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The Force Awakens - Score Reactions from Reviews, etc


Lewya

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17 minutes ago, Lewya said:

Just baffling how much hate this score is getting, I don't think I have ever seen a Williams score getting this much hate/dislikes before. I just find it interesting.

 

You never heard of an echo chamber? 

 

Every single time I've listened to tracks on YouTube the general comments (and Likes) have been extremely positive, but reading you guys here, the impression that is almost revellingly painted is one of absolute hatred and rejection. A sad fallacy and telling reflection of the more obsessive JW/Star Wars fans. 

 

It's fucking tedious now. 

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I've seen more positive reactions than negative.  My friends (non-film score enthusiasts) absolutely loved the music.  They commented on how "magical" the Jedi Steps scene was to them mostly because of the music. Why are the negative reviews getting all the attention??

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I think a lot of people, myself included, are just curious as to how an opinion so directly opposite of mine, the opinion that believes this score is an absolute masterpiece, could form and based on what.  I feel very strongly one way, and want to understand why people feel so strongly the other way.  I'm not upset about it.  It just seems bizarre, so I am curious!

 

Overall, reaction seems very positive, but I'd wager this is the Star Wars score with the most vocal criticism.  Whether or not that equates to the score being overall less liked is beyond me.

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15 minutes ago, Taikomochi said:

I think a lot of people, myself included, are just curious as to how an opinion so directly opposite of mine, the opinion that believes this score is an absolute masterpiece, could form and based on what.  I feel very strongly one way, and want to understand why people feel so strongly the other way.  I'm not upset about it.  It just seems bizarre, so I am curious!

 

 

What constitutes a masterful score (or even a good score) often differs wildly between score fans and the general masses.

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56 minutes ago, Taikomochi said:

Overall, reaction seems very positive, but I'd wager this is the Star Wars score with the most vocal criticism.  

 

I'm always surprised that I have to explain stuff like this to people; but of course it is has "the most vocal criticism" of any of the Star Wars scores. Why? Because we're in 2015 and  online social media is a massive part of the civilised and connected world. Revenge of the Sith (the last Star Wars movie) came out in 2005, in a time when comments sections on websites (the great source of JWfan woes) and which featured quality free streaming media no less were in their absolute infancy - have you any idea how crude and basic YouTube was in 2005? The year of its founding, as it happens. 

 

Of course this new Star Wars and its soundtrack are seeing relatively unprecedented amounts of post release discussion and debate [on the internet]. That's how it is for anything big these days. 

 

You stating in big bold lettering, as if to make some sort of point, that Star Wars music or friggin' Adele for that matter is receiving large amounts of "vocal" criticism (I use inverted commas there because it isn't really vocal at all) is actually completely meaningless and about as captain obvious as it gets.

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You seem to be very offended by my point even though it wasn't necessarily disagreeing with you.  I did not bold it to make any sort of argument, just to draw attention to the distinction I was making.  I'm not sure why you have zero'd in so heavily on that.  I agree that the prevalence of the internet is probably a factor, but I don't think that completely accounts for the reaction we have seen.  I'd say proportionally, there is more negative criticism of the scores than before, not just that there is physically more, and I don't feel more online presence explains that, at least not entirely.

 

Honestly, you seem more upset about the reaction than anyone else here.

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You obviously don't know me very well. Idiocy and a total lack of commonsense in the people I share message boards with are what get me upset. Not opposing views to my own. 

 

The internet, sorry, the world, would be a boring place if we all liked the same things. 

 

And yes; this entire narrative that has developed here in the last week or so that is John Williams fans worrying about what other people on the internet think about their precious Star Wars score, is most irritating. 

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Quintus, I respect your viewpoint and think you have a lot valuable to say.  I even think you brought up a good point up above.  I do not wish to have a heated argument with you, and I am not entirely sure why you feel the need to verbally attack someone else who has politely expressed a different viewpoint.  I find it unpleasant, and, in the past, it has been what has driven me to leave this forum for months/years at a time, you specifically.  In any case, I am just blocking/ignoring/whatever it is called this time, but I generally have respected your input, so hopefully you will consider why you feel the need to make someone else feel bad about themselves and their opinions who does not wish that for you.

 

If you really find my posts so offensive, I ask you do the same.

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For clarification, I wasn't specifically calling you personally an idiot just then. Reading it back, it does seem that way, so I apologise. It was a generalisation. My comments were more a culmination of the past week spent trawling through the disgruntled fan wank which has seen parts of JWFan moaning about random ramblings on other websites and then trying to pass them off as the meta conclusion of it all. Again, sorry for biting your head off. 

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9 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:

My suspicion is that TFA criticism seems compounded now because it's not only what OT fans didn't expect, but now you're adding in people all grown up who treasured the prequel music as children. People were upset back then that they didn't get "perfect" character themes and action setpieces. Now even more are upset that they don't get their Duel of the Fates or Battle of the Heroes.

 

I think you hit the nail on the head.  I'm confident TFA will get its due respect with time.

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7 hours ago, Quintus said:

Idiocy and a total lack of commonsense in the people I share message boards with are what get me upset.

 

I am so sorry, my lord! I will make sure never to upset you on the internet again!

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8 hours ago, Quintus said:

And yes; this entire narrative that has developed here in the last week or so that is John Williams fans worrying about what other people on the internet think about their precious Star Wars score, is most irritating. 

 

It's really just human nature--negativity bias in action.

 

As addressed by negative differentiation,[4] negative information seems to require greater information processing resources and activity than does positive information; people tend to think and reason more about negative events than positive events.[8][27] Neurological differences also point to greater processing of negative information: participants exhibit greater event-related potentials when reading about, or viewing photographs of, people performing negative acts that were incongruent with their traits than when reading about incongruent positive acts.[28][29][30] This additional processing leads to differences between positive and negative information in attention, learning, and memory.

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Indeed. We all love to hate something. In this thread's case, people just need to vent by hating on the score's haters. 

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Because negative things have potential consequences that positive things may not. If studio execs see those negative comments about the score, there's a risk it might motivate them to change their direction in the music department, potentially leading to more watered down RCP type scores in SW.

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34 minutes ago, Drax said:

Because negative things have potential consequences that positive things may not. If studio execs see those negative comments about the score, there's a risk it might motivate them to change their direction in the music department, potentially leading to more watered down RCP type scores in SW.

Yeah, I believe the decision to include dubstep in The Amazing Spider-Man 2's score was based on a fan's letter.  And it ended up being the worst thing ever, arguably.  

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50 minutes ago, Drax said:

Because negative things have potential consequences that positive things may not. If studio execs see those negative comments about the score, there's a risk it might motivate them to change their direction in the music department, potentially leading to more watered down RCP type scores in SW.

 

I seriously doubt that will happen with Star Wars (at least not in the near future), especially with Kennedy on board.  It will be interesting who else they get to score the Anthology films.  They may get Desplat to do all of them.

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I must be the only one on the board that liked TASM2 and wishes Sony were continuing the series rather than MCU rebooting it

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1 hour ago, Jay said:

I must be the only one on the board that liked TASM2 and wishes Sony were continuing the series rather than MCU rebooting it

 

I would have been down for that. Don't know what it was, but this film really connected with me on an emotional level.

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7 hours ago, Sharky said:

 

It's really just human nature--negativity bias in action.

 

As addressed by negative differentiation,[4] negative information seems to require greater information processing resources and activity than does positive information; people tend to think and reason more about negative events than positive events.[8][27] Neurological differences also point to greater processing of negative information: participants exhibit greater event-related potentials when reading about, or viewing photographs of, people performing negative acts that were incongruent with their traits than when reading about incongruent positive acts.[28][29][30] This additional processing leads to differences between positive and negative information in attention, learning, and memory.

 

Isn't this another way of describing angst? I've always hated angst and angsty people. 

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10 hours ago, Mr. Big said:

Yeah, I believe the decision to include dubstep in The Amazing Spider-Man 2's score was based on a fan's letter.  And it ended up being the worst thing ever, arguably.  

 

All it took was one dickhead at a test screening for Troy to complain that the score sounded "too old fashioned", provoking the studio to panic and overhaul the entire thing with a new composer. Yeah it was Horner, but still.

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18 hours ago, mrbellamy said:

I think other scenes like Han's death [...] will also reveal themselves to have more powerful music than people remembered.

 

That (perhaps not that exact scene, but at least a related one very close to it - don't remember exactly) has one of the best variations of Han Solo and the Princess of the entire series.

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20 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

That (perhaps not that exact scene, but at least a related one very close to it - don't remember exactly) has one of the best variations of Han Solo and the Princess of the entire series.

 

That scene with Rey consoling Leia? It's like a relative of the Carbonite variations on the theme, with a sustained pedal on the dominant. Am/C -> Bbm6/C -> Gb/C and etc.

 

BTW, I was kinda annoyed that Leia didn't immediately hug Chewie. He was Han's best friend and knew him no longer than anyone in the cast. Maybe Rey was doing it on his behalf, as he was still too emotional at that point?

 

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I felt the same way.  I bet something like that was filmed but cut.  Chewie got his agonized moment shortly after the death, and having an additional Leia consolation scene would have stolen something away from our lead, Rey's, own consolation scene shortly thereafter.  A nice moment but might not have worked with the flow of the movie.

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1 hour ago, Sharky said:

 

That scene with Rey consoling Leia?

 

No, I mean the bit that plays, I think, right when, or just slightly after (as I said, I don't remember exactly) Han falls. 2:15 in Torn Apart.

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Yeah I thought it was very strange to skip over that, at the very least I thought that the three of them may have had a moment together before Chewie goes off leaving Leia and Rey to hug, etc, I don't think it would have hurt the pacing at all. Not having anything hurts the scene in my opinion.

I didn't necessarily want or expect a reworking of the Carbon Freeze scene but this time with Leia telling Chewie he needs to look after Rey ....but at least some acknowledgment, it wasn't exactly a ' We have no time for sorrows, Commander' moment.

A disappointing scene indeed for it to be glossed over so casually and a bit of a middle finger to those who've grown with the characters and their relationships with each other.

 

Anyway, wrong thread I guess, sorry.

 

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1 hour ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

No, I mean the bit that plays, I think, right when, or just slightly after (as I said, I don't remember exactly) Han falls. 2:15 in Torn Apart.

 

That's part of the Elegy Theme (or whatever you want to call it) heard before in The Starkiller. To me it sounds more like the bridge of Across the Stars.

 

 

 

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I think he's talking about the counter melody under the string 'elegy' line which plays the first part of the Han and Leia melody and also matches what's happening on screen as it plays when we see Leia's 'force sensed' reaction to Han's death.

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Right, in the violas (?).  It's a minor variation and I'm not too sure if it was intentional, but it does match the rhythm and contour of Han/Leia's theme. It also doesn't appear in the Starkiller version.

 

It comes in around 2:11-12

 

 

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