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Bear McCreary's Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)


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26 minutes ago, Kasey Kockroach said:

I can't wait until someone comes up with a shorter playlist for this. 

 

A short program was already posted to JWFan last night

 

15 hours ago, gkgyver said:

If I wanted to make a playlist, it will probably be this one:

 

1. Godzilla Main Title

2. Outpost 32

3. Rise Of Ghidorah

4. The First Gods

5. Rodan

6. Queen Of The Monsters

7. The Hollow Earth

8. Rebirth

9. Battle In Boston

10. Redemption

11. King Of The Monsters

12. Mothra's Song

13. Godzilla Main Title (reprise)

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It's not a problem or anything to have a meh first reaction, I just try to be open to an anticipated score being a grower!  Any time I first listen to a score I've been really looking forward to it takes a while for it come out of the shadow of my expectations and be seen for just what it is.  Just my experience though!

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13 hours ago, The Original said:

Holy shit! The Rebirth track features a familiar piece of music from Godzilla vs Destoroyah!

 

By the way, got my plush toy today.

 

20190524_141313.jpg

 

Cuuuuuuuute. That is all. :D

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14 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

It's not a problem or anything to have a meh first reaction, I just try to be open to an anticipated score being a grower!  Any time I first listen to a score I've been really looking forward to it takes a while for it come out of the shadow of my expectations and be seen for just what it is.  Just my experience though!

 

And to be fair, I’ll buy the score and give it a more in depth listen. In fact I have it on preorder with Amazon. 

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Godzilla 2014 grew on me rather quickly. 

I like this too. But it makes me wish Bear could have come up with his own main theme for Godzilla like Desplat did.

 

It also has some elements of his cloverfield work, but I loved those scores. So thats alright too.

 

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Nobody should ever come up with his own theme for Godzilla. Ever. Classics won't be equaled. Ever. You don't need a new Indiana Jones theme, you don't need a new Star Wars theme, you don't need a new Hedwig's theme, and you don't need a new Godzilla theme.

Hollywood does remake after remake, for nostalgia, but the themes for them should be brand new? No.

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2 hours ago, gkgyver said:

Nobody should ever come up with his own theme for Godzilla. Ever. Classics won't be equaled. Ever. You don't need a new Indiana Jones theme, you don't need a new Star Wars theme, you don't need a new Hedwig's theme, and you don't need a new Godzilla theme.

Hollywood does remake after remake, for nostalgia, but the themes for them should be brand new? No.

 

 

Michiru Oshima and Reijiro Koroku beg to differ. 

 

Both of their themes were very good.

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2 hours ago, gkgyver said:

Nobody should ever come up with his own theme for Godzilla. Ever. Classics won't be equaled. Ever. You don't need a new Indiana Jones theme, you don't need a new Star Wars theme, you don't need a new Hedwig's theme, and you don't need a new Godzilla theme.

Hollywood does remake after remake, for nostalgia, but the themes for them should be brand new? No.

 

But... but... I like David Arnold's theme for Godzilla. :(

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20 minutes ago, scallenger said:

 

But... but... I like David Arnold's theme for Godzilla. :(

 

 

It was better when Herrmann did it for Cape Fear.

 

 

9 minutes ago, Kasey Kockroach said:

Nothing beats the Indoraptor theme.

 

 

We’re long overdue for a Michael Giacchino Godzilla score.

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Man, am I bored of that same Zimmery string rhythm we hear in either every modern Zimmer score or every Zimmer imitation. 

 

Desplat's had a good main title cue. That's about it. 

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31 minutes ago, El Jefe said:

 

 

It was better when Herrmann did it for Cape Fear.

 

 

 

 

We’re long overdue for a Michael Giacchino Godzilla score.

 

He basically came as close as he could with Fallen Kingdoms end credits.

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1 hour ago, MedigoScan said:

 

He basically came as close as he could with Fallen Kingdoms end credits.

 

 

Don't forget Roar! from Cloverfield. 

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3 hours ago, El Jefe said:

 

 

Michiru Oshima and Reijiro Koroku beg to differ. 

 

Both of their themes were very good.

 

3 hours ago, scallenger said:

 

But... but... I like David Arnold's theme for Godzilla. :(

 

That's totally beside the point.

The original suggestion was for McCreary to write his own Godzilla theme, like Desplat.

There were a few good ones in the past, but it always came down to "please bring back the classic theme". And the ones newly written ape the original. And that's for a reason, and the simple reason is that none of the above can touch the Ifukube one. It's a once in a lifetime piece of music, much like other classic movie themes, and people expect it.

It's inseparably woven into the Godzilla character, and there is no reason to abandon it other than ego, or studio demand.

"Very good" is no replacement for it.

 

The only ones coming close were written by Ifukube himself, like the Destroy All Monsters march.

53 minutes ago, A. A. Ron said:

 

^ This. I mean, what was Jerry Goldsmith thinking when he made his own theme for Star Trek? Didn't he realize that the Alexander Courage theme from the TV show was better than everything?

 

With all due respect, Goldsmith was fifteen times the composer Bear McCreary is.

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Fine enough. Lord knows my brother wont stop loving the original theme either.

 

(I dont think the desplat or arnold themes sound like the original much tho)

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11 hours ago, scallenger said:

 

But... but... I like David Arnold's theme for Godzilla. :(

 

He never wrote a theme for Godzilla :lol:

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What, characters are allowed only one theme and that's it? Reijiro Koroku's theme was particularly menacing, I doubt the Ifukube music would have worked. And the Neal Hefti Batman theme certainly would never have worked in the movies from the 80s onwards!

 

Ifukube's theme was never really all that menacing anyway. I suppose it'll work in this new film because it'll be spun to more portray his benevolence and mystique in a weird kind of superheroish sort of way. But Desplat achieved similar results, although a bit more opaque.

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I really like this score. There's a couple... corny moments, I guess. Corny's probably a good word to describe some of the excesses. But then again, this also looks like a very excessive movie in a lot of ways - the sort of Godzilla movie that people who don't really watch Godzilla movies think all the other Godzilla movies really are. If that makes sense. 

But McCreary really leans into that old Galactica-esque sorta mode here with the percussions, rhythms, and stylistic combinations. At least on first listen, that's what it feels like. I appreciate that quite a bit, and probably always will, there's something about what he did on those scores that I just respond to, and I think there's a lot of that in here. 

 

also, I know it was probably a gag, but: A huge part of the reason there was a new theme for Star Trek the Motion Picture was due to everyone on that project having this weird need to distance themselves from everything that made the show THE SHOW. That's why the Klingons became grotesque monsters, the uniforms became drab, the tone dour - that project was a testament to self-seriousness, and it was in that spirit that Courage's very fun, bold, colorful, '60s theme got jettisoned. 

Of course, Goldsmith then turned in an amazing, bold, imaginative score that ended up being better suited to Next Generation than it was the film he wrote it for. 

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3 minutes ago, Larry O said:

I really like this score. There's a couple... corny moments, I guess. Corny's probably a good word to describe some of the excesses. But then again, this also looks like a very excessive movie in a lot of ways - the sort of Godzilla movie that people who don't really watch Godzilla movies think all the other Godzilla movies really are. If that makes sense. 

 

Haha. I saw a trailer ad for the movie yesterday and I got a little worried.

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"Rebirth" makes me feel like a 9 year old again. Buy this album. 

 

Bear has a way with the orchestra...I feel like every epic score wants to sound like this...but they all end up muddy by comparison. This has got serious oomph but sounds crisp and wide. 

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The thematic bits are alright, but the score overall is basically packing peanuts. I’ve tried listening several times and lose interest within about a minute into any track.

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Listening to the album for the first time right now. Immediate reaction is that this is an awful 1st track for a soundtrack album. The main title is okay but I'm not a fan of the choral work so far. It sounds a little pasted onto the rest of the music.

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Good thing the physical release shunted it towards the end of the 2nd disc.

 

(Thats also 2 soundtrack releases in the same week that have Serj yelling on it)

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On 27. Mai 2019 at 7:18 AM, ManofDestiny said:

Ghidorah Theme:

 

 

Ghidorah's theme itself is close to Ifukube's, just without the panache that made it great. 

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So, having got back from the cinema, I sat through to watch the post-credit sequence. The credits played the Godzilla song, Ghidorah's Theme, Mothra's Song and Godzilla Main Title in that order, but the Godzilla Main Title had a much longer percussion roll-in, and didn't have the taiko chorus overlays. So anybody who didn't like the Main Title having them will be happy once it comes out on home media and we can get a rip of it.

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Hey, what the hell happened to my review post, and discussion with The Original earlier today? Did I post in a different GODZILLA thread?

 

[Edit: Ah, I see it was moved to the other thread, presumably because this about the score only].

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Just now, Thor said:

Hey, what the hell happened to my review post, and discussion with The Original earlier today? Did I post in a different GODZILLA thread?

 

It got moved to the Godzilla Cinematic Universe thread, probably because reviewing the film doesn't exactly fit in to a discussion about its music.

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This is the thread for the score, that's the thread for the movie.  Pretty standard.

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A friend on Instagram told me it was the loudest film he'd ever seen. Makes me wonder how the score is and whether it's even audible over the sound effects? I'll definitely be ear-plugging on this one!

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I only had, like, two sentences on the score in the moved post, but guess I can paste them in here:

 

Bear McCreary's music has a few highlights, primarily the choral colours. But 90% of it is generic, loud, bombastic action music that more often than not get swallowed by the sound effects. There are references to Ifukube's GODZILLA theme and a few others that I won't mention, so as not to spoil.

 

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6 minutes ago, The Original said:

A friend on Instagram told me it was the loudest film he'd ever seen. Makes me wonder how the score is and whether it's even audible over the sound effects? I'll definitely be ear-plugging on this one!

 

 

I’m seeing it in IMAX Saturday. I’ll let you know if I go deaf.

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