Sinbad v.s. Treasure Planet

[indy4 152]

Both are scores of animated childrens' movies about pirates, with music that is somewhat swashbuckling.

Both have other qualities about them that I find better than the swashbuckling parts of the soundtracks (Howard has the beautiful strings of "Silver Leaves," and Gregson-Williams has the eerie voices of "The Sirens".)

Both scores are great.

Both composers' names take a long time to type

I pick Treasure Planet, my third favorite JNH score.

[Pieter Boelen 633]

I'll go with Sinbad; I find it more enjoyable than Treasure Planet and has more "piratey" music and no overly modern influence (electric guitar). Treasure Planet has some really good parts, but I think that Sinbad has more good parts.

[ChuckM 1]

Definately Sindbad, but both are good.

[Richard Penna 2,082]

Treasure Planet.

(What did you expect with an avatar like this )

[Morlock 9]

Sinbad, by a mile and a half. I love JNH, and have been kind of dissapointed by HGW recently, but Sinbad takes this one in every department.

[Ray Barnsbury 8]

As much as I love JNH, I also have to go with Sinbad. Truly a terrific score, and should be refreshing for those who think film music is dead, or detractors of any composer with roots in MV.

[Richard Penna 2,082]

Very good point Ray - those who claim nothing good comes out of MV need to listen to Sinbad. This poll has made me go back and listen to it again actually.

[Ollie 859]

Treasure Planet, although it's an average JNH score.

[Red 73]

Sinbad, although I am a fan of Howard's Planet.

[igger6 653]

"Sinbad" certainly has its moments. "Sirens" is an interesting take on the idea, although ultimately too quirky, I think, to quite capture the considerable musical potential of the original myth. Eris's theme is quirky, too, but it's appropriate to her character and it works well enough. The real prize in this score (which I haven't listened to in its entirety in several years) is "Into the Sunset," a flawless piece of adventure scoring that, in my book, ranks right up there with the Raiders March and the theme from "The Magnificent Seven." If only "Sinbad" the movie were one tenth as good as its score...

That might be part of the reason I ultimately chose "Treasure Planet" over "Sinbad" (full disclosure: "TP" is one of my all-time favorite Disney films, and a soundtrack I listen to all the time) but I think I can justify it based strictly on the music, too. James Newton Howard's main theme for "Treasure Planet" might be a shade below "Into the Sunset" in terms of sheer swashbuckling brilliance, but it has a way of triumphantly exploding in the midst of the score that provides an emotional punch the Sinbad theme can't quite match. That, combined with the gorgeous secondary theme from "Silver Leaves" (Jim's theme? I think so...), the spot-on Celtic stuff for Silver, Morph's little flute motif, and the goofy theremon bit for B.E.N. combine to give this one the crown. "Sinbad"'s action music is a notch above "TP," but all of JNH's action cues sound pretty similar, so that's to be expected.

All in all, despite my potentially disqualifying biases, I'm going "Treasure Planet."