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Jay

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As a Bond fan I have come to really like the score. Not every score needs to have that Barry or Arnold feel to work. Honestly, I was quite skeptical at Snoozeman but he really impressed me. I felt like the music was a good progression of what Arnold was doing for Craig while being different enough to sound fresh. Plus, I really like some of the renditions of the Bond theme he developed and how he teased it a lot of the time rather than blast it like Arnold was prone to do during the Brosnan era.

I agrre, wholeheartedly.

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That's exactly one of my major complaints. You don't tease the Bond theme in the 50th anniversary movie, you play it.

They do.

It doesn't need to blast every action scene. Barry never did this and Arnold did it ad naseum, using it multiple times within action scenes at times (Caviar Factory in TWINE one of my biggest gripes). You hear it plenty of times during the movie and it is used for the big moments. Not to mention its use in the "Breadcrumbs" scene, which appears to be exactly what you want.

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With every listen, I get more and more out of it. The quirky plucked rhythms, eclectic layers of percussion, deft string writing, portentous brass, and the electronics... what can I say? They're Cool, man!

If this is as derivative as some of you say, please direct me to other scores with this exact sound, I'd love to hear them. Otherwise, get Thomas Newman to score more action movies.

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When I sometimes read what fanbase would want from their films, whatever series it happens to be at any given time, I am glad they are not in charge of anything. All films would be a cookie-cutter products all containing exactly the same ingredients every single time. And they say studio execs are calculating bastards...

Karol

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i liestened to the OST again.. and really it didnt grab my attention.

In the film i liked it, it sounded in the same vein as arnold's. But on its own it is rather bland. And since they practically dont include any of the cool blod Bond theme renditions... the OST is very lacking.

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The bottom line for me (your mileage may vary): it's a good film score, it's a good Bond score, and it's a good Newman score.

Is it a great example of any of those things? No. It gets close here and there, though, and is never anything less than good. I can live with that, and the CD is growing on me the more I listen to it.

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That's exactly one of my major complaints. You don't tease the Bond theme in the 50th anniversary movie, you play it.

Why?

Because this is a James Bond movie?

Because it wasn't played fully in the last two?

Because it's a good reason to celebrate one of the most famous movie themes?

It doesn't need to blast every action scene. Barry never did this and Arnold did it ad naseum, using it multiple times within action scenes at times (Caviar Factory in TWINE one of my biggest gripes). You hear it plenty of times during the movie and it is used for the big moments. Not to mention its use in the "Breadcrumbs" scene, which appears to be exactly what you want.

To say Barry never played it in action scenes is wholly, totally absurd. And wrong. He played it in almost every movie he did over action scenes fully fledged. Thunderball pretitles. The Living Daylights pretitles, ice chase. Octopussy. The Man With The Golden Gun car chase. Moonraker gondola chase. The list goes on. And when he didn't play the Bond theme, he played his 007 theme or a variation on the main title theme.

You can defend Newman, but don't raise false claims.

The Breadcrumbs scene sounds very out of place because the rest of the score is very detached from it. It's clear that it's there for an hommage. And I find it a questionable idea.

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You could do so many productive things rather than confine yourself to a state of anger over a movie.

At the very least, consider writing an angry letter to Sam Mendes. Your words are wasted on us brain-dead worshippers of this movie....

Which I'm going to go see a third time this weekend. TAKE MY MONEY MR. MENDES!

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You confuse the written word with reality. You see anger that isn't there. I'm tremendously dissapointed by the wasted opportunity, but not for a second I feel anger. It's not a bad score, just very pedestrian. And I still have other Bond music to satisfy my hunger for 007. Goldeneye for example, which I came to appreciate more and more in the past two weeks.

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You confuse the written word with reality. You see anger that isn't there. I'm tremendously dissapointed by the wasted opportunity, but not for a second I feel anger. It's not a bad score, just very pedestrian. And I still have other Bond music to satisfy my hunger for 007. Goldeneye for example, which I came to appreciate more and more in the past two weeks.

GoldenEye satisfies one's hunger for Bond music the same way a protein shake satisfies one's hunger for a steak: it doesn't.

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That's exactly one of my major complaints. You don't tease the Bond theme in the 50th anniversary movie, you play it.

Why?

Because this is a James Bond movie?

Because it wasn't played fully in the last two?

Because it's a good reason to celebrate one of the most famous movie themes?

It doesn't need to blast every action scene. Barry never did this and Arnold did it ad naseum, using it multiple times within action scenes at times (Caviar Factory in TWINE one of my biggest gripes). You hear it plenty of times during the movie and it is used for the big moments. Not to mention its use in the "Breadcrumbs" scene, which appears to be exactly what you want.

To say Barry never played it in action scenes is wholly, totally absurd. And wrong. He played it in almost every movie he did over action scenes fully fledged. Thunderball pretitles. The Living Daylights pretitles, ice chase. Octopussy. The Man With The Golden Gun car chase. Moonraker gondola chase. The list goes on. And when he didn't play the Bond theme, he played his 007 theme or a variation on the main title theme.

You can defend Newman, but don't raise false claims.

The Breadcrumbs scene sounds very out of place because the rest of the score is very detached from it. It's clear that it's there for an hommage. And I find it a questionable idea.

I wasn't implying Barry didn't use the theme, obviously he used it for every film. As you pointed out, he usually saved it for a couple of instances in the film where Bond did something really cool or unique. Newman uses it in a similar vein, and teases it a number of other times, which Barry sometimes did but did it lesser as the years went on.

Personally, I like the score but its not even close to my top ten Bond scores. I am simply satisfied with how well Newman did at mixing his style with that of a Bond score.

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In his later Bond scores Barry tended to use the theme sparingly.

In arnolds first 3 Bond scores people complained about the theme being overused. For his last 2 they whined that he didn't use it enough....

Sigh.....

Newman's use was fine.

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Both DAD and Skyfall were made with the anniversary of the franchise in mind.

DAD went horribly over the top and is regarded a lesser effort of the series.

Skyfall payed its homage in a far more subtle way, and will be regarded as one of the better Bond films.

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Both DAD and Skyfall were made with the anniversary of the franchise in mind.

DAD went horribly over the top and is regarded a lesser effort of the series.

DAD is a great fun score with great themes and endless variants on the Bond theme. Over the top in a very good way.

Skyfall payed its homage in a far more subtle way, and will be regarded as one of the better Bond films.

But not scores.

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Some rather cool audio interview with Thomas Newman can be found in the latest issue of FSM Online.

It starts with a brilliant musical overview of his career. Quite splendid stuff in there.

Karol

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Are you saying Newman had no idea it would be compared to the other Bond scores?

Really Gyver.... You do talk rubbish sometimes.

Big main themes simply are not in fashion right now. It's atmosphere and rhythm over thematic integrity. It's hardly Coolman's fault.

I disagree. There's a lush but sadly brief nod to Adele's song in the score, orchestrated in the style of Barry. Newman should have hit the gas with that melody and worked it into everything, the love scenes, the vistas and the action. It's could have been a versatile melody, in the hands of someone a bit more inspired and skilled. Instead it was a missed opportunity when someone in the production decided it was a better idea to liberally trowel the Bond theme over every possible scene they could jam it into, to the point that it felt like disconnected fan service, a tool to manipulate wholesale the fans in the audience. The score ended up being lively but without identity. It's just another service.

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Are you saying Newman had no idea it would be compared to the other Bond scores?

Really Gyver.... You do talk rubbish sometimes.

Big main themes simply are not in fashion right now. It's atmosphere and rhythm over thematic integrity. It's hardly Coolman's fault.

I disagree. There's a lush but sadly brief nod to Adele's song in the score, orchestrated in the style of Barry. Newman should have hit the gas with that melody and worked it into everything, the love scenes, the vistas and the action. It's could have been a versatile melody, in the hands of someone a bit more inspired and skilled. Instead it was a missed opportunity when someone in the production decided it was a better idea to liberally trowel the Bond theme over every possible scene they could jam it into, to the point that it felt like disconnected fan service, a tool to manipulate wholesale the fans in the audience. The score ended up being lively but without identity. It's just another service.

The song arrived very late into the process, it seems. Newman planned on arranging it himself, but time pressure was too high. His orchestrator did it then. So, I guess, this one nod in the score is the only thing they had time for. He didn't have it before.

Karol

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That's fair enough and to be honest I did consider that, but even still I don't think it makes it any less of a shame, since a truly rich, thematic score might have taken the movie to the next level.

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I thought the soundtrack was good, but not to the level of John Barry. I love the tracks such as Severine, Modigliani, and Old Dog, New Tricks. I wanted a more orchestrial sound.

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The song arrived very late into the process, it seems. Newman planned on arranging it himself, but time pressure was too high. His orchestrator did it then. So, I guess, this one nod in the score is the only thing they had time for. He didn't have it before.

Karol

So what if it arrived late in the process? People can't talk to each other and share musical ideas? In a Bond movie, it's an utterly stupid move to have the song writer and the composer completely separated. I bet Epworth could have given Newman his principal idea for the song in time to use in the score.

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The song arrived very late into the process, it seems. Newman planned on arranging it himself, but time pressure was too high. His orchestrator did it then. So, I guess, this one nod in the score is the only thing they had time for. He didn't have it before.

Karol

So what if it arrived late in the process? People can't talk to each other and share musical ideas? In a Bond movie, it's an utterly stupid move to have the song writer and the composer completely separated. I bet Epworth could have given Newman his principal idea for the song in time to use in the score.

Well, when have Babs and MGW ever shone any real concern for the music in the films.

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Not when it comes to the main themes. Tomorrow Never Dies was replaced last minute for an inferior song that wasn't sung by a lesbian. Also, they not only let Die Another Day happen, they also put Madonna in the movie. They may care for the music in the films, but it seems they are more concerned with posterity than quality for the main title.

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No, they've been more concerned with immediacy; posterity doesn't seem to be entering into it, sadly.

The worst blunder they've made is dumping kd lang for Sheryl Crow. "Surrender" is an awesome Bond song; "Tomorrow Never Dies" is just a lame song in general, and especially as a Bond song.

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I thought this would be the appropriate thread to share this, I did a piece of music in the Barry vein (I hope), using a traditional gunbarrel arrangement, and music for Bond changing identities to infiltrate a Russian army camp or something like that.

I hope youtube uploaded it properly:

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Nice clips GK! The Skyfall one really makes me wish Newman used that theme more (though I understand the whole time situation).

Speaking of Bond, I remember doing this bit for a short film (a silly little project), and I was asked to include the Bond chords (don't ask me why). It turned out to be pretty stupid (and monotonous) though.

http://soundcloud.com/k-k-8/la-voleur

I only have about 5 Bond scores, and am barely familiar with the whole bond universe, so you'll have to excuse my inability to write in that style.

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You confuse the written word with reality. You see anger that isn't there. I'm tremendously dissapointed by the wasted opportunity, but not for a second I feel anger. It's not a bad score, just very pedestrian. And I still have other Bond music to satisfy my hunger for 007. Goldeneye for example, which I came to appreciate more and more in the past two weeks.

The way you talk about Skyfall sounds a lot like the way you talked about Goldeneye. How can anyone who likes Goldeneye possibly have good taste about anything?!?! HUB HUB HUB!! Oh wait, I like it now.

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The success of a film can spur the sales of the film's soundtrack, regardless of whether we think the score is any good.

Plus there are Bond fans who probably only buy Bond scores and there are those who only buy soundtracks to films the really like or only to films that are popular. So there may be people who are buying their first soundtrack because they liked Skyfall and want everything associated with it. And I imagine there are those who didn't pay attention and believe Adele's song is on the album.

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You could do so many productive things rather than confine yourself to a state of anger over a movie.

At the very least, consider writing an angry letter to Sam Mendes. Your words are wasted on us brain-dead worshippers of this movie....

Which I'm going to go see a third time this weekend. TAKE MY MONEY MR. MENDES!

Well, you do have a point. We'll have to blame Sam Mendes. As Newman has written at least a dozen lush orchestral scores, it can't be entirely his fault. Or maybe he just shouldn't try out something else because it's much safer to stay in his usual territory. Personally, I think that's what he should be given credit for. I think he did a good job at Bond and he's certainly never written anything like it before.

Newman about the use of themes:

"It’s not like you say, I need an M theme, I need a Severine theme. Sometimes that has to happen, but for me the creative process doesn’t quite work that way. You find something and that leads to something else. There are elements of story in some of these cues and some of those lead to M because she’s part of the story. By the end you’re going, does Silva have a theme? Is it more of a motif? It’s probably wrong to think that a character needs a melody associated with him or her, but oftentime it does and in the case of Bond it does more often than not."

This guy doesn't understand James Bond *at all*.

He's squeezing Bond into the confines of the general rules of film scoring while they have always followed their own rules. Sometimes they submit to the sound of the era (mainly Live And Let Die and The Spy Who Loved Me), but the content, the approach always was the same and was always successful.

Also, didn't he say he just watched a few films to "get" the Bond sound? I wonder what films he saw when he comes to the conclusion that Bond score use themes "more often than not". In fact, I can only think of three scores (out of 23) that did not use a very prominent main theme - Goldeneye, License To Kill and Skyfall.

"Coincidentally", none of these scores sound like the composer really understood James Bond. Kamen came closest. Newman did not.

Well, he did say he watched Bond films in cinema. So that's the late 60s and 70s.

I think what he meant with the themes is that you often have complete pieces of music in Bond scores. Melody is the main focus, rather than an underlying mood. So if you watch a film like "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" as opposed to the modern "Arnold" Bonds, you'll definitely hear music that's not directly reacting to what's happening on screen. It's not that the music does not support the action, but it is more independent. Well, you can blame him for that or not, but Thomas Newman tries to react to the action in a subtler way. You may like that or not or you can say that this approach is "wrong" for a Bond film. But it sounded very much like Thomas Newman is aware that he has to approach Bond in a different way.

Is there such a great difference between Thomas Newman and David Arnold? They're both less traditional composers. They don't sound alike, but they both are very different to John Barry. How can you criticise Thomas Newman where you praise Arnold?

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