trance.
In charges of racism against Indians the two most oft-cited story elements are the depictions of Kali-worship, and the dinner scene in which Indy, Willie and Shorty are served a disgusting platter of completely fictional dishes. I believe these scenes absolutely were harmful but this effect was due primarily to a failure of the filmmakers to consider the ignorance of their audience at certain key decision making stages.
The main antagonist of Temple of Doom is Mola Ram, a Thugee priest. The Thugee’s were a real bandit cult which operated in India in the 19th century. They really did practice human sacrifice in the name of the Goddess Kali and were known to kidnap children. Making a revived Thugee cabal the antagonists of the film is hardly offensive in and of itself. The problem is Temple of Doom doesn’t do enough to clarify the difference between the Thugee cult and worship of Kali in main-stream Hinduism. This could give the viewer the impression that Kali is some sort of evil demon, which of course is an offensive idea to people who view her as a beloved deity. Ironically I think it would have been smart to be less historically accurate in this area. They could have just picked a demon from Hindu mythology and had that be the subject of Thugee adoration. That would have been the simplest fix as it wouldn’t require a lot of exposition.
The dinner scene is one of the most outrageous parts of the film. As it turns out this scene is not meant to be a depiction of Indian cuisine but rather a clue that the prince and his court are under the influence of the Thugees. After that feast, in a scene cut from the film, Indy remarks "even if they were trying to scare us away, a devout Hindu would never touch meat. Makes you wonder what these people are ...". Retaining that scene might have helped a lot. Without it, people took the depiction of the feast at face value. There are reports of school-teachers claiming Indians actually eat monkey brains because of that scene. If educators could believe something so ridiculous I can only imagine how many ordinary viewers were fooled.
Some were also offended at the scene where Indy and Willie are offered cockroaches to eat by villagers. Supposedly this was meant as a subtle joke about Western ignorance. Roshan Seth, who played Chattar Lal claims "Steven intended it as a joke, the joke being that Indians were so smart that they knew all Westerners think that Indians eat cockroaches, so they served them what they expected. The joke was too subtle for that film”. That seems like a rather odd idea for a joke and I can’t help but wonder if Spielberg was just trying to humor his Indian actor. Regardless, a species of shield bug called udonga montana are actually eaten in parts of Northern India, especially in times of famine so I don’t think there’s anything to condemn about this scene. It actually presents the villagers as extremely generous and hospitable as they’re sharing what little food they have with guests in a time of famine.
With these elements changed I don’t think Temple of Doom would be nearly as controversial. In some ways it’s actually more progressive than the other Indiana Jones films. It features far more positive speaking roles with non-White cast members than Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Last Crusade. It’s also the first film where Jones takes a clear stance against cultural heritage theft as he returns the last Shakra stone to a Marhan rather than bringing it home and selling it to a museum.
It even avoids the “White Savior” trope because the Thugee’s are defeated primarily by Shorty and a patrol of Indian soldiers.
As interesting as it is to speculate about what might have been, the careless treatment of the story’s subject matter was not only deeply offensive to many Indian people but fostered ignorance and misconceptions in the United States. It’s rightly considered the worst and most offensive film in the trilogy."
 
Yavar

Why? Because he scored some bad films? Like, this is a common issue for film music fans in general which many of them (including me) get over with no problem. I don't understand what point you're trying to make.
 
 
It's pretty vague what you mean by "deviating from the expected build-up", but where did I express having a problem with something like that? I didn't have a problem with Indiana Jones being set somewhere else, and a year before the previous film, if that's what you're suggesting.
 
 
I have a lot of issues with the film to be honest (the love interest is another) but that's a pretty big one, yes. And why shouldn't it be?
 
 
I mean, I was making that comment about the original trilogy. I don't think it's easily the weakest Indiana Jones movie, thanks to Crystal Skull (which has a whole host of different issues). Thinking ToD is easily the weakest of the first three is a pretty common, widespread opinion. ToD has always been seen as the "black sheep of the family" even by Spielberg himself. So whether you can believe it or not, I'd say that's the way the majority of people opining on the matter have felt since the 80s. Which is why ToD fans have always been weirdly defensive about the movie, because they feel they have to defend it.
 
 
Well, I originally judged Temple of Doom in the mid-90s when the film was just about a decade old. I was born in 1985 but I'm pretty sure even by 80s standards it was cringey and racist... but trying to be in a sort of charming throwback way to similar films of the Golden Age, I guess? Hollywood used to make tons of "rip-snorting action adventures" which were, to put it bluntly, racist. This on the other hand was after Gandhi won Best Picture, and it had some of the same talented Indian actors sadly playing to disgusting stereotypes, like African-American actors regularly had to do in Hollywood up through the 1950s.
 
I guess it's difficult for a lot of white people to notice and care about, because they aren't used to being "othered" in Hollywood cinema. Since I'm of middle eastern heritage and I grew up seeing people who looked like me only cast as terrorists or at best strange exotic allies (hello, The Living Daylights, even though I do enjoy it) I guess I have a perspective that you don't.
 
If you take the "Never been a fan of judging stuff from the past by modern standards" attitude to its logical end, that means that someone might say, "I LOVE BIRTH OF A NATION! SUCH A GREAT FILM! DON'T JUDGE IT BY MODERN STANDARDS!" Well, sorry, I do. I think Gone With the Wind may be impressive in terms of production but I still consider it a vile piece of trash. And while for me Temple of Doom has many more redeeming features about it than Gone With the Wind, it's still incredibly problematic, and if literally nothing in it bothers you and even makes you wince for a moment then, well, that mostly just says something about you.
 
Here's a clip from a film in 1937 which shows that even in the first decade of sound film, Hollywood knew better than to do what it was most often doing:
 
For me though, Quan's character of Short Round transcended racist stereotypes (even if they peeked through in the writing for him) and actually felt like a fully fleshed out character, and his chemistry with Ford and the relationship between their characters is a part of the film I am really able to appreciate and enjoy as long as I can divorce it from other more cringey elements in the film.
 
Yavar

Productions in early 2021 were still being severely slowed down by Covid protocols, so that's not entirely surprising. I'd hope that the turnaround for season 2 would be a bit quicker when filming starts, but as you say it was only just officially greenlit, and has preproduction even officially started? At this rate I imagine we won't see either this or House of the Dragon til 2025 which is a little bit frustrating. I understand that time is the price for prestige television, particularly with so many moving parts, but I just don't wanna wait that long!