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John Williams' DISASTER MOVIE SOUNDTRACK COLLECTION (Poseidon Adventure, Towering Inferno, Earthquake) 4CD Box Set from La-La Land Records


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This is a must buy! I'll order this next week when I'm home (I'm currently on business in Germany)! 

 

I think we've reached a point now where we feel let down and a great sense disappointment, whenever we don't get a John Williams boxset at the end of the year... 

 

Next year, these might be the best bets:

 

John Williams Oliver Stone Boxset 

Star Wars prequels Boxset 

Star Wars sequels Boxset

Ultimate Indiana Jones Boxset 

 

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1 hour ago, lairdo said:

 

Regardless of one's impression of the movie, I think it's hard to deny there is some great music in Indy 4, with a lot not officially available. 

 

Indeed! 

 

I especially love the Russian flair JW infuses into the KotCS score. Majestic, powerful, and romantic, somehow. "Irina's Theme" is greatly underrated, IMHO. 

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On 12/2/2019 at 9:51 PM, Omen II said:

I am interested in the source music cues from Earthquake and wondered if either @Jay or @TownerFan or anyone else might know the answers to a couple of questions I have.

 

We didn't touch this specific point in our conversation for the podcast (it's coming, guys, I promise! I'm working on it as we speak), but I imagine JW didn't want it included for some reason.

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Since hearing the complete score, I think much of the better stuff in KotCS is not on the album, especially the full Jungle Chase.

 

I never got into the Irina material - didn't strike me as one of JW's most original or memorable themes.

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18 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

Since hearing the complete score, I think much of the better stuff in KotCS is not on the album, especially the full Jungle Chase.

 

I never got into the Irina material - didn't strike me as one of JW's most original or memorable themes.

 

The entire score to KotCS is underrated. I'm not gonna claim the same thing about the movie. 

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8 minutes ago, Josh500 said:

 

The entire score to KotCS is underrated. I'm not gonna claim the same thing about the movie. 

 

Completely agree.  Maybe it's the recording that throws people off, or maybe because it's tied to a subpar movie (even though I really like the film).  But the themes in that score are really great for such a 'forgettable' score that most people here claim it to be.

 

Call of the Crystal, Mutt's theme, Irina's theme, and some very good action cues, including Ants!

A Whirl Through Academe is a fantastic chase scene cue, which i rank very high in my Indy cues list.

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21 minutes ago, Bellosh said:

 

Completely agree.  Maybe it's the recording that throws people off, or maybe because it's tied to a subpar movie (even though I really like the film).  But the themes in that score are really great for such a 'forgettable' score that most people here claim it to be.

 

Call of the Crystal, Mutt's theme, Irina's theme, and some very good action cues, including Ants!

A Whirl Through Academe is a fantastic chase scene cue, which i rank very high in my Indy cues list.

 

Agreed! 

 

But I still consider the (full) "Jungle Chase" to be one of the best JW action cues ever written! The hightlight for me of the entire movie. There was a time I couldn't get enough of it. 

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15 hours ago, Josh500 said:

 

The entire score to KotCS is underrated. I'm not gonna claim the same thing about the movie. 

I personally love the music and I hope it is some day (sooner rather than later) released in full as there is some really fantastic unreleased music from that score.

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The problem with KOTCS is the awful OST. One monotonous underscore cue after another that suffocates the listening experience. It's a terrible representation of the overall score (but maybe a good reflection of the snooze-inducing movie).

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40 minutes ago, crumbs said:

The problem with KOTCS is the awful OST. One monotonous underscore cue after another that suffocates the listening experience. It's a terrible representation of the overall score (but maybe a good reflection of the snooze-inducing movie).

 

A few tracks are underscore. But most of the obvious highlights are there. 

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9 minutes ago, Josh500 said:

 

A few tracks are underscore. But most of the obvious highlights are there. 

I still can't fathom why the heck did Williams decide to cut more than half of the Jungle Chase from the OST. Oh wait I actually can. He probably thought that the opening half which has prominent use of the Raiders March didn't showcase his new themes enough. Plus they had to have room for yet another re-recording of the concert version of the Raiders March on the album.

 

But back to the topic at hand. I think it will be interesting to hear the original film version of the Earthquake score for the first time. I haven't seen the film and have ever heard the OST album with its sound effects and pop-inflected tunes so I wonder if the rest of the film score just follows suit or will there be more orchestral suspense and action material.

 

All the three scores seem to be very similar in how they balance the pop sensibilities with the full dramatic orchestral scoring and how the diegetic source music or very source music like underscore seems very prominent to give these disaster settings more of a verisimilitude rather than wanting to accent everything with a dramatic orchestra, reserving such musical histrionics for the most important moments.

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3 hours ago, Incanus said:

I still can't fathom why the heck did Williams decide to cut more than half of the Jungle Chase from the OST. Oh wait I actually can. He probably thought that the opening half which has prominent use of the Raiders March didn't showcase his new themes enough. Plus they had to have room for yet another re-recording of the concert version of the Raiders March on the album.

 

 

Apart from the complete "Jungle Chase," what I really miss on the OST album is the very first JW cue in the movie...

 

Right after the Russians, dressed up as Americans, start shooting. 😂 This somewhat reminds me of the anticlimactic after theme from "Journey to the Island" from JP... 

 

 

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5 minutes ago, Josh500 said:

 

Apart from the complete "Jungle Chase," what I really miss on the OST album is the very first JW cue in the movie...

 

Right after the Russians, dressed up as Americans, start shooting. 😂 This somewhat reminds me of the anticlimactic after theme from "Journey to the Island" ... 

 

Music for Indy's escape from the warehouse is equally fun and I actually like a lot of the dark unrelease underscore featuring the Crystal skull theme in the middle part of the film when Indy is exploring Orellana's grave. Heck I love the whole thing!

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8 hours ago, Josh500 said:

Right after the Russians, dressed up as Americans, start shooting. 😂 This somewhat reminds me of the anticlimactic after theme from "Journey to the Island" from JP...

True.

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9 hours ago, Josh500 said:

Right after the Russians, dressed up as Americans, start shooting. 😂 This somewhat reminds me of the anticlimactic after theme from "Journey to the Island" from JP... 

 

 

Hah!  I always thought the same thing! I think I even created a poll on both bits!

 

edit, yup i did!

 

 

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Quote

Dear customers,

Thanks so much for your support of our label. We want to update you on some short shipping delays.

Due to unexpected manufacturer delays, stock is arriving a litter later on our Black Friday announced titles than originally scheduled. We will begin shipping the DISASTER SOUNDTRACK JOHN WILLIAMS SET and VOYAGER VOL 2 on December 10th. Orders that contain KARATE KID, STARGATE and the PARAMOUNT WESTERN COLLECTION are scheduled to begin shipping on December 16th.

Rest assured, we will be working very hard and will have all customer orders received by December 19 shipped out before we close our shipping department for the holidays. As previously stated, any online orders placed 12/20-1/1 will begin shipping out when we reopen on 1/2.

Thank you so much for your patronage and your patience and we wish you all a happy and safe holidays!

Best,
La-La Land Records

 

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Although this video is not of the best quality, you can hear a couple of the source music cues I mentioned earlier in this thread.  First up is the film version of Miles' Pool Hall (markedly different from the album version, as you can hear) then, from about 1:50, my favourite bit of source music from the movie.  Gotta love that Hammond organ!

 

 

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With this latest production delay announcement it looks like those of us overseas will be lucky to receive our orders before Christmas. Albeit we know the good folks at LLL are working hard to fulfill all orders on time. 

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1 hour ago, A. A. Ron said:

 

You don't like Williams' '90s stuff?

 

Obviously he doesn't like his 70s disaster classics either. His loss. There are plenty of us fans who will strongly disagree and at least 5,000 potential buyers of the new box set who will also be diametrically opposed to hornist's point of view. To each their own! 😉

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4 hours ago, Bellosh said:

 

Hah!  I always thought the same thing! I think I even created a poll on both bits!

 

edit, yup i did!

 

 

 

The similarity is there, indeed! 

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23 hours ago, crumbs said:

The problem with KOTCS is the awful OST. One monotonous underscore cue after another that suffocates the listening experience. It's a terrible representation of the overall score (but maybe a good reflection of the snooze-inducing movie).

 

It's a boring score for a boring movie but it's like Williams didn't even try to make it entertaining on album but rather opted for the absolute worst presentation possible. One of his worst albums by far.

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Unpopular opinion, but as much as I adore TFA's score I had a similar reaction to it as I did with KotCS. Neither are "autopilot" scores, like KotCS is often referred to, but both I feel are attempts at trying to rekindle the magic and nostalgia of a time past that can't ever be reached. So when the Raiders March pops in and out I felt like it was tired - and that's not Williams' fault! It's a case of obligatory callbacks for nostalgia and Spielberg's insistence. A few, not all, statements of Luke's Theme in TFA, especially early on began to feel stale in an otherwise colourful and lively score.

 

I think I prefer hearing Williams work with and mould his new material for each film, and to me that's why the highlights in both TFA and KotCS are the new themes.

 

Both scores are great in their expanded forms.

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1 hour ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

 

It's a boring score for a boring movie but it's like Williams didn't even try to make it entertaining on album but rather opted for the absolute worst presentation possible. One of his worst albums by far.

 

I guess they mixed two possible OSTs; one incredibly boring and one incredibly good. Then, by human error, they released the boring one.

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4 hours ago, Arpy said:

Unpopular opinion, but as much as I adore TFA's score I had a similar reaction to it as I did with KotCS.

 I like KotCS much more than TFA

 

KOTCS OST is bad but complete score great

TFA OST is a good representation but it's the most boring Star Wars score and the unreleased music doesn't add much

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9 hours ago, King Mark said:

 I like KotCS much more than TFA

 

KOTCS OST is bad but complete score great

TFA OST is a good representation but it's the most boring Star Wars score and the unreleased music doesn't add much

 

Greatest bullshit I ever read!!! 

 

KotCS is one of the rare mediocre score by JW and TFA brilliant. With the film and out of it. 

 

Indy 4 was a joke so was the score

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Is it a coincidence that the Indy 4 score that so many consider to be relatively weak was written in the middle of JW’s fallow period (2006-11)? He ended so strong in ‘05 and picked right back up at his usual level of greatness in ‘11... but in between there was Indy 4. 

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Hmm that's a good point too.  It's certainly a distant fourth if compared again the original trilogy of masterpiece scores.  But compared against what other composers were doing in the late 2000s?  It's freaking fantastic!

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30 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

Oooh, I had never seen that word "fallow" before so I looked it up, and like it!

 

I'll never understand why so many people on this forum don't care for the IJ4 score.  Well, I can understand if you only heard the OST.  Once you hear the complete score it's so clear he actually did a great job scoring that film, it's just that the film is terrible and the OST is a very very bad representation of the whole score.

 

Well never heard the complete score for Indy 4 but what I heard very bullshit

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1 hour ago, hornist said:

 

Well never heard the complete score for Indy 4 but what I heard very bullshit

 

Well yea, it's a very bad OST album!  There's tons of cool music in the whole score.  Since you love his 2010s works so much, you'd probably like this one too

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