John Powell's PAN (2015)

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

Given enough people there is bound to be one or two! But let's be honest...

[KK 3,307]

Nah. Defiance is a well-written but ultimately underwhelming entry in his career. The Village is great though.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

You're wrong. Clearly the heart of the debate is politics. Who writes it better? The liberals or the conservatives?

Neither. It's those who heed some of Washington's most salient farewell address wisdom.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Defiance is just incredibly mawkish and cliched. It lacks edge.

[leeallen01 2,136]

Nah. Defiance is a well-written but ultimately underwhelming entry in his career. The Village is great though.

I connected more with Defiance than Schindler's List. I am still yet to sit through Schindler's List (the film). Too boring for me. Defiance isn't a masterpiece, it's decent enough, but I connect far more to JNH's softer style than Williams softer style.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

Nah. Defiance is a well-written but ultimately underwhelming entry in his career. The Village is great though.

I connected more with Defiance than Schindler's List. I am still yet to sit through Schindler's List. Too boring for me. Defiance isn't a masterpiece, it's decent enough, but I connect far more to JNH's softer style than Williams softer style.

For all our...disagreements, I like you leeallen, you've got chutzpah.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Nah. Defiance is a well-written but ultimately underwhelming entry in his career. The Village is great though.

I connected more with Defiance than Schindler's List. I am still yet to sit through Schindler's List. Too boring for me. Defiance isn't a masterpiece, it's decent enough, but I connect far more to JNH's softer style than Williams softer style.

For all our...disagreements, I like you leeallen, you've got chutzpah.

Witness his edited post, and be disappointed. He refers to the film as boring, not the score. Oh well!

[KK 3,307]

Both Williams and JNH take a similarly restrained approach to the topic. but Defiance ends up sounding like a very harmonically watered-down companion piece to the superior SL.

Defiance remains too respectful and solemn throughout its duration. It lacks something like this:

[leeallen01 2,136]

I don't know why people are afraid to express controversial opinions. If everyone loved what the majority of people did, then it would be such a boring planet. I will also declare that I believe the Usual Suspects was decent but I wouldn't say great at all. Ghostbusters I find astonishingly boring. Pulp Fiction was good but no where near brilliant. 2001, I didn't get past the first 15 minutes.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

2001, I didn't get past the first 15 minutes.

That's because you're an idiot. You should be more afraid of expressing controversial opinions instead of taking this revolutionary approach of honesty regarding taste.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[leeallen01 2,136]

Both Williams and JNH take a similarly restrained approach to the topic. but Defiance ends up sounding like a very harmonically watered-down companion piece to the superior SL.

Defiance remains too respectful and solemn throughout its duration. It lacks something like this:

I don't find this too respectful and solemn

2001, I didn't get past the first 15 minutes.

That's because you're an idiot. You should be more afraid of expressing controversial opinions instead of taking this revolutionary approach of honesty regarding taste.

Duly noted. I'll take cowardly TGP approach and just call people idiots who have differing opinions and then tell them they should be scared to express them.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

That is the best way to operate, good choice.

[Incanus 5,714]

We Canadians love nature!

Does nature love you back?

[KK 3,307]

I don't find this too respectful and solemn

Sure, but it also sounds like most generic JNH action material of the late 2000s.

[leeallen01 2,136]

I don't find this too respectful and solemn

Sure, but it also sounds like most generic JNH action material of the late 2000s.

Agreed. It isn't exactly alive with content. I still prefer the emotional stuff more than SL though. It's nothing to do with quality. I just connect more to it than SL. The film didn't do it for me, so I can't connect the power of Williams SL to the film when I listen to it. Still a masterpiece clearly.

[KK 3,307]

That's completely fair.

[Muad'Dib 1,802]

Can't we move this shit to its own thread please?

[Hlao-roo 389]

Defiance has more soul; Schindler's List has more edge.

[KK 3,307]

Nay, its own subforum!

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

The leeallen01 subforum.

[Hlao-roo 389]

But there is definite soul in Schindler's List's edge, while the edginess of Defiance's soul is lacking.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

Can't we move this shit to its own thread please?

Come to the Ant-Man thread. We'll talk about Powell's Pan here!

[Muad'Dib 1,802]

But Pilgrim doesn't like it!

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

Well I think it's time to get back on topic. I think this flurry of three pages is the most activity this thread will end up getting!

I like the Powell samples, but I don't think this is going to be an A++ score.

[Muad'Dib 1,802]

It seems to be a situation similar to Mars Needs Moms. Powell was brought in late in the game as a replacement and the film was already tracked to hell with previous music of his and was asked to somewhat follow the temp-track.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

One word of warning though, the tracks posted sound extremely compressed. The music is very very dense and you can get a feel for how muddied the compression has made it. All the details just sound like water splashes right now.

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

While I believe that Defiance is a fine score, (one of the best of 2008) it simply can't compare Schindler's List which is one of John Williams' very best.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Eh.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Hey it's a very solid score, ablate overrated.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

You're ablate overrated!

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

It doesn't really have any of the Williams that I'm most fond of in it. Just not for me.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

Neat! I can already tell this won't be a "great score" or anything but it should at least be entertaining, which is more than I can say for most of what I've heard this year.

[publicist 4,643]

Sounds a bit too eager too please but at least not like those non-event action numbers. The movie will bomb.

[Richard Penna 3,689]

I rather like that sample. It doesn't wander aimlessly like some replacement scores I've heard. Perhaps because the movie was pushed back so Powell had more than a few weeks to write it?

I agree that the movie will probably bomb, though. Like many films these days, it just looks a bit unnecessary.

[Muad'Dib 1,802]

Some lovely woodwind writing over there.

[Loert 2,511]

Absolutely mesmerizing, love the stuff with the harp in the beginning. Blasts Zimmer's/Whitacre's "Mermaids" out of the water.

[FORZA 0]

Here are some new samples

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeDtfaozGko

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Absolutely mesmerizing, love the stuff with the harp in the beginning. Blasts Zimmer's/Whitacre's "Mermaids" out of the water.

It's completely different, so why compare? But as long as we are, I prefer the enigmatic and threatening character of the POTC stuff to this finely written but familiar fantasy sound.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Of course you do!

[publicist 4,643]

This sounds, idiomatically speaking, trodding on such similar paths to JNH's PP and dozens of other scores from that realm that it is as disheartening as ever is to see people here dancing happy jigs over getting the same old stuff again.

(PS: why is this stuff popping up on the internet for months now? WB lawyers wrote this one off...)

[Incanus 5,714]

This sounds, idiomatically speaking, trodding on such similar paths to JNH's PP and dozens of other scores from that realm that it is as disheartening as ever is to see people here dancing happy jigs over getting the same old stuff again.

(PS: why is this stuff popping up on the internet for months now? WB lawyers wrote this one off...)

Oh shush you critic! They did not want wheel reinvented for this score and since Powell is doing what most film composers do, serving the film (and with a replacement score at that), I did not fully expect it to sound groundbreaking in any way.

Not that I am hugely impressed by what I am hearing either.

[publicist 4,643]

I know it's a widespread Pavlovian reflex to side with studio execs as an excuse why stuff like this often stays in comfort zones but really, do we care WHY? It's just another score release that is less than it could have been and i prefer not to rationalize production decisions on a soon-forgotten clunker - it's not really a fan's concern though F. Thaxton might differ.

[Incanus 5,714]

I know it's a widespread Pavlovian reflex to side with studio execs as an excuse why stuff like this often stays in comfort zones but really, do we care WHY? It's just another score release that is less than it could have been and i prefer not to rationalize production decisions on a soon-forgotten clunker - it's not really a fan's concern though F. Thaxton might differ.

So you demand something different or new from the music, which is subservient to the movie and so many whims of the film industry, and are constantly annoyed that the composers can't surmount these strictures and produce musical ambrosia. So much of modern big films are all about playing it safe in every department. That is how the money is made. Get too Corigliano and your score is out of there!

I guess some composers just get lucky and strike gold even with the harshest of compositional shakles placed upon them.

[publicist 4,643]

As i said, i don't think people enjoying the music from movies need to concern themselves with all this stuff. It's a nuisance and since the advent of the internet, every clerk think he's somehow privy to all kind of film conception, production and distribution minutiae - in 20 years no one cares if the test cards of PAN were soso etc., what matters is the finished product that is filed under (i assume) same old, same old. I tend to see more long-term on these matters.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

We get to hear more of Powell's score in this video (starting at 0'23):

[Richard Penna 3,689]

Sounds like an alternate cue from HTTYD.

Otherwise, that was just a bunch of bleeding-obvious PR fluff. Even the director seemed a bit bored to be saying all that really.

Movie's not looking any better - it's got bomb written all over it.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Maybe because the studio interfered and tossed out Wright's wishes?

[publicist 4,643]

Nah. It's a god-awful 'we spell it all out for you' SFX cavalcade that never lets up. And it was from its inception or it wouldn't have all these monstrous set pieces in the first place. They will never learn.