Grade Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End by Hans Zimmer

[Ollie 1,059]

See our review in the Houston thread:

link

[Datameister 2,041]

Yeah that will happen.

Williams has better things to do than waste his time with that drivel.

Never said it was a realistic wish, only that it would be hypothetically cool. And to call Zimmer's music a waste of time is far too moralistic. There is no "right" or "wrong" in music--only that which produces pleasure and that which doesn't, for a given person. If you don't like his music, that's cool. Believe me, I get it. But how is writing and/or arranging more intelligent music a "better thing to do"? You'd just prefer to hear the fruits of that labor. Be careful when you start talking about some music being better than other music.

I don't know how much more you could flesh it out without completely changing the cue.

So complete change it! If doing so would improve the enjoyment of the music, why not? (Copyright issues aside, of course.)

But POTC would've sounded so much better without those synths and other gizmos.

My feelings on that statement are complex. I think that if the music had been properly arranged, performed, and recorded by a good full orchestra, yeah, it would have sounded better. However, you can listen to the original recordings with almost no augmentation by ripping the DVD rear audio channels, especially for the end credits. The results are severely underwhelming. You can hear just how simplistic the orchestration really is beneath all the synths and percussion--a lot of single melodies on top of block chords, with rhythmic figures in the low brass and strings. It's a small and not terribly good studio orchestra that was gathered at the last minute, and the recording isn't mixed very well. "Swords Crossed" actually sounds pathetic to my ears without the synths and percussion, as does most of the music.

So...no, if they'd simply recorded everything as-is and left out the synths and percussion, it would have been a wimpy and pathetic score. With the synths and percussion as-is, it's overwhelming and rather ugly-sounding at times. If it had been properly arranged for a good orchestra, with synths taking supporting roles rather than as steroids, it could have been a much stronger score, IMO.

EDIT: One problem I forgot to mention is the lack of similarity to the ride soundtrack. Everyone who rides the original Disneyland attraction leaves it with "Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate's Life for Me" stuck in their heads. It's a great little song that was used at the beginning and end of the first POTC--an element that helped me to love that film, being the Disneyland freak I am--but it was never used in the score. Now, I think using it more than two or three times in the whole score would be a stupid choice...but there are moments when allusions to that great ditty would have been nice. That goes for all three films. Also, there's some very 60's-ish music written for the ride by George Bruns; parts of it are based on "Yo Ho," but much of it isn't. Those elements sound fairly cheesy to our 21st-century ears, but they could have been incorporated into the score in small doses to make the Disneyland fans in the audience giggle. The lack of these elements bothered me and still does.

[Delorean90 42]

Right. And you could use a lot of well-written orchestral substitutes for the synth parts, also. I'd love to hear a version of "Swords Crossed" properly orchestrated for a full orchestra.

[Indiana_Fett 0]

What's that instrument in "Multiple Jacks"? I can't really describe it, although I also heard it in Morricone's "Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion".

[Damo 0]

I'll give it a B