I'm Sorry but Minority Report the Score does not fit the film

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

I remember this girl that was in my History 101 class back in college. Dead drop gorgeous. Absolutely hot. But she dressed up in hideously ugly clothing and terribly overdone make up. Clothing that was a mix between brown or grey granny stuff and just plain something that could probably define ugly itself. But the rest of her, great body, great way she carried herself, fun personality. But she wrapped herself up in terrible clothing and make up. And this played tricks on your head. On the one hand she was absolutely gorgeous. On the other, the way she dressed and made herself up was a complete mismatch to the rest of her, and sort of dragged you out from thinking of her as anything but just another girl.

Which brings me another situation I found myself dragged out of fantasy by a grand mismatch.

We pulled Minority Report for a viewing after...5 or 6 years I think? Good film. Last Spielberg film I think is worthy of the Spielberg name. (Yeah yeah, a bunch of you little kids love Munich and Crystal Crap. Kiss it. This thread isn't about that)

But good grief, John Williams' music for this picture sounds like Tschaikovsky awakened to write The Nutcracker for a bleak cyberpunk future. And it sounds as bad as you think that would sound. Throughout a great deal of the film there is a huge rift between Spielberg's modern filmmaking/editing aesthetics and John Williams' blatantly archaic old Hollywood sound (xylophones and all). On one hand you have huge futuristic blue-hued cold cityscapes, edited like a modern day film, on the other hand you've got f'cking tired ol high swirly strings you recognize from a game of Quidditch or space battle. And of course the tired old grand Star Wars fanfares, packaged with new melodies for a new movie.

And your brain is frying trying to correct for this huge disparity. It ultimately fails, because it pulls you out of the movie like nothing else (*cough* Anderton's Great Escape, fun on album, blatantly out of place in film *cough*).

But this is what frustrates me worst of all. A little bit before that Williams scored AI. And while that score to me is fairly un-involving (I wasn't particularly fond of the film) it meshes together with the futuristic atmosphere and nature of its film rather well.

So what the hell happened here?

[Joni Wiljami 1,206]

Excellent movie.And it wouldn't be an excellent movie without a brilliant score.

[King Mark 3,631]

Maybe your getting to used to watching movies with Zimmer and RCP scores that leave no discernible impression on the viewer

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

No, I just don't like my techno-future movies sounding like Harry Potter and Home Alone. Is it so much to ask or must I automatically be labeled as fornicating with Hans Zimmer?

[King Mark 3,631]

To be honest I've only seen Minority Report once .But it sounds pretty dark and bleak to me on c.d. and should fit that film. And it doesn't sound at all like Star Wars or Harry Potter or I'd be playing it on my ipod more often

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I love the score and film, but I can see where Blume is coming from. There's always a sense of mickey-mousing with JW's scores that I don't like.

[BurgaFlippinMan 7]

if anything the score worked better in the film than out of it.

[King Mark 3,631]

I remember it being mixed quite low in the film. When the sound mix is unflattering to the score it actually becomes annoying because you hear bits of instruments here and there without hearing the fine textures of the cues. This has been especially true of Williams scores in the past 15 years except Memoirs of a Geisha.

There's only one time I thought Williams score didn't fit the film. The big bombastic theme in The Patriot at the last battle when everyone gets brutally slaughtered.

[publicist 4,643]

Where are those supposed 'fanfares' and Nutcracker-like music? The Spider stuff and 'Eye-Dentiscan' are the only vaguely anachronistic sequences, most of the rest is low-key and rather mood-painting stuff.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Minority Report is a score that probably won't be fully appreciated until after Williams is dead.

[fommes 153]

Indeed, composing actual themes and setpieces for this film was highly pretentious. The bleak futuristic setting clearly signals the end of the era of themes, making way for a soundscape and texturescape based on textures and sounds. If only Williams had taken Tchaikovsky's "Pathétique", slowed it down, and then imitated the bass line by some good loud brass punches, so as to point out that Spielberg himself, just like Cruise in the story, needed that music to edit the images into the film "Minority Report". Ah, what a missed opportunity.

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

This film's score is fitting.

No star Wars/harry potter at all.

[Josh500 1,615]

I agree with the following statements:

Excellent movie.And it wouldn't be an excellent movie without a brilliant score.

To be honest I've only seen Minority Report once .But it sounds pretty dark and bleak to me on c.d. and should fit that film. And it doesn't sound at all like Star Wars or Harry Potter or I'd be playing it on my ipod more often

Minority Report is a score that probably won't be fully appreciated until after Williams is dead.

This film's score is fitting.

No star Wars/harry potter at all.

Saying Minority Report is like Harry Potter is like saying John Williams is like Hans Zimmer!

[crumbs 14,314]

Please point me to the track number on the Minority Report CD that contains Star Wars-esque fanfares, other than Anderton's Great Escape (which sounds far more like an Indiana Jones-ian action cue than a Star Wars action cue, anyway).

I think the OST is a good representation of the film score. That is, pretty unlistenable away from the movie.

[Richard Penna 3,687]

I've said more than once on this forum that I don't think Williams was the right composer for this film.

My primary argument is that it needs a lot of low key ambient music, and as great a composer as Williams is, ambient music ain't his forte. Compare The Greenhouse Effect and Dr Eddie... to how Thomas Newman would've scored them. With Williams we get twinkly, string & piano based material. With Newman you''d get some intelligent sound design supported by synths. I think there's a world of difference there.

Also, cues like Anderton's Great Escape are too bright and fanfarish for the rather dark mood of the film. It doesn't convey how furious the action is - he just never writes serious action cues. There's always an element of percussion, brass rips or woodwinds that almost mock a scene.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Minority Report isn't that dark. The score is a lot of suspenseful music that reflects this, but there's a heart beating under it as well and Williams also reflects this. A scene like Anderton's escape is anything but dark. It's pure Spielberg action escapades.

[Jacck 23]

I agree the tiniest bit. I watched it again also the other day, and particularly with the first half of Andterton's Great Escape, there's something about the orchestration that seems a little Nutcracker... glockenspiel and flourishing winds, etc. BUT, I'm sure Williams' approach there was a slightly tongue in cheek approach given the fact that Anderton's sort of jovially pwning his ex team mates in funny sorts of ways.

I think the main point is that RCP music is starting to have a sort of indoctrinating effect on us all. It's becoming too familiar, and standard... as if that's what it takes for a Hollywood film to feel expensive and genuine.

Minority Report is still one of my favourite Williams scores, and it certainly has an absolute array of BRILLIANT and semi-contemporary (semi-pastiche) moments that enhance the film massively, so I'm going to have to disagree with the overall general point of the original post.

Oh, you point out the xylophone (the way Williams uses it), as if that's some golden age technique, but I don't think it is. It's contemporary Williams to my ear. I suppose Williams should have learnt by now - percussion used in a rhythmically innovative way is WAY too interesting! He should've just put some jarring massive brass blast in there instead, doubled by some saw-y brassy synth with too much in the high end that crackles through your speakers like clipping.. o_O

[Naïve Old Fart 9,527]

I remember this girl that was in my History 101 class back in college. Dead drop gorgeous. Absolutely hot. But she dressed up in hideously ugly clothing and terribly overdone make up. Clothing that was a mix between brown or grey granny stuff and just plain something that could probably define ugly itself. But the rest of her, great body, great way she carried herself, fun personality. But she wrapped herself up in terrible clothing and make up. And this played tricks on your head. On the one hand she was absolutely gorgeous. On the other, the way she dressed and made herself up was a complete mismatch to the rest of her, and sort of dragged you out from thinking of her as anything but just another girl.

Which brings me another situation I found myself dragged out of fantasy by a grand mismatch.

We pulled Minority Report for a viewing after...5 or 6 years I think? Good film. Last Spielberg film I think is worthy of the Spielberg name. (Yeah yeah, a bunch of you little kids love Munich and Crystal Crap. Kiss it. This thread isn't about that)

But good grief, John Williams' music for this picture sounds like Tschaikovsky awakened to write The Nutcracker for a bleak cyberpunk future. And it sounds as bad as you think that would sound. Throughout a great deal of the film there is a huge rift between Spielberg's modern filmmaking/editing aesthetics and John Williams' blatantly archaic old Hollywood sound (xylophones and all). On one hand you have huge futuristic blue-hued cold cityscapes, edited like a modern day film, on the other hand you've got f'cking tired ol high swirly strings you recognize from a game of Quidditch or space battle. And of course the tired old grand Star Wars fanfares, packaged with new melodies for a new movie.

And your brain is frying trying to correct for this huge disparity. It ultimately fails, because it pulls you out of the movie like nothing else (*cough* Anderton's Great Escape, fun on album, blatantly out of place in film *cough*).

But this is what frustrates me worst of all. A little bit before that Williams scored AI. And while that score to me is fairly un-involving (I wasn't particularly fond of the film) it meshes together with the futuristic atmosphere and nature of its film rather well.

So what the hell happened here?

Trite, rhetorical, cliched, inane. You clearly have nothing to say, and no idea how to say it. Remind me to add you to my "Lower Than Unlisted..."

[Elmo Lewis 6]

John Williams scored the movie Minority Report was trying to be, not the movie it is.

[Jacck 23]

John Williams scored the movie <i>Minority Report</i> was trying to be, not the movie it is.

... and this is part of the genius of John Williams - his imagination! Not sure if you meant that in a negative or positive way, mind you... but I think most viewers are just going to absorb music as intellectual and defined as Williams' and adopt it emotionally whatever may be happening in the film, generally speaking..

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

My how woodwinds and other higher sound producing instruments have gone out of fashion.

EDIT: evidently, so has harmony and counterpoint. It's just so distracting!

[Jacck 23]

My how woodwinds and other higher sound producing instruments have gone out of fashion.

EDIT: evidently, so has harmony and counterpoint. It's just so distracting!

LOL. Don't worry. I think we'll come back to good, interesting film music, eventually. Conrad Pope seemed to think it was pretty much inevitable. I'd give it a couple of decades, though..

[Morlock 11]

It's moot to argue with someone saying they were pulled out of the film. But upon recently watching the film, I was struck precisely by how much better the score was in the film than I recalled. I don't get wat Elmo's saying about the movie it's trying to be. 'Anderton's Great Escape' precisely captures and enhances the scene, although, I will say, 'Everybody Runs' is more of a piece with the rest of the score (and the main motif (the running one) of the score), and a phenominal cue.

I hear in Minority Report a limber and inventive JW, a prelude to the even looser and more invigorated sound we get in the third Harry Potter score.

[crocodile 8,012]

The way I see MR is that it is an interesting collection of cues, but not a great score. Many of the individual set pieces are very good, but they seem to be a part of a great score that isn't there. It may sound ridiculous, but that's more or less how I feel about it.

Karol

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

With Williams we get twinkly, string & piano based material. With Newman you''d get some intelligent sound design supported by synths. I think there's a world of difference there.

Yeah, insult an old man.

Also, cues like Anderton's Great Escape are too bright and fanfarish for the rather dark mood of the film. It doesn't convey how furious the action is - he just never writes serious action cues. There's always an element of percussion, brass rips or woodwinds that almost mock a scene.

Maybe those supposed serious action setpieces contain several small funny scenes?

[Ollie 1,059]

:sleepy: :sleepy: :sleepy: :sleepy:

[Wojo 2,453]

I never saw the movie or heard the score.

But I also knew girls like Blume described.

[Josh500 1,615]

I remember this girl that was in my History 101 class back in college. Dead drop gorgeous. Absolutely hot. But she dressed up in hideously ugly clothing and terribly overdone make up. Clothing that was a mix between brown or grey granny stuff and just plain something that could probably define ugly itself. But the rest of her, great body, great way she carried herself, fun personality. But she wrapped herself up in terrible clothing and make up. And this played tricks on your head. On the one hand she was absolutely gorgeous. On the other, the way she dressed and made herself up was a complete mismatch to the rest of her, and sort of dragged you out from thinking of her as anything but just another girl.

Which brings me another situation I found myself dragged out of fantasy by a grand mismatch.

We pulled Minority Report for a viewing after...5 or 6 years I think? Good film. Last Spielberg film I think is worthy of the Spielberg name. (Yeah yeah, a bunch of you little kids love Munich and Crystal Crap. Kiss it. This thread isn't about that)

But good grief, John Williams' music for this picture sounds like Tschaikovsky awakened to write The Nutcracker for a bleak cyberpunk future. And it sounds as bad as you think that would sound. Throughout a great deal of the film there is a huge rift between Spielberg's modern filmmaking/editing aesthetics and John Williams' blatantly archaic old Hollywood sound (xylophones and all). On one hand you have huge futuristic blue-hued cold cityscapes, edited like a modern day film, on the other hand you've got f'cking tired ol high swirly strings you recognize from a game of Quidditch or space battle. And of course the tired old grand Star Wars fanfares, packaged with new melodies for a new movie.

And your brain is frying trying to correct for this huge disparity. It ultimately fails, because it pulls you out of the movie like nothing else (*cough* Anderton's Great Escape, fun on album, blatantly out of place in film *cough*).

But this is what frustrates me worst of all. A little bit before that Williams scored AI. And while that score to me is fairly un-involving (I wasn't particularly fond of the film) it meshes together with the futuristic atmosphere and nature of its film rather well.

So what the hell happened here?

I just realized what's wrong with this post.

The absolutely drop-dead gorgeous girl is only the secondary issue, and the absolutely drop-dead gorgeous girl should always be the main issue, even if she is wearing ugly clothes!

[Wojo 2,453]

The absolutely drop-dead gorgeous girl is only the secondary issue, and the absolutely drop-dead gorgeous girl should always be the main issue, even if she is wearing ugly clothes!

With the proper persuasion, clothes can be a temporary problem.

[Richard Penna 3,687]

With Williams we get twinkly, string & piano based material. With Newman you''d get some intelligent sound design supported by synths. I think there's a world of difference there.

Yeah, insult an old man.

Thomas Newman's efforts at ambient music mean a heck of a lot more to my ears than Williams'. I'm not saying Williams' doesn't have thought behind it, but that thought doesn't translate into particularly good music for me.

Also, cues like Anderton's Great Escape are too bright and fanfarish for the rather dark mood of the film. It doesn't convey how furious the action is - he just never writes serious action cues. There's always an element of percussion, brass rips or woodwinds that almost mock a scene.

Maybe those supposed serious action setpieces contain several small funny scenes?

Maybe. Just doesn't click with me. But then I didn't like the film much either.

[BurgaFlippinMan 7]

Also, cues like Anderton's Great Escape are too bright and fanfarish for the rather dark mood of the film. It doesn't convey how furious the action is - he just never writes serious action cues. There's always an element of percussion, brass rips or woodwinds that almost mock a scene.

If by 'serious' you mean MV style masculine 'serious', then yes I agree with you. Otherwise, that really is one of the dumbest statements I've ever heard. Or like KM said there's just too much MV floating around nowadays that even JWFans associate higher register instruments with....playfulness.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

Seriously, some of you people sound like dark music doesn't exist outside of Hans Zimmer and RCP. And apparently if it's dark it can't be complicated or feature woodwinds.

So please...

Since you haven't made it as far the rest of us in exploring film music (and you haven't so put on your big girl panties and shut up, it's evident in your mindset) let me point out a couple of very good composers with styles that better capture the world of Minority Report than itself:

The Matrix - Don Davis

The Matrix Reloaded - Don Davis

The Matrix Revolutions - Don Davis

Heat - Elliot Goldenthal

The Spirits Within - Elliot Goldenthal

Thirteen Days - Trevor Jones

Basic Instinct - Jerry Goldsmith

Star Trek Insurrection - Jerry Goldsmith

Total Recall - Jerry Goldsmith (This isn't even brooding or dark, but Goldsmith's genius integration of synths and orchestra make it fit the futuristic landscape)

Hell I was just listening to John Barry's "He's Dangerous" from A View to a Kill and that showed better fit with some of the chases in the movie than John Williams' traditional swirly strings, chopping brass hits, and of course xylophones.

Saying Minority Report is like Harry Potter is like saying John Williams is like Hans Zimmer!

Your analogy fails against my argument, because in the case of this film Minority Report shows Williams to be a one-trick pony much like Hans Zimmer. Unable to adapt to a more restrained writing style/orchestration to fit the subject of his film...the bleak future. And his efforts to tack on future with a random wailing voice and the occasionally lowly mixed electronic sound exactly like what they are. Tacked on by a man confused as to what he wants his work to be.

Or like KM said there's just too much MV floating around nowadays that even JWFans associate higher register instruments with....playfulness.

Is it my fault John Williams wrote something like The Phantom Menace and Raiders of the Lost Ark and then uses similar style in a serious film about the future? This is the frustrating part. He's capable of fully capturing the atmosphere of a film. Memoirs of a Geisha is a superb example of that. But here we get standard John Williams...in a movie that could be so much more with tighter music.

[Wojo 2,453]

Is it my fault John Williams wrote something like The Phantom Menace and Raiders of the Lost Ark and then uses similar style in a serious film about the future? This is the frustrating part. He's capable of fully capturing the atmosphere of a film. Memoirs of a Geisha is a superb example of that. But here we get standard John Williams...in a movie that could be so much more with tighter music.

Of course not. It's Spielberg's "fault." He selected Williams for his movie because of their long-standing friendship and professional relationship, and unless we read otherwise that Spielberg asked for a bleak Blade Runner-like score but got what Williams wrote, we have to assume that either Williams wrote what he wanted or Spielberg was happy with whatever Williams wrote.

[Josh500 1,615]

Saying Minority Report is like Harry Potter is like saying John Williams is like Hans Zimmer!

Your analogy fails against my argument, because in the case of this film Minority Report shows Williams to be a one-trick pony much like Hans Zimmer. Unable to adapt to a more restrained writing style/orchestration to fit the subject of his film...the bleak future. And his efforts to tack on future with a random wailing voice and the occasionally lowly mixed electronic sound exactly like what they are. Tacked on by a man confused as to what he wants his work to be.

I was just making a point that these are two extremely different works!

John Williams and Hans Zimmer are both orchestral film music composers. There the similarities end, pretty much.

Harry Potter and Minority Report both have orchestral film music. There the similarities end, pretty much.

And like I said, I personally (and many others here, apparently) find the music John Williams wrote for Minority Report to be very fitting and successful. But everybody's entitled to their own opinions, of course.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I'm Sorry but Stanley and Iris the Score does not fit the film

[Jacck 23]

Seriously, some of you people sound like dark music doesn't exist outside of Hans Zimmer and RCP. And apparently if it's dark it can't be complicated or feature woodwinds.

So please...

Since you haven't made it as far the rest of us in exploring film music (and you haven't so put on your big girl panties and shut up, it's evident in your mindset) let me point out a couple of very good composers with styles that better capture the world of Minority Report than itself:

The Matrix - Don Davis

The Matrix Reloaded - Don Davis

The Matrix Revolutions - Don Davis

Heat - Elliot Goldenthal

The Spirits Within - Elliot Goldenthal

Thirteen Days - Trevor Jones

Basic Instinct - Jerry Goldsmith

Star Trek Insurrection - Jerry Goldsmith

Total Recall - Jerry Goldsmith (This isn't even brooding or dark, but Goldsmith's genius integration of synths and orchestra make it fit the futuristic landscape)

Hell I was just listening to John Barry's "He's Dangerous" from A View to a Kill and that showed better fit with some of the chases in the movie than John Williams' traditional swirly strings, chopping brass hits, and of course xylophones.

That's your opinion, but in my opinion, it's a shit one. Those are brilliant scores - some of my favs in fact, but I don't think they'd come anywhere near in capturing the overall sleuthing, mysterious and propulsive essence of Minority Report. Within their own settings, they are, however, of course brilliant scores.

Since you were so gauche as to make those personal assumptions about other readers here, might I also be so gauche as to put forth my opinion that you are ignorant, or you have some sort of negative emotional attachment to that score/film that is affecting your judgement of it as a piece of art.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

Since you were so gauche as to make those personal assumptions about other readers here, might I also be so gauche as to put forth my opinion that you are ignorant, or you have some sort of negative emotional attachment to that score/film that is affecting your judgement of it as a piece of art.

Art...

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Also, cues like Anderton's Great Escape are too bright and fanfarish for the rather dark mood of the film. It doesn't convey how furious the action is - he just never writes serious action cues. There's always an element of percussion, brass rips or woodwinds that almost mock a scene.

Maybe those supposed serious action setpieces contain several small funny scenes?

That's another thing about Spielberg that I hate. There's always some stupid little thing in the most inappropiate places. Chris Rock in AI anyone? There were a few moments like that in Minority Report.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

There were a few moments like that in Minority Report.

OMGz guyz i dropped my eye bawlz!!1! kikikilolololol

[Koray Savas 2,251]

NEVER SCRATCH!!!

I actually love Peter Stormare though. It could help Blume, to point out that Minority Report is probably more on the side of blockbuster Spielberg than serious Spielberg. It's first and foremost an action film.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

I suppose. I think that's one of my bigger problems with the movie. It's not quite sure what it wants to be. Neither is the score.

Which ties into both not being...art but rather Hollywood products.

[Muad'Dib 1,802]

That's another thing about Spielberg that I hate. There's always some stupid little thing in the most inappropiate places. Chris Rock in AI anyone? There were a few moments like that in Minority Report.

Kubrick recorded the lines with Rock (and also with Robin Williams) a couple of years before the filming even started.

[Red 75]

Kubrick recorded the lines with Rock (and also with Robin Williams) a couple of years before the filming even started.

Really? I never knew that.

[Jacck 23]

Since you were so gauche as to make those personal assumptions about other readers here, might I also be so gauche as to put forth my opinion that you are ignorant, or you have some sort of negative emotional attachment to that score/film that is affecting your judgement of it as a piece of art.

Art...

And you're 30 years old?

Cretin.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Art, anybody can be an artist. Music, food... Creasy's art is death. He's about to paint his masterpiece.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

And you're 30 years old?

Cretin

Yes. With standards for what is art and is not.

[Morlock 11]

I don't think it's easy to define individual films as art or not. Some obviously strike one as art, others not. But film is an art-form. I'm not sure it matters then if any individual film is or isn't.

Or like KM said there's just too much MV floating around nowadays that even JWFans associate higher register instruments with....playfulness.

Is it my fault John Williams wrote something like The Phantom Menace and Raiders of the Lost Ark and then uses similar style in a serious film about the future? This is the frustrating part. He's capable of fully capturing the atmosphere of a film. Memoirs of a Geisha is a superb example of that. But here we get standard John Williams...in a movie that could be so much more with tighter music.

I think that the similarities are the exception, not the rule. 'Pre-Crime to the Rescue', the latter part of 'Eye-Dentiscan', 'Everybody Runs', 'Leo Crow...The Confrontation', 'Psychic Truth - Finale'- five of my favorite cues- are not cues that would fit in with the JW mold you describe. Even 'Spyders' has a nastier and darker edge on it than it would in another film (compare it, say, to the Spiders material in Chamber of Secrets). All those cues fit in brilliantly with the bleak color scheme and the noir plot. Listening to the score recently, I got a distinct Herrmann vibe in there.

[Jacck 23]

I was referring to the score as art, for the record, not necessarily the film. I have to keep reminding myself what site I'm on. When we can't even accept one of Williams' greater scores as art, what the f**k is going on?

[Jeshopk 8]

But this is what frustrates me worst of all. A little bit before that Williams scored AI. And while that score to me is fairly un-involving (I wasn't particularly fond of the film) it meshes together with the futuristic atmosphere and nature of its film rather well.

So what the hell happened here?

Well, to me, music shouldn't try to be "futuristic", as that is just describing the setting, which is redundant in a film with so many special effects. If this is a mismatch, then the "pirate music" in JAWS is also, and the romantic score in Star Wars is as well. Williams looks beneath the surface.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

Jesse, I do agree that it shouldn't have to sound futuristic. But it's just, given the bleak futuristic setting, the constant use of blue color filters to give that cold feeling visually...the music just doesn't match up. It sounds too rich and ornamented. Too romantic I suppose, even though it's a little more atonal. The orchestration is familiar from John Williams' bigger fun scores. Spyders, I love it on album, but in the movie it's just too much fun. For example, in that scene it sounds more like the misadventures of C-3PO and R2D2 rather than the creepy thriller feeling it should be conveying.

I think this was a movie for Bernard Herrmann.