Label Threads The Official Intrada Thread

[Disco Stu 15,495]

The Imhotep theme is obviously the showcase theme of the score

[Richard Penna 3,664]

I just edited a few suites from the attacking section of the score and his theme is given a huge workout.

 

10 minutes ago, Yavar Moradi said:

One of the reasons I prefer the Goldsmith score is that his setpieces have more distinct variety, so I'm surprised at your opinion Holko. Night Boarders for me is very distinct from The Camel Race is very distinct from The Sand Volcano.

 

Absolutely. I like a few set pieces from Silvestri's because of his use of his themes, but in terms of cue structure and variety within, Goldsmith easily wins. He just has more subtlety and detail.

[Kasey Kockroach 2,343]

I'm considering trying out the Silvestri first, mainly as I have quite a lot of Goldsmith in my collection as is (only Powell comes close in terms of how many scores I have from one composer), and am feeling up for trying out someone else when I'm in the mood for Egyptian hi-jinks music.

[Amer 2,078]

5 hours ago, Yavar Moradi said:

At least Goldsmith's (shorter) Rick heroic theme he puts through more interesting variations. But yeah, there are at least three other themes in the score (including a beautiful love theme) that I like better.

 

One of the reasons I prefer the Goldsmith score is that his setpieces have more distinct variety, so I'm surprised at your opinion Holko. Night Boarders for me is very distinct from The Camel Race is very distinct from The Sand Volcano.

 

Yavar

 

 

Its a terrific score. Goldsmith surprised me that he wrote two middle eastern tinged score back to back with THE MUMMY & THE 13 WARRIOR. Both projects offered different dynamics. The orchestration in both these scores were tremendously effective. Normally I cringe whenever Hollywood gets in the middle eastern mode; but here the music is so tongue in cheek and yet so smooth. The cues you mentioned are such a joy to listen to and you can help but smile as you get swept up in the lyrical themes.

 

Now that I have mentioned THE 13TH WARRIOR-I'd also love to see that fully expanded and come out via Varese someday.

 

 

[publicist 4,643]

7 hours ago, Holko said:

Perhaps my biggest problem with The Mummy is how Goldsmith didn't utilise a lot of creative range - a 4000-year-old prologue, a WWI-ish skirmish between two formal armies, a night raid on a river boat, a mindless crowd on the streets of Chairo and the heroes fighting resurrected mummies all blend into each other and sound kinda samey. The themes are also much weaker more simplistic than Silvestri's wonders. 

 

It can be scientifically proven that's not true - or at least that the same criticism can be applied to both scores (Silvestri's themes are 'wonders'? I mean, come on). 

[Kasey Kockroach 2,343]

Alan Silvestri scores: If it's a good theme, it's a wonder!

[publicist 4,643]

Miracle Pictures: If it's a good picture, it's a Miracle! (temporarily forgotten which movie that is from)

[Kasey Kockroach 2,343]

 

Probably took it from Tex Avery's Daffy Duck in Hollywood.

[Holko 9,491]

Damnit, I thouht I settled with myself that I won't post after midnight when I'm not thinking straight...

I guess I was too enmoured with Sand Castles. What I think I meant is that Goldsmith's soundscape is more uniform than I'm currently used to, I never said Silvestri's is different because I'm yet to hear the complete score on its own.

I uphold that Goldsmith's themes are more simple, which works better is entirely a matter of taste. 

Example: Goldsmith's Rick is AABBCCD, which gets repetitive fast, but is easy to quickly quote. Silvestri's is a more traditional ABA'C, it gets repetitive when played over and over again, not when simply played in full like the former.

The Medjay/Journey theme taps into something deep with me. This may sound bullshit, but the only way I can describe it: most themes are just a bunch of notes. Notes that someone talented selected and paired up so they would sound nice. And that's completely OK. But every once in a while one comes along which feels like it existed since the beginning of times and I always knew it, those notes purely exist to form that melody - I feel that way with a lot of Shore's LotR material, a number of Williams' themes, and now this. It's so organic and natural, of course it goes this way, it cannot be any other. I may get this half-blind just so I'd have all renditions of it.

[publicist 4,643]

Really? I never would ascribe such quality to a Silvestri theme (which are fairly standard in shape and content, even if memorable). There are a few Goldsmith's that qualify (not 'The Mummy'), several Barry's,  Mancini's, Morricone's, Delerue's and Williams's. But it's a quality i see more in the work of songwriters, i. e. old war horses like 'Ol Man River' or 'Unforgettable'...you know, from Cole Porter to Burt Bacharach there has been a long heritage of ace melodists. Film composers seldom achieve that quality (certainly not, imho, Shore).

[Richard Penna 3,664]

4 hours ago, Holko said:

Damnit, I thouht I settled with myself that I won't post after midnight when I'm not thinking straight...

I guess I was too enmoured with Sand Castles. What I think I meant is that Goldsmith's soundscape is more uniform than I'm currently used to, I never said Silvestri's is different because I'm yet to hear the complete score on its own.

I uphold that Goldsmith's themes are more simple, which works better is entirely a matter of taste. 

Example: Goldsmith's Rick is AABBCCD, which gets repetitive fast, but is easy to quickly quote. Silvestri's is a more traditional ABA'C, it gets repetitive when played over and over again, not when simply played in full like the former.

The Medjay/Journey theme taps into something deep with me. This may sound bullshit, but the only way I can describe it: most themes are just a bunch of notes. Notes that someone talented selected and paired up so they would sound nice. And that's completely OK. But every once in a while one comes along which feels like it existed since the beginning of times and I always knew it, those notes purely exist to form that melody - I feel that way with a lot of Shore's LotR material, a number of Williams' themes, and now this. It's so organic and natural, of course it goes this way, it cannot be any other. I may get this half-blind just so I'd have all renditions of it.

 

Goldsmith's Rick theme is so loosely constructed that it barely qualifies as a theme for me, except that it's repeated. Just a series of ascending and descending 'runs'. But I don't think Silvestri did much better.

 

No doubt I think the Medjai/journey theme is the best thing about SIlvestri's score. I kind of get what you mean, in that the notes and counterpoints just hit something really memorable and powerful.

[Kasey Kockroach 2,343]

Weirdly enough, something about Goldsmith's theme makes me think of Ready Player One of all things. I assume my ears are broken, as I haven't seen anyone else mention such.

 

[publicist 4,643]

2 hours ago, Richard Penna said:

Goldsmith's Rick theme is so loosely constructed that it barely qualifies as a theme for me, except that it's repeated. Just a series of ascending and descending 'runs'. But I don't think Silvestri did much better.

 

The difference is that Goldsmith - in old Hobgoodian tradition - constructed all themes and motifs from the same open fifth-like cloth, which makes the bumbling hero theme a necessity (it's really the action theme from 'The Swarm' with a different punctuation). Silvestri just wrote another BttF-tune, both are more perfunctory than truly riveting, that's why Goldsmith ultimately fares better: he just wrote a better Mummy theme!

[Pieter Boelen 740]

On 7/13/2018 at 5:25 PM, publicist said:

It was awful. But, rest assured, not as awful as 'Van Helsing' where Sommers truly and madly lost it. 

Awww; but I kind-of wanted to see the sequel!

 

(Bugger, my taste in movies really isn't the best, is it?)

[Wojo 2,453]

You... Still can see the sequel. It's bad but it's not unwatchable. Some of the action setpieces are repeats of those in the first movie, and The Rock in CGI is terrible, but it's still a fun ridiculous adventure. I could have done without the Rick backstory retcon, but how else to bring back Oded Fehr. 

 

The lost pyramid in Mummy Returns really reminds me of my favorite episode of Disney's TaleSpin from my youth. 

[Richard Penna 3,664]

I seem to remember a problem I had with Mummy Returns was the huge reliance on often terrible CGI. The original had the Mummy itself, the sand storm, the scarabs and a few landscapes, but otherwise was a mostly physical movie. The sequel went for an over the top action approach with endless sequences of dodgy CGI creatures.

 

Plus, the finale of the original is a nicely structured fight with music that's very audible. The finale of the sequel is just chaos, with a terrible CGI Rock, music buried somewhere underneath everything else and a pretty ridicuous save from the pyramid at the end. I'm not saying it's a terrible movie but I think it has nothing going for it beyond very dumb popcorn fun.

[Holko 9,491]

This is much, much worse than the Scorpion Rock IMO, that one at least looked like him:

 

Couldn't they do CG on top of Vosloo's face like in the first one?

 

The movie does have some nice ideas - they know kids are usually useless and annoying, so this kid knows he's annoying and uses it to his advantage in rather self-aware ways.

Scenes like Sand Castles are nice ideas executed rather well. 

Overall the biggest problem is the overreliance on CG and that it somehow lacks some of the goofy, cheesy charm the '99 one had (it keeps up reasonably in the first half, until it turns out everyone is a reincarnation of someone important and was always meant to do this), rather devolving into complete incomprehensible stupidity at times with its unfollowable lore and pygmy mummies. It's completely watchable but doesn't have much to pull you back or have good feelings about afterwards.

The '32 Karloff one beats both any day, though.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I just randomly listened to track 1 of Edelman's third Mummy score.  Divorced from expectations of following on from Goldsmith and Silvestri, that main theme has a nice, dumb feel to it.  Like it could be the theme to a JRPG or something.

[Richard Penna 3,664]

Edelman's has some things going for it - as you said Rick's theme is a quite fun theme and it's overall a harmless fun listen. But the whole thing has a very decade-old video-gamey quality to it, part of which is simply due to using synths instead of a real orchestra for the most part. This approach works for some of his other movies (The Mask, Six Days Seven Nights) but not here.

 

Put either of the first two on after that and you're hearing a completely different standard of scoring, although I'll charitably put that somewhat down to orchestration and the utter cheesiness of the film.

[Brundlefly 2,385]

5 hours ago, Richard Penna said:

The finale of the sequel is just chaos, with a terrible CGI Rock, music buried somewhere underneath everything else and a pretty ridicuous save from the pyramid at the end.

The CGI Rock is even worse than the CGI rock in A New Hope.

 

5 hours ago, Holko said:

The movie does have some nice ideas - they know kids are usually useless and annoying, so this kid knows he's annoying and uses it to his advantage in rather self-aware ways.

It also makes fun of itself (like Home Alone 2) knowing that it's basically a remake of the first movie.

 

1 hour ago, Richard Penna said:

Edelman's has some things going for it - as you said Rick's theme is a quite fun theme and it's overall a harmless fun listen. But the whole thing has a very decade-old video-gamey quality to it, part of which is simply due to using synths instead of a real orchestra for the most part. This approach works for some of his other movies (The Mask, Six Days Seven Nights) but not here.

I think it's one of the worst scores of all time. Nothing was done right. No wonder this was Edelman's last score.

[Nick Parker 3,040]

For those talking about how Goldsmith didn't like The Mummy, is there an interview or something where he discusses his feelings? 

[Holko 9,491]

This was news to me, too, and all I could find was rumours and word-of-mouth on how he used to say "and now a score to a very crappy movie" or something like this in concerts. Nothing official.

[Nick Parker 3,040]

Awww.

 

Is the Imhotep theme the one that sounds like The Plot from Lalo Schifrin? 

[Richard Penna 3,664]

Yep.

[Holko 9,491]

So about when do we expect the big reveal which will 98% be no reveal? 3 AM for me? La-La Land's Black Friday reveal last year was a nice, comfortable 9-10 AM, I had to stop in the middle of the shopping mall and force myself not to squeak when I saw Titanic.

[Jay 37,250]

Intrada titles are announced at a random time between 4pm PDT and 5pm PDT.  I'll let you do your own timezone conversion.

[Holko 9,491]

1-2 AM then. I'll have something to wake up to.

[Richard Penna 3,664]

It's usually around 1/1.30am in the UK.

[Yavar Moradi 2,576]

2 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

I think it's one of the worst scores of all time. Nothing was done right. No wonder this was Edelman's last score.

 

But it wasn't. Yes, he's been less prolific since this score, but just look at his IMDb composer credits:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006055/#composer

 

Varese released his score to The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor in 2008 (as well as 27 Dresses that year). Since then, they've also released his scores to Leap Year (in 2010...wow, 75 minutes of it! Seems like a lot for this kind of Edelman score) and The Boy Next Door (in 2015, co-composed by Nathan Barr).

 

Last year he scored the dog movie sequel Max 2, and IMDb does list an upcoming project for 2019, so he's not completely out of the game.

 

Personally I don't care much for Edelman outside of DragonHeart, which really does have some powerful parts (the humming chorus at the end in particular) amid all of the cheap-sounding synthy stuff. Other than that he's fine for 90 chick flicks and such (i.e. While You Were Sleeping) but his work just doesn't have a ton of depth...which is why I really dislike Gettysburg even though a lot of people seem to love it.

 

Yavar

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I have a lot of affection for some of Edelman's 90s family/comedy scores.  Kindergarten Cop, Angels in the Outfield, The Mask, Ghostbusters 2, etc.

[publicist 4,643]

Brrrrr....

[Brundlefly 2,385]

1 hour ago, Yavar Moradi said:

But it wasn't. Yes, he's been less prolific since this score, but just look at his IMDb composer credits:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006055/#composer

Oh, in this case the German Wikipedia article wasn't properly updated.

 

BTW, does Intrada announce The Mummies Tuesday eve or spot-on midnight between Monday and Tuesday?

[Jay 37,250]

1 hour ago, Jay said:

Intrada titles are announced at a random time between 4pm PDT and 5pm PDT.  I'll let you do your own timezone conversion.

 

[Richard Penna 3,664]

Very early on Tuesday morning our time. Probably a bit after 2am-ish in Germany. But I haven't stayed up for one of their releases (i.e. been really excited) for a while, so I don't know if that's still the case.

[Brundlefly 2,385]

7 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

Very early on Tuesday morning our time. Probably a bit after 2am-ish in Germany. But I haven't stayed up for one of their releases (i.e. been really excited) for a while, so I don't know if that's still the case.

So it will be announced on Monday afternoon in America?

[Kasey Kockroach 2,343]

It's 3pm where I am and still no mummies or daddies!

[Richard Penna 3,664]

Yes, see Jay's quote above.

[Kasey Kockroach 2,343]

My brain's too tiny to do time zone conversions!

[Richard Penna 3,664]

Actually that was to Brundlefly

[Brundlefly 2,385]

15 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

Yes, see Jay's quote above.

He didn't say anything about Monday. Why is it the 17/7 title then?

[Jay 37,250]

Because they don't start shipping until tomorrow morning.

 

They basically put their new release up once they are done shipping for the day on Monday afternoon.

 

That's why it's a random time between 4pm and 5pm to them locally.

[Richard Penna 3,664]

Whoops, yep, you're right Brundlefly 

 

As for 17/7, I guess they just want to announce it a little early. (edit - what Jay said)

[Jay 37,250]

For anyone still confused, the titles will simultaneous be announced go up for sale between 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 hours from now, and begin shipping about 17 1/2 hours from now

[Kasey Kockroach 2,343]

Well, we were wrong. Turns out it was Elmo in Grouchland by John Debney. I'll probably be the only one buying it.

http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.11533/.f

 

http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.11534/.f

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I wonder if Intrada takes La La Land gift certificates.......... 

[Kasey Kockroach 2,343]

I can't afford to buy both at the same time, so I'll wait and read feedback on both scores in complete form.

I might do the Silvestri, just to try something different since I have a lot of Goldsmith as is.

[Wojo 2,453]

3 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

I just spent quite a lot of money on La La Land Bucks though.....

 

That will make getting these FREE. 

[Nick Parker 3,040]

13 minutes ago, kaseykockroach said:

Well, we were wrong. Turns out it was Elmo in Grouchland by John Debney. I'll probably be the only one buying it.

http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.11533/.f

 

http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.11534/.f

 

The Mummy Returns liner notes are written by Tim Greiving aka @Maestro, that's awesome!!!

[Richard Penna 3,664]

Actually I just realised that putting these two 2-CD sets together with shipping easily gets to $80 or so. Suddenly a gift certificate for a few hundred $$s doesn't seem unreasonable. (I apologise for the tone I took in the LLL thread)

 

And the sound quality on these clips sounds amazing, certainly beyond the isolated score!

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Ugggggh and I still really want The Shadow but I just can't justify all this money 😭