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The Best John Williams Score of the 2010s


SteveMc

Best John Williams Score of the 2010s  

69 members have voted

  1. 1. What do you think is the best John Williams score of the 2010s?

    • The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
      4
    • WarHorse
      11
    • Lincoln
      6
    • The Book Thief
      2
    • The Force Awakens
      34
    • The BFG
      2
    • The Last Jedi
      10
    • The Post
      0
    • Dear Basketball
      0


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Thought it was about time for this.

 

Though The Book Thief is my subjective favorite, I have to go with TFA.  Williams returned to the franchise, gave a full bodied core full of interesting themes, adapted his style to modern scoring, and set up great anticipation for the next film and score.

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1 hour ago, Falafel said:

The Post and Book Thief over TLJ? That's cold.

Absolutely.  The Book Thief has a solid main theme/ a pleasant wintery feel and The Post is a nice little bonus score that covers fairly fresh stylistic territory for Williams.  I really don't care for TLJ.  I'm neither a fan of its new themes nor its adaptation of the old ones nor most of its underscore (which is far too reliant on short, disconnected high brass bursts)

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I hadn't sat down and listened to TFA all the way through since the LTP concert last year. I remember appreciating it a lot more after the MSO performed it (the writing was so much richer live and the balance of the orchestra was far superior to the brass-heavy OST mix), but I finally gave the expanded soundtrack a listen from start to finish the other day, after only listening to select tracks in isolation this year. 

 

Wow. It just blew me away how good this score is. I could wax lyrical for hours about it, but right now I'd comfortably say it's not just one of the best scores this decade, but probably one of his best Star Wars scores ever. Sublime, restrained, streamlined and lyrical. 

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35 minutes ago, crumbs said:

I hadn't sat down and listened to TFA all the way through since the LTP concert last year. I remember appreciating it a lot more after the MSO performed it (the writing was so much richer live and the balance of the orchestra was far superior to the brass-heavy OST mix), but I finally gave the expanded soundtrack a listen from start to finish the other day, after only listening to select tracks in isolation this year. 

 

Wow. It just blew me away how good this score is. I could wax lyrical for hours about it, but right now I'd comfortably say it's not just one of the best scores this decade, but probably one of his best Star Wars scores ever. Sublime, restrained, streamlined and lyrical. 

 

Shucks, man, that's some real high praise. It's definitely my least favorite Star Wars score. How does it compare to The Last Jedi, in your mind?

 

Did you use one of the playlists on YouTube for the expanded score? With your enthusiasm, I want to re-evaluate my opinion.

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It's just over AotC and RotS for me. It has major downtime in the middle, not unique and iconic enough setpieces, but mainly just the (for lack of a better word) atrocious recording/mix. Rey's Theme is its one big saving grace. I still hate March of the Resistance here except for the first quiet buildup in "The Resistance" (first 11 seconds), love every appearance of it in TLJ! 

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10 minutes ago, Holko said:

It's just over AotC

 

I can't in good conscience list this score on the bottom when it has tracks like this (especially around the highlighted time--that cello line rising up into that Close Encounters chord is the kind of stuff that defines Star Wars for me)

 

 

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The Force Awakens is my least favourite Star Wars soundtrack as well.

 

TFA has great themes, TLJ has great setpieces, EPIX will hopefully have both.

 

If I had to rank all of his scores from this decade:

  1. Lincoln
  2. War Horse
  3. The Force Awakens/The Last Jedi
  4. The Adventures of Tintin
  5. The Post
  6. The Book Thief
  7. The BFG
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20 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

The Force Awakens is my least favourite Star Wars soundtrack as well.

 

In defense of the score, though, I will say that the alternate cues hint at a much more interesting and richer score, before presumably JJ Abrams had him tone down the Star Wars for a Star Wars movie.

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Just now, Brundlefly said:

Really?! Interesting! Links?

 

I hope I didn't psyche you out just to acquaint you with stuff you already know. You're already familiar with the alternate Han Solo death music and the (rightfully) removed First Order rally music, yeah? Listening to some stuff on YouTube, I've also been hearing stuff that's either in the movie but not on the album, or alternates integrated with the final cues (I'm not familiar enough with the music or the film to know).

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Don't get your hopes up, they're back channel rips from the documentaries and bluray menus.

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2 minutes ago, Nick Parker said:

 

You say this in regard to what specifically?

 Hit send before your reply arrived. I meant they're not exactly great quality stuff in reply to his excited "Really? Where?"

 

 

Will TFA need a mammoth box like Ben-Hur or 10 Commandments? Discs 1-2: the film presentation, Discs 3-4: Williams' intended presentation, additional alternates put on discs 2 and 4.

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18 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

You forgot Dear Basketball.

 

18 hours ago, Steve McQueen said:

We're keeping it feature length here. 

 

CONRACK has a score of fifteen minutes. I wouldn't call that "feature-length", Steve.

DEAR BASKETBALL is a score in a made-for-cinema film. It deserves to be included.

 

Anyway, I voted for THE BOOK THIEF. The film is risible, but the score makes a welcome change from all that STAR WARS sturm und drang.

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12 minutes ago, Steve McQueen said:

Glad to see The Book Thief making a strong(ish) showing!

Dear Basketball has been added by popular demand.

 

Your worst sellout since you did car commercials!

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The Force Awakens for me. Not sure which one I would put after that. Maybe Lincoln.

 

A.I. was the best of the 2000s (followed by Memoirs of a Geisha and Revenge of the Sith as the top 3 of the 00s).

 

I am not that fond of any of his 2010s scores, The Force Awakens is the best of the lot, but I prefer all of the top 3 scores of the 2000s over it, especially A.I. of course.

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I think War Horse is my favorite OST and I enjoy Tintin or Last Jedi most in context. Force Awakens and Lincoln are like virtually perfect but a little less shameless. Those five are the ones that make me especially happy he's doing his thing as someone always looking to fill my ears with impressive movie music. They're more or less the scores I'd been craving during the late 2000s period when he wasn't writing much.

 

The rest are also worthwhile with "John Williams drug soup" highlights but feel like I go back to those primarily as a die-hard JWFan.

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The mistake with The Last Jedi OST is there's no Holdo's Resolve or so many other worthy moments you can check out on the FYC or the ISO score. Instead we get The Cave, which I still can't seem to hear on any speaker I've tried. 

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46 minutes ago, Jerry said:

The mistake with The Last Jedi OST is there's no Holdo's Resolve or so many other worthy moments you can check out on the FYC or the ISO score. Instead we get The Cave, which I still can't seem to hear on any speaker I've tried. 

 

28 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:

I love "The Cave" in the film.

 

I feel like a lot of Williams' dramatic more underscore-y writing for these new Star Wars films have tended to be too stiff (lots of thick, sustained string chords and similar more static textures), that come off a little flat, but "The Cave", especially when it gets all War of the Worlds, is one that really adds a strong layer to the film and affects me viscerally.

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47 minutes ago, Nick Parker said:

I feel like a lot of Williams' dramatic more underscore-y writing for these new Star Wars films have tended to be too stiff (lots of thick, sustained string chords and similar more static textures), that come off a little flat.

TFA had this problem, TLJ had not.

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TFA

War Horse 

Tintin

 

Wow, Lincoln is really popular. More popular than SW? WTH. I don't dislike this score, but it's not in my Top 3 of this decade.

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