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Your favourite superhero scores


mxsch

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There is no limit in quantity, just write as much as you want. I'll start:

 

The First Avenger

Avengers

Infinity War 

Endgame

Batman 

Batman Returns

Spider-Man

Spider-Man 2

Age of Ultron

Justice League (Josstice version)

X-Men: The Last Stand

Superman

Black Panther

Iron Man

Iron Man 3

Thor: The Dark World

 

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Avengers: Endgame

Avengers: Infinity War

Black Panther

Doctor Strange

Spider-Man: Far From Home

Superman (Williams)

The Incredibles 1 & 2

Thor: Ragnarok

Wonder Woman 1984

 

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Batman

Batman Returns

The Rocketeer

The Incredibles

Spider-Man: Far From Home

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I've decided to choose only 10:

1. Superman: The Movie

2. Superman: The Quest for Peace

3. Superman II

4. Endgame 

5. Batman Forever

6. Superman III

7. Infinity War

8. Doctor Strange

9. Batman

10. Man of Steel

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  1. Spider-Man (Elfman)
  2. Avengers: Endgame (Silvestri)
  3. Avengers: Infinity War (Silvestri)
  4. Superman (Williams)
  5. Batman Returns (Elfman)
  6. Spider-Man: Far from Home (Giacchino)
  7. Wonder Woman 1984 (Zimmer)
  8. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (Bates)
  9. Batman (Elfman)
  10. Captain America: The First Avenger (Silvestri)
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A few of mine are Superman (shocker!), The Incredibles (and, to a slightly lesser degree, its sequel), and Elfman's Spider-Man scores. I haven't listened to any of the MCU stuff on album, but the ones I'd be most interested in would be Ant-Man and the Silvestri scores.

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There’s only one that tops the list:

 

Superman

 

then you can add:

 

Batman

The Rocketeer

Mask of the Phantasm

Superman 4

Incredibles 1 & 2

 

and that’s just for starters.

 

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Honestly, I kind of worry that all I listen to is superhero scores, given that it has been much of the media that I've consumed in my life thus far. It's part of why I never did post in the two recent top ten threads, since it basically would be this anyway.

 

In either case, these are definite favorites for me:

Spider-Man 3 (plus the previous two)

Batman Forever

Unbreakable

TMNT Trilogy

X2: X-Men United

Superman

Superman Returns

X-Men

Dark Phoenix

The Amazing Spider-Man 1-2

Wonder Woman 84

Ghost Rider

The Dark Knight Trilogy

The Incredible Hulk

Spider-Man: Far From Home

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Justice League (Holkenborg Edition)

Batman 89 / Returns

 

Honorable mentions would be Supergirl and Iron Man 2, since I'm just not familiar enough with them yet to be included, but still have too many neat moments to ignore. Beltrami's Logan and Fant4stic are fun, but I more tend to just moderately enjoy. Badelt's TMNT and Powell's X3 I like on some levels, but never could get behind the full products.

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On 6/9/2021 at 4:25 AM, mxsch said:

My list:

BLACK PANTHER

The First Avenger

Avengers

BATMAN

Batman : MASK OF THE PHANTASM

Batman FOREVER

SPIDER-MAN 2

X-Men: UNITED

Superman: THE.MOVIE

DARK KNIGHT RISES

JUDGE DREDD

AMAZING SPIDERMAN

My list above

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Superman: The Movie

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

Batman

Batman Returns

Batman Forever 

Batman & Robin

Batman: The Animated Series

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

The Shadow 

X-Men: The Last Stand

Spider-Man 

Spider-Man 2

Spider-Man 3

The Amazing Spider-Man 

The Rocketeer 

 

Karol

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Some personal context first. My interest in superhero stuff was greater as a kid. The first SUPERMAN movie is still an iconic turning-point in my film interest, ca. mid 80s. I created a few superhero strips myself, as a I drew a lot. But in general, and with the exception of The Phantom (who's not really "super" anyway), I gravitated more towards other kinds of comic books. In the last 20 years or so, my interest has been marginal. But I've seen a lot of it anyway, and there's no doubt there have been some great scores.

 

The second Celluloid Tunes episode I did in 2013 was on superhero scores, and although it's in Norwegian, you'll find some of my favourites there by clicking "view playlist" under the player.

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14 hours ago, HunterTech said:

Honestly, I kind of worry that all I listen to is superhero scores, given that it has been much of the media that I've consumed in my life thus far. It's part of why I never did post in the two recent top ten threads, since it basically would be this anyway.

 

In either case, these are definite favorites for me:

Spider-Man 3 (plus the previous two)

Batman Forever

Unbreakable

TMNT Trilogy

X2: X-Men United

Superman

Superman Returns

X-Men

Dark Phoenix

The Amazing Spider-Man 1-2

Wonder Woman 84

Ghost Rider

The Dark Knight Trilogy

The Incredible Hulk

Spider-Man: Far From Home

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Justice League (Holkenborg Edition)

Batman 89 / Returns

 

Honorable mentions would be Supergirl and Iron Man 2, since I'm just not familiar enough with them yet to be included, but still have too many neat moments to ignore. Beltrami's Logan and Fant4stic are fun, but I more tend to just moderately enjoy. Badelt's TMNT and Powell's X3 I like on some levels, but never could get behind the full products.

Iron Man 2 have Mayhem in Monaco and Iron Man Battles the Drones, they are real fire

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19 hours ago, HunterTech said:

Honestly, I kind of worry that all I listen to is superhero scores, given that it has been much of the media that I've consumed in my life thus far. It's part of why I never did post in the two recent top ten threads, since it basically would be this anyway.

 

In either case, these are definite favorites for me:

Spider-Man 3 (plus the previous two)

Batman Forever

Unbreakable

TMNT Trilogy

X2: X-Men United

Superman

Superman Returns

X-Men

Dark Phoenix

The Amazing Spider-Man 1-2

Wonder Woman 84

Ghost Rider

The Dark Knight Trilogy

The Incredible Hulk

Spider-Man: Far From Home

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Justice League (Holkenborg Edition)

Batman 89 / Returns

 

Honorable mentions would be Supergirl and Iron Man 2, since I'm just not familiar enough with them yet to be included, but still have too many neat moments to ignore. Beltrami's Logan and Fant4stic are fun, but I more tend to just moderately enjoy. Badelt's TMNT and Powell's X3 I like on some levels, but never could get behind the full products.

 

How could I forget Mystery Men? A real underrated gem from the late 90s.

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Haven't listened to as many as I would like, but based on what I've listened to so far, this is what I've got:

 

1. Spider-Man (Elfman)

2. Spider-Man 2 (Elfman)

3. Superman (Williams) - The reason I put this under the Elfman scores is basically the Krypton music, which I find dreadfully boring.

4. The Rocketeer (Horner)

5. Batman 1989 (Elfman)

6. Batman: The Animated Series (Walker)

7. Spider-Man 3 (Young)

8. Incredibles 1 (Giacchino) 

9. The Amazing Spider-Man (Horner)

10. Captain America: The First Avenger (Silvestri)

11. Iron Man 3 (Tyler)

12. Batman Begins (Zimmer & Newton Howard)

13. The Dark Knight (Zimmer & Newton Howard)

14. The Dark Knight Rises (Zimmer)

15. Iron Man 1 (Djawadi)

16. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Zimmer)

 

The rest I either haven't listened to, or simply don't remember any themes from them. 

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Only ones I'm familiar with are Superman 1, Nolan's Batman Trilogy and Batman (1989)

 

Legit have only watched like 2 super hero movies other than those and can't remember a lick of the score that were in them.

 

I dunno, maybe I'm missing out, but it's just a genre I have never got into.

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17 minutes ago, Bellosh said:

Only ones I'm familiar with are Superman 1, Nolan's Batman Trilogy and Batman (1989)

 

Legit have only watched like 2 super hero movies other than those and can't remember a lick of the score that were in them.

 

I dunno, maybe I'm missing out, but it's just a genre I have never got into.

 

That's actually refreshing to hear!

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I didn't mentioned it in my post, but I also really like Powell's X-Men: The Last Stand. It has some terrific action tracks and an excellent use of choir. Sure, it is very temp track-y, sounding like a mix of John Williams and Don Davis at times, and it's a little rough around the edges (this was before Powell showed some maturity with the Dragons trilogy), but still a pretty fun score to listen.

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Spider-Man 2, Superman '78, every 90s Batman (Elfman, Walker, Goldenthal), Thor, X-Men.  Rocketeer if it counts.

 

It's a common complaint, but too many modern superhero scores are sonic wallpaper to me.  They should be thematic and bombastic, but most of them just slide off my brain.

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For me the whole story of motion picture scores for superhero movies is a very disapointing one. This genre stays to my mind far behind its possibilities. This is a genre that would have had the potential, the reputation and the canvas to bring us back the big and musically enormous film scores. But what we got in the past 20 years was mostly some kind of superficial Imitation of big film scores. I mean, I got used to it like everyone else. But it is a big missed opportunity. 

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The ones that are brilliant:

 

  • Batman Forever (Goldenthal)
  • Batman and Robin (Goldenthal)
  • Batman (Elfman)
  • Batman Returns (Elfman)
  • The Shadow (Goldsmith)
  • Superman (Williams)

 

The ones that are very good:

 

  • Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (Walker)
  • The Phantom (Newman)
  • The Rocketeer (Horner)

 

The ones that are good

 

  • The Amazing Spiderman (Horner)
  • Spider-Man (Elfman)
  • Spiderman 2 (Elfman)
  • Hulk (Elfman)
  • Supergirl (Goldsmith)
  • X-Men: The Last Stand (Powell)
  • Ant-Man (Beck)

 

Those are pretty much  all that I very much emjoy.

 

I can't quite rank Batman: The Animated Series, as its highs would definitely belong to the Brilliant category, but there are so many scores and composers and the level is, undestandbly, not always consistent. But there are, at least, a good 20 fantastic episode scores in it 

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1 hour ago, GerateWohl said:

For me the whole story of motion picture scores for superhero movies is a very disapointing one. This genre stays to my mind far behind its possibilities. This is a genre that would have had the potential, the reputation and the canvas to bring us back the big and musically enormous film scores. But what we got in the past 20 years was mostly some kind of superficial Imitation of big film scores. I mean, I got used to it like everyone else. But it is a big missed opportunity. 

 

Without crapping on them too much (cause I find the people who constantly crap on cape movies almost as insufferable as the ones who love them to death) I feel it's mostly because of how the movies are made. And I'm speaking mostly of the Marvel movies over the years.

 

It doesn't leave much room for good scoring in my half assed opinion.  Those films don't breathe for a second and it's nonstop action pieces that even the most brilliant composer would have trouble keeping up with to make sense of it all.

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6 hours ago, bruce marshall said:

INCREDIBLES is a ripoff ( homage ) to John Barry.

I suspect fans aren't familiar with the source material?

 

I'm familiar with some of it, and aware that the extent of the homage must be even greater than I'm aware of. But that's exactly what the score is trying to do. For my money, Giacchino did a really spectacular job with it. It's fun, catchy, and it makes a great Pixar movie even better. It also stands out among superhero movies precisely because of this Bond-infused approach.

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8 hours ago, Bellosh said:

 

Without crapping on them too much (cause I find the people who constantly crap on cape movies almost as insufferable as the ones who love them to death) I feel it's mostly because of how the movies are made. And I'm speaking mostly of the Marvel movies over the years.

 

It doesn't leave much room for good scoring in my half assed opinion.  Those films don't breathe for a second and it's nonstop action pieces that even the most brilliant composer would have trouble keeping up with to make sense of it all.

I am not sure. I mean, there are exceptions. For example the Raimi Spiderman movies leave good room for emotions and music and the scores are good. Endgame leaves a lot of room for music and uses it.

But I remember when I fist saw the first 3 X-Men movies and I thought, these could use a great score, but somehow these films delivered to a certain degree the template for future superhero scores. The scores didn't really leave a trace and I was really disappointed. As I said, you get used to it. And if you like the movies, like I do, it is really a pitty.

 

Another example. John Williams scores for the Star Wars sequels are brillant big scores. But if they had got something like the usual Giacchino Marvel score everyone would have said, sure, that's because the movies leave no room for good scores, but Williams proved that it is possible. 

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Superman (Williams)

The Incredibles 

X-Men The Last Stand

Batman

Spider-Man 2

Spider-Man Homecoming

Spider-Man Far From Home

Incredibles 2

The Dark Knight

 

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6 hours ago, mxsch said:

It's a shame that I've waited too long to listen to the first Superman score. Loved it so much. My favourite cue is The Helicopter Sequence.

 

What led to you now wanting to hear it before now?

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I really like Superhero movies.  But there are a lot of Superhero scores that are quite bland.

 

But the good ones are Superman (all 4), Batman 1989, Rocketeer, Supergirl, and I guess parts of Silvestri's Captain America are good.

 

Oh, and Kick-Ass is surprisingly good in spots.

 

For me, the Batman sequels by Goldenthal are a bit loud and overstay their welcome... Batman Returns as well to some extent.

 

The kid in me enjoys Superhero TV music like Batman 66, Wonder Woman, Hulk... I'd love to see a release of Mike Post's Captain America TV series.

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4 hours ago, Jay said:

 

What led to you now wanting to hear it before now?

I've just waited too long. Don't know why. Same with watching the movie.

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15 hours ago, crocodile said:

I forgot to add Supergirl. This is another great one. 

 

Karol

I do not hear it. Bad film with a decent score but in no way memorable.

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In no perticelary order:

Superman (Williams)

Batman (Elfman)

Batman Returns (Elfman)

Age of Ultron (Elfman)

Captain America (Silvestri)

The Avangers (Silvestri)

Infinity War (Silvestri)

Endgame (Silvestri)

Spider Man Homcoming (Giacchino)

Spider Man Far from Home (Giacchino)

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1 hour ago, JoeinAR said:

I do not hear it. Bad film with a decent score but in no way memorable.

The film is bad but it is so fun to watch. 😆

 

Karol

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I also would like to add Rupert Gregson-Williams' scores for DC. I think Wonder Woman and Aquaman are pretty good scores with great main themes. 

 

Someone should leak the recording sessions for Aquaman, since the official OST isn't a good representation of that score. WW's OST is fine as it is though.

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On 6/10/2021 at 12:40 PM, The_Trout said:

It's a common complaint, but too many modern superhero scores are sonic wallpaper to me.  They should be thematic and bombastic, but most of them just slide off my brain.


While studio interference has always been a thing (X-Men being a solid example), I think with the way technology has progressed and how films are being manufactured, it's pretty safe to say that composers have been getting less and less wiggle room. They hire people who have been very capable of being able to do a lot with the material given, and can occasionally shine on moments in the MCU/DCEU/Sonyverse, but the standards and expectations are so low yet strict that it's honestly a miracle we even get anything noteworthy. I'm sure Thor: Ragnarok, for instance, would've been much better had Mothersbaugh been allowed to go the full electronic route and not be tied down by the mandated studio orchestra.

Also, sound mixing/editing has become a further problem, given how easily the music can be twisted and buried within the audio tracks. Works that likely had more prominent ideas and orchestrations pretty much gets drowned out by the heavy SFX work, as well as chopping cues to the point of in-coherency. We live in a time where these aspects of sound can much more convincingly be achieved than decades prior, so it's almost like the music has taken a back seat to everything else for immersion sake.

Granted, there's a case that could be made for just how talented the current guard is, given the great results some composers would've had in earlier decades from limited time/flexibility. I can imagine many proper score fans (at least here) don't think a truly great RCP superhero score exists, even with the likes of Powell's X3 and Zimmer's WW84 being enjoyed. But even then, those are projects where the composers got a fair amount of freedom and solid direction to guide them, to which I'm sure hasn't really happened elsewhere in quite a while.

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Also, it's insanely criminal how little Spidey 3 has gotten mentioned here. Is it the lack of an official release? The messy presentation of the theatrical cut? The heavy style shift from the previous two? The movie it's associated with? I'm all ears for what critiques exist.

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I love Spider-Man 3 as Young wrote it, but the score in the movie is an utter mess

 

Young's original themes for MJ and May are completely replaced with music by Deborah Lurie and some of Elfman's music from the first two (including music that was rejected from Spider-Man 2) Some of the Spider-Man material was written by Lurie, too, who worked directly with Raimi

 

In any one scene, you might go between three composers' work

 

Apparently it was Amy Pascal's decision to go back more to Elfman's material

 

Spider-Man 2's music drama is very well known, but the situation in the third was just as bad - though at least the love theme wasn't tracked over an Aunt May scene like it was in that movie

 

 

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11 hours ago, ddddeeee said:

Apparently it was Amy Pascal's decision to go back more to Elfman's material

 

Spider-Man 2's music drama is very well known, but the situation in the third was just as bad - though at least the love theme wasn't tracked over an Aunt May scene like it was in that movie

 

In one interview I read with Young for FSM, he pretty much explicitly mentioned them being the ones behind that decision (down to Lurie and Debney working at the same time as he was wrapping up the score). Raimi actually was pretty content with what Young had written for the film. Hell, when Bob Murawski was brought on to do the Editor's Cut, his primary motivation was reinstating the original music. He even went out of his way to dig up what I presume was a semi-finalized audio track with the unaltered score for the theatrical cut on the 4K release. So it definitely got far enough to where they could've went with either one if they pushed hard enough.

 

Lurie working with Raimi directly was news to me when re-reading the Spidey 2 thread, even if it probably should be expected (you do need direction, after all). It makes me wonder if Young went with the original "concert" version of Happy Ending because of him knowing it wasn't gonna be in the movie originally, given how much the uplifting feeling does clash a bit with the bittersweet note of the scene in context. It's the one track where I don't think any revisions of it exist on the sheets, so perhaps he felt compelled to just roll with it once he got the news it would be out. It works a lot nicer as a trilogy capper after all this time (though Lurie's cues do a good job of that as well).

 

I actually don't think the theatrical presentation of SM3's music is too bad. I just think with how much they pulled a Superman II in terms of mostly repurposing material for different scenes, it makes some of the more quieter moments not feel as in depth as they should've been (or originally were) when compared to the first two movies. And of course, having to stick with the temp track in parts for time reasons is unfortunate (I really don't care for the Aunt May's theme over the Stan Lee cameo, as more fitting it may be in hindsight). Still, for what it is, it turned out nicer than SM2's editing choices in certain respects.

 

(Seriously, what is it with them replacing new statements of the Aunt May theme with the sole rendition from the first movie? It makes no damn sense!)

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12 hours ago, HunterTech said:

Also, it's insanely criminal how little Spidey 3 has gotten mentioned here. Is it the lack of an official release? The messy presentation of the theatrical cut? The heavy style shift from the previous two? The movie it's associated with? I'm all ears for what critiques exist.

The movie sucked .

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