Michael Giacchino vs. David Arnold

[John Crichton 4]

The Medal of Honor series, Secret Weapons Over Normandy, and Star Trek prove that Giacchino can write some awesome action cues.

Oh, but he can! Sometimes it's even sensational: Jehosafats and Chutes and Matter, for instance, are terrific; and Star Trek for the most part is a very welcome exception to my statement. But most of the times the action music on his soundtracks is the least interesting and enjoyable, and occasionally even annoying. He takes a motif, lets it play ff, and doesn't go anywhere interesting with it. It's often like he's a bit stuck in videogame writing, where indeed an action cue needs to be consistent throughout its length. It's too loud for a too long amount of time, and the brass is often too shrill (trumpets playing loudly can be annoying), and obviously the recording technique he wants doesn't help that. My musical vocabulary is a bit limited but I hope you know what I mean. Mission: Impossible is an excellent example of it, as - to a more limited extent - is The Incredibles. The same goes for many parts of Lost and Up.

I'm not bashing Giacchino; I'm a fan myself; but what I find most appealing is his emotional music and his suspense music: give me "Bon Voyage, Traitor" over "Peace through Superior Firepower" any day, for instance! The great parts of Mission: Impossible are the Italy parts (the sneaking around bits and the pay-off) and the Lost-y bits, not the loud action music in the beginning.

While Arnold is often even louder and more bombastic (in his early years), it's much more bearable; I feel there's often more build-up and more suspense within his action cues.

OK, I see where you're coming from a lot better now. Don't agree with it all but that's fine. I'll agree in a broader sense that a good bit of his best work still comes outside his film scores, mostly the video games. Take action cues like Attack on the Railgun, Rjuken Sabotage, Merker's Salt Mines, Escape from Casablanca, Labyrinth of the Minotaur, The Motorcycle Chase, the end sequence in MoH; Fronline (last 4-5 cues), and a good chunk of MoH: Airborne. Killer, killer action writing there, but it is a different style than what you'd get in a film score. Almost like concert pieces.

[King Mark 3,631]

If Arnold can do something as good as Stargate or ID4>>>> Arnold

If Giacchino can do something as good as Medal of Honor or Secret Weapons Over Normandy>>>>Giacchino

but both have changed their style to sound more "modern sounding" ( better versions of the RCP crap)

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I've listened to a bunch of Giacchino music at this point and I still prefer ID4 and Godzilla scores. So I guess I'd have to vote in favor of Arnold.

[Romão 2,274]

I don't think either is particularly talented, much less any sort of sucessors of JW or JG. They are good film composers but their music rarely transcends its initial purpose.

Desplat is in my view much more talented than these two.

And of the composers working more of less in Hollywood these days, apart from Williams, Goldenthal is by far the most talented composer, who even in his film music greatly transcends the medium it was written for.

Arnold and Gia (specially the latter), are very good at pastiche and their aproach to a movie a score is always the most obvious one (I'm unfamiliar with Gia's tv work though, which I hear is a bit more daring). I think their music only very rarely transcend the medium.

[publicist 4,643]

Arnold and Gia (specially the latter), are very good at pastiche and their aproach to a movie a score is always the most obvious one (I'm unfamiliar with Gia's tv work though, which I hear is a bit more daring). I think their music only very rarely transcend the medium.

Obviousness never was much of a burden in scoring films - or fanboy love, for that matter.;

Giacchino often overwrites his action stuff, so that it can become headache-inducing. For comparison, just check out how even the much-derided STAR TREK NEMESIS is a perfect example of achieving much with very little. And then, along comes Giacchino with his busy swagger and it seldom is as effective (it just is another loud element in the soundmix).

[fommes 153]

OK, I see where you're coming from a lot better now. Don't agree with it all but that's fine. I'll agree in a broader sense that a good bit of his best work still comes outside his film scores, mostly the video games. Take action cues like Attack on the Railgun, Rjuken Sabotage, Merker's Salt Mines, Escape from Casablanca, Labyrinth of the Minotaur, The Motorcycle Chase, the end sequence in MoH; Fronline (last 4-5 cues), and a good chunk of MoH: Airborne. Killer, killer action writing there, but it is a different style than what you'd get in a film score. Almost like concert pieces.

While I do have the CDs, I'm not overly familiar with his video game scores; there's just something about video game scores that makes me not listen to them, I don't know (though I haven't got any particular prejudices against them); but I certainly agree that his action writing there is -overall- of a better quality than in his film scores. The flipside is that it tends to be much more pastiche, so I actually prefer those few sensational action cues in his film & TV scores, which reflect much more a style of his own (well, from Ratatouille onwards, of course).

Arnold and Gia (specially the latter), are very good at pastiche and their aproach to a movie a score is always the most obvious one (I'm unfamiliar with Gia's tv work though, which I hear is a bit more daring). I think their music only very rarely transcend the medium.

I don't agree. Giacchino has some early work which fits into the pastiche label, but has since shown with Lost and Ratatouille that he has very much a style of his own, one that is able to influence and transcend the picture (the most obvious approach only follows the images).

While Arnold has indeed done a number of adaptations (James Bond, Shaft), he always makes it his own. His few Emmerich scores, which many define him by without looking at all the other scores he did, have put him in the Williams pastiche camp by some, unjustly I think, because I feel his bombast style is very much his own, too. But I've always felt that a score like Baby Boy clarifies his style much better: it tones down the bombast while still using the same chords and harmony etc. Moreover, he has proved himself to be very versatile in his writing (people tend to forget scores like The Young Americans, Four Brothers, Amazing Grace, Hot Fuzz, Changing Lanes), and has proved himself to be at least on equal footing as Danny Elfman, for one. I don't want to open a can of worms, but to boot I've always felt that his integration of synth and orchestra is much superior to, er, some other composers.

[Neimoidian 14]

I vastly prefer Arnold's music. In fact he is one of my favourite film composers, even though I don't find him a great composer in general. There's just something about his music that really clicks with me. With most composers, even those much better than Arnold, I'm usually interested in relatively small percent of their output, having a few favourite scores while being rather uniterested in others.

With Arnold, I like preety much everything he does, not only his epic works, but also the contemporary ones (like Four Brothers or Quantum of Solace). Not only can he write great themes and catchy little motifs, but also he is able to play with them, weaving it throughout the score in much subtler way than Giacchino does in his - especially recent - film works (Ratatoille, which I consider his best film score, is a notable exception). I also prefer Arnold's sound to Giacchino's, which has become very dry over the past few years. I miss that sweeping and lush sound of Gia that I remember from his early scores. It especially bothers me with his Star Trek which, even in it's best parts, is nowhere as exciting to my ears as ID4,Stargate or even Godzilla.

[Will 2,215]

This may well have been posted before but it's frickin' awesome. Rogue One with Arnold's kickass "Virus Uploaded" cue:

 

 

The sound mix isn't perfect (you can still hear clashing bits of Giacchino's cue) but it's still great. As you all know, I like Giacchino's work on Rogue One, but ID4 has to be one of the best scores of the last couple decades. We need a David Arnold SW score!! 

 

P.S. I know this thread is really old but I figured it was best given what the video is. 😉

[Kasey Kockroach 2,344]

WHO THE HELL CA-...oh, this thread's from 2010. Phew. Thought I was gonna have to cut a few throats.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

How'd that fit so seamlessly? Are movies made from the same template?

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Sorry I'm late, Mr. President!

[gkgyver 1,645]

Giacchino writes better themes than David Arnold at this point.

 

Sadly, he has to write the stuff surrounding it, too.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Pilot, you armed?