John Williams' Greatest and Most-Underrated Scores

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

Before the judicial committee of JWFan "quote" beats me up, let me share with everybody what this is. Back in 2012-2013, 82 JWFan members submitted their very own Top 10 Williams scores, and the following list represents an alternative look at these favorites. This is the same survey but with one key parameter changed: All bias from a film's mainstream popularity and its score's popularity has been removed, giving you an impression of what the most-underrated Williams scores really are if each film had been given equal and fair attention during childhood and popular culture. In other words, "you don't have to like this film, but really take a closer look at its score." The final rating a score earned by the 82 JWFan members was divided by the popularity the score would generally already have around the internet (cultural bias it may incur on JWFan) thus demonstrating a 'critical approach' with potentially the greatest scores of all time ranked in this list. Every score received its own special adjustment and placement. This ranked survey was done in 2013, so newer scores aren't shown here, but these results come from the many many members' favorites from our forum, so I hope it's interesting to reanalyze and explore. In order of greatest:

 

1. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
2. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
3. Hook
4. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
5. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
6. Superman: The Movie
7. Jurassic Park
8. Raiders of the Lost Ark
9. Jaws
10. Star Wars
11. Jane Eyre
12. Angela's Ashes
13. The Accidental Tourist
14. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
15. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
16. Images
17. War Horse
18. Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
19. Memoirs of a Geisha
20. Schindler's List
21. JFK
22. Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
23. The Eiger Sanction
24. Sleepers
25. Sabrina

26. Born on the Fourth of July
27. Home Alone
28. Empire Of The Sun
29. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
30. The Fury
31. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
32. The Towering Inferno
33. Black Sunday

34. Far and Away
35. Nixon

[GerateWohl 4,350]

Hi Oomoog,

 

sorry, but I don't get it. In which way is E.T., this academy award winning score of one of the most successful film of all times, underrated? Or are the last ones in the list the most underrated?

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

If you see sentence 3, 4 and 5 above, it says that this is mathematically a critical 'Best of Williams list' to refresh you on some of his best scores overall, especially scores that may be a lot better than their films and thus get forgotten or overshadowed for not being as popular, even though they're actually better scores. 

 

We're just not used to hearing some of these scores as "the best" yet, like Hook, Temple of Doom, Angela's Ashes. They're not better 'according to popularity', but they may be better after cultural and childhood bias is removed from one's perception of more popular scores. The mathematics is a tool to logically show how these might be better scores.

 

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial for example, only moved up a placement from here, so it's one placement underrated, making it the #1 Williams score overall.

 

Bias occurs in thinking 'Bigger is better.' In other words, the bigger and more memorable the film, the more people will subconsciously overrate the score. But there are many Williams scores for smaller films that are better, so the OP is the adjusted list of Williams' Greatest Scores. This is not meant as an end-all be-all list. More like a recommendation to you.

 

We used the score's popularity not the film's popularity as the divisor, as this creates a much more accurate contrast between film score fans and Williams fans, providing the most accurate possible list for JWFan.

[GerateWohl 4,350]

Ok. That means you counted the popularity of the movie out of the rating of the score and the list above is the result then but it is still the rating based on the opinions of the forum members. Now I got it. 

So the degree of underrating could be mesured by counting how many positions the films moved upwards compared to the original list. Correct?

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

Precisely. Spot on. Although to avoid confusion, there are two lists. The above list I previously posted because it was more 'fresh' and gives members a lot of unpopular recommendations to consider. However I just replaced it, with the fully accurate one. I didn't want to post it because people are already used to seeing a lot of these names, but there's the golden list now... where underrated scores by JWFan members are at their best mathematical adjustment.

[TheUlyssesian 2,477]

Some of these don't seem intuitive but I can see the overall logic.

[Bespin 8,480]

25. Sabrina

 

25!

 

[GerateWohl 4,350]

I guess, some scores in the list might be rather OVERRATED because they are rare. At least for me the only explanation why The Accidential Tourist or Images are rated so high. 

[Thor 7,490]

Not to me. IMAGES is Williams at his most daring, really his only 'arthouse' score. It's easily in my top 10 JW of all time. If anything, it's extremely underrated (as is the film).

[publicist 4,643]

Without Images and Long Goodbye i would probably think less of him as a composer (in terms of versatility). It's a shame he did so much conformist stuff and had so few off-beat collaborations (especially in the 70's).

[Thor 7,490]

Indeed.

[Lewya 360]

Agreed.

 

Take away The Long Goodbye, Images and Close Encounters and I would think much less of him. I probably wouldn't be able to counter the arguments that all that Williams does are these grand romantic gestures over and over again. Sure, there are some other scores where he deviates from his usual shtick, but not that many.

 

I wish Williams did scores like that much more often and that is one of the reasons why I prefer more imaginative/progressive composers over Williams.

 

I wish one didn't have to reach back to the 1970s to find most of the exceptions. Scores like say for example, Harry Potter, are competent, but it is hardly anything that really interests me.

 

 

 

[Thor 7,490]

I wish you all could understand Norwegian, because I went into detail about this particular aspect of Williams' 'sound' in an article two years ago, about the Altman/Williams collaboration. The interview quotes, however, are in English, and it gives some understanding of this particular niche aspect of his career (sadly explored far too rarely):

 

http://celluloidtunes.no/_oldsite/non-website/williams_altman.pdf