Ramin Djawadi's ETERNALS (2021)

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

Movie screened for critics. Reactions out. Reviews sunday. Release soon.

 

Main theme released.

 

 

 

A second cue has been released.

 

 

[Edmilson 7,392]

Just listened to the two tracks. I'm not a fan of the main theme, but the second one is a pretty nice choir piece. 

[Niktob 4]

Both tracks are underwhelming for me. 

[Richard Penna 3,671]

The theme is ok, a bit better than a typical RCP theme. More interesting stuff going on with the chords and in the middle section than the actual primary melody, although it's not unmemorable - just has somewhat of a videogame quality to me.

 

The second track to me is a perfectly pleasant, but not particularly remarkable bit of choral/string writing.

 

Although both are better than I would generally expect from Djawadi, so there's that.

[Jules 59]

I really like both of these, but they have a weird feeling like he's trying to compose without hitting the notes of his GOT themes? Every time a progression is about to take a similar turn to one of those it veers off unexpectedly. Makes for very unmemorable tracks, but I'm fully in when I'm actually listening haha

[1977 1,743]

Unlike most, I think RD's Iron Man was a brillliant score, he nailed the character's cocky bravado perfectly.

 

Looking forward to hear this.

[Edmilson 7,392]

Driving with the Top Down is a very funny and badass cue.

[GerateWohl 4,338]

The main theme actually sounds like he was asked, write something like your Game of Thrones title, but do it on your old Comodore64.

[Richard Penna 3,671]

I rather like that slightly retro sound he's gone for.

 

If I had a note of improvement, it would be to ditch the typical RCP rhythm under the theme a minute or so in, and little to distinguish it from most other Djawadi pieces - zero effort for originality there.

 

The bridge section from 1:50 is rather nice too, and the build-up to the theme again at 2:50 is nice. Overall it's a piece that's memorable enough to replay it quite a lot, and I'll give the whole thing a listen when it's out.

[Brónach 1,301]

Wrong composer for this

[Richard Penna 3,671]

I'm really liking the two tracks we have so far - whether the rest of the score is similarly memorable remains to be seen.

 

Not sure I'd agree that he's the wrong composer, but I think he has more to prove with a film of this scope than some other composers, in terms of giving us more than just string ostinatos and power anthems.

[Richard Penna 3,671]

Full album's out now, and I'm maybe 1/4 through the album. It's not going to win any oscars, but considering I've found little of Djawadi's music interesting (outside of Prison Break and the odd GoT cue) this is pretty good. Some tracks take a while to heat up or get to their main idea, but I'm enjoying it, and if it keeps up like this, likely buying.

[Jules 59]

This has really grown on me after seeing the movie and listening a few times. One of my faves of the year now, if not at the top. 
 

 

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

Saw the film.

 

3 themes occur throughout. I will call them Eternals theme A, Eternals Theme B and maybe Love theme/Sersei's theme. 

 

2 of them (first two) are memorable and after watching movie once you will remember them. You can't say that about a lot of films.

 

I will add more later.

[JNHFan2000 2,944]

I believe there are also themes for the Deviants and The Celestials

[Richard Penna 3,671]

I bought the album yesterday - it feels very refreshing because there's almost no action in it, and as said already, the themes are memorable. It's somehow one of those scores where no 5-6 minute track goes by without you noticing - it maintains interest throughout. Quite the opposite - I had formed some favourite moments after only my first listen.

 

The piano performances don't have anywhere near the grace and style that can be found in JNH's scores, but it's still memorable.

[Edmilson 7,392]

9 hours ago, TheUlyssesian said:

2 of them (first two) are memorable and after watching movie once you will remember them. You can't say that about a lot of films.

 

Djawadi is quite good at creating memorable themes. He is responsible for two of the most easily recognized themes of the last decade, Pacific Rim and Game of Thrones.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Ah yes, that theme that everyone knows and hums, the Pacific Rim theme.

[Richard Penna 3,671]

I just played the title track for Pacific Rim... is that supposed to be a theme?

 

Game of Thrones, arguably yes due to its exposure, although I don't find it very inspiring, at least in its original orchestration. Some reinterpretations going around that do some more interesting things with it.

 

I'm finding the melody in the middle part of Eternals Theme really catchy at the moment. He never quite unleashes it in full heroic form in the actual score but it's a good theme. The entire score strangely feels like a RCP score with all the annoying pulsing/ostinato action stuff taken out of the mix, leaving the emotional material. Compare this to NTTD, which I played once and have no plans to buy, whereas I've played this twice through now after buying it.

[Thor 7,466]

As I've said elsewhere, I'm all superheroed-out. In fact, that happened several years ago. So I easily skipped the IMAX press screening of this a week ago. Same goes for the scores. Sorry.

But Djawadi has done some good stuff over the years -- especially outside the big blockbuster stuff.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

20 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

I just played the title track for Pacific Rim... is that supposed to be a theme?

 

It's easily recognized!  The public went wild!

[Richard Penna 3,671]

1 hour ago, Thor said:

As I've said elsewhere, I'm all superheroed-out. In fact, that happened several years ago. So I easily skipped the IMAX press screening of this a week ago. Same goes for the scores. Sorry.

But Djawadi has done some good stuff over the years -- especially outside the big blockbuster stuff.

 

Normally I'd say the same, especially with someone I follow as little as Djawadi, but the two initial tracks were just enough to make me curious about what the score as a whole sounded like. I don't think it sounds superhero-like at all, almost more of a fantasy/mythical score.

 

The 65 minute (minus the song, which is pretty good) album doesn't wear out its welcome either. I can see myself playing this a lot. I see the reaction at FSM is similarly positive, particularly among those who usually don't veer into Djawadi's world.

 

I wonder if there might be Rocketeer temping in Life - very similar vibe there. I love the gradual buildup of that theme though, and this cue combines the more electronic-oriented aproach with orchestra really well. 3:00 onwards is a standout moment in particular, as we get a sort of fake buildup which makes the actual crescendo even more powerful. I'm really liking this theme too now.

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

1 hour ago, Richard Penna said:

I just played the title track for Pacific Rim... is that supposed to be a theme?

 

I think its a really cool theme. It has several components. 

[Edmilson 7,392]

I'm listening to the album now, it's pretty different from what you'd expect of a MCU score. "Mission" is a pretty beautiful cue.

[Thor 7,466]

1 hour ago, Richard Penna said:

 

Normally I'd say the same, especially with someone I follow as little as Djawadi, but the two initial tracks were just enough to make me curious about what the score as a whole sounded like. I don't think it sounds superhero-like at all, almost more of a fantasy/mythical score.

 

That's fine. I sampled it. It didn't do it for me. More of the same, same. Still waiting for a superhero thingie that doesn't bore me to tears (film- and score-wise).

[Faleel 5,340]

24 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

Still waiting for a superhero thingie that doesn't bore me to tears (film- and score-wise).

Don't. Its not gonna happen sadly.

[GerateWohl 4,338]

29 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

I'm listening to the album now, it's pretty different from what you'd expect of a MCU score. "Mission" is a pretty beautiful cue.

Sounded to me like an instrumental Imitation of "Somewhere" from West Side Story.

[toothless 963]

Even though it "sounds" generic (and I mean, the sound itself), I find this soundtrack really entertaining. I don't know why but I really like it haha  

[Edmilson 7,392]

Just listened to the album.

 

It has some great moments and it uses the voices more than the usual for a Marvel score, some parts really sound like it could've come from a Terrence Malick movie, lol.

 

But the second half of the OST is really boring, just a lot of suspense music and the ocasional action cue with a lot of RC-isms. 

[toothless 963]

I kind of agree. here are the cues I'm keeping in my "soundtracks" playlist.

[Richard Penna 3,671]

1 hour ago, toothless said:

Even though it "sounds" generic (and I mean, the sound itself), I find this soundtrack really entertaining. I don't know why but I really like it haha  

 

Basically this  

 

Even the tracks that feature the usual RCPisms I don't find boring at all. Like you, I don't know why - something about the instrumentation or general sound, but I've been listening to it all evening and I really like it! The melodies from Eternals Theme are doing my head in, in a good way. Sure, the action (what there is of it) is nothing to write home about, but I reckon that if Djawadi's sound doesn't actively offend you, it's harmless at worst. Reminds me a bit of Prison Break in parts, which explains why I like it.

 

I particularly love Mission, Life, Celestials, Isn't It Beautiful and Across The Oceans Of Time, but almost every track has something to like IMO, and it plays nicely as an album. A fine example that music doesn't have to be complicated and fancy to be damned entertaining.

[Stark 310]

This score is very reminiscent of Djawadi’s choral music in Game of Thrones season 8, which has some of my favorite Djawadi music ever, so by extension I quite like this score.

[JNHFan2000 2,944]

The album is not chronological. The following order is from the tracks I'm certain about that they appear in this order in the film.

 

It Is Time

Remember

Audience With Arishem

Not Worth Saving

This Is Your Fight Now

I Have Been Waiting For This

Emergence Sea

Across The Oceans Of Time

Eternal Loss (Not the full track)

A Wish

Earth Is Just One Planet

Eternals Theme (I think from 0:56 onwards)

 

These tracks I can't place. Or not exactly sure where.

Somewhere In Time

The Domo

Joie De Vivre

 

These might be suites

Mission

Celestials

Life

Isn't It Beautiful

 

Any notes or thought would be great!

 

[Jules 59]

13 hours ago, JNHFan2000 said:

The album is not chronological. The following order is from the tracks I'm certain about that they appear in this order in the film.

 

It Is Time

Remember

Audience With Arishem

Not Worth Saving

This Is Your Fight Now

I Have Been Waiting For This

Emergence Sea

Across The Oceans Of Time

Eternal Loss (Not the full track)

A Wish

Earth Is Just One Planet

Eternals Theme (I think from 0:56 onwards)

 

These tracks I can't place. Or not exactly sure where.

Somewhere In Time

The Domo

Joie De Vivre

 

These might be suites

Mission

Celestials

Life

Isn't It Beautiful

 

Any notes or thought would be great!

 

Only seen the film once, but "Remember" is from Thena's 

Spoiler

second madweary episode I think?

Isn't It Beautiful is I think from 

Spoiler

Ikaris and Sersi's final moments where he changes his mind thinking over their life together. 

And I'd think Across The Oceans of Time would be the first Ikaris Sersi montage, but maybe it's a suite. 

[JNHFan2000 2,944]

3 hours ago, Jules said:

Only seen the film once, but "Remember" is from Thena's 

  Hide contents

second madweary episode I think?

Isn't It Beautiful is I think from 

  Hide contents

Ikaris and Sersi's final moments where he changes his mind thinking over their life together. 

And I'd think Across The Oceans of Time would be the first Ikaris Sersi montage, but maybe it's a suite. 

Across The Sea Of Time is 

Spoiler

Is the momemt all the eternals form the uni-mind and they freeze the Celestial

 

[thestat 346]

There's something about this score that transcends the obvious critiques. I mean, it's simplistic as shit, and the action stuff is catastrophically bad. But the themes and motives are astonishingly beautiful and creative. Across the Sea of Time and Eternal Loss are just some of the fantastic tracks here.

 

And I echo what others have done above - listen to the whole score and then go back to the Eternals Theme. It sounds obvious at first but once you have done the score it literally does sound amazing in its creativity.

 

It's to do with how Djawadi incorporates the theme into everything. It's fascinating. And I'm a Zimmer basher by profession. Djawadi's weird.

 

I mean the stuff he did for GoT was the same, passable at times, genius where it was. Djawadi is crap at action. But he has this weird knack for prolonged, less obvious melodies that travel over seasons. I think that is why he got this job. His melodies are not obvious, they take sometimes years to develop as in GoT.

 

And I'm hearing the same here - great, massively great ideas that are mapped out as fuck. Can't wait to hear the rest. But Ramin -please get one of the RCP dudes to do the action music......

 

 

[Mephariel 451]

On 05/11/2021 at 1:16 PM, Edmilson said:

I'm listening to the album now, it's pretty different from what you'd expect of a MCU score. "Mission" is a pretty beautiful cue.

 

One of my favorites of the year for sure.

[Richard Penna 3,671]

10 hours ago, thestat said:

There's something about this score that transcends the obvious critiques. I mean, it's simplistic as shit, and the action stuff is catastrophically bad. But the themes and motives are astonishingly beautiful and creative. Across the Sea of Time and Eternal Loss are just some of the fantastic tracks here.

 

I feel that the lack of action in this score (two or three tracks max?) is why it works so well. The melodies and themes, and how they're applied throughout the score, are quite unlike any other RCP-flavoured score I've heard. I'm finding the main theme maddeningly memorable, and there are a couple of other extremely memorably themes developed - one in Mission, and the other in Life, with another motif (which has a slightly 7 Y in Tibet feel to it) which appears several times.

 

What I initially thought were just random bits of melody early on in some tracks actually turn out to be the origins for a theme, and then he pulls out some remarkably un-RCP-like orchestration.

 

If this had been a typical Marvel movie with tons of action, this would have been a disaster of a score, but like Silvestri's Endgame, which struck me as remarkably emotion-oriented, Djawadi has come up with a handful of simple but memorable melodies, and built a much more lower-key score than usual and it works. I'm listening to it so much at the moment - there are no dull bits for me, and it flies by even at a hour.

 

My one critique of the album is to move Eternals Theme to just before the song. Earth Is Just One Planet was not a good way to end the album. Plus, after hearing all the thematic fragments, you finally hear those two or three themes on full power.

[Raiders of the SoundtrArk 2,429]

I've been listening to it a few times and came up with a shorter program without some of the action cues which are far less interesting:

1. It is Time
2. Eternals Theme
3. Life
4. Isn't it Beautiful
5. Celestials
6. Not Worth Saving
7. Mission
8. Joie de Vivre
9. Across the Ocean of Time
10. The Domo
11. Eternal Loss
12. A Wish
13. Eternals Theme

[crocodile 7,984]

This is probably the first Ramin Djawadi score that I really enjoy. There's nothing particularly distinctive in terms of basic ingredients but the overall presentation of said ideas makes for a very pleasant listening experience. 

 

Marvel seems to be stepping up their game ever so slightly in terms of music.

 

Karol

[Mephariel 451]

On 13/11/2021 at 12:31 AM, crocodile said:

This is probably the first Ramin Djawadi score that I really enjoy. There's nothing particularly distinctive in terms of basic ingredients but the overall presentation of said ideas makes for a very pleasant listening experience. 

 

Marvel seems to be stepping up their game ever so slightly in terms of music.

 

Karol

 

Definitely one of my favorite scores of the year. There a level of magic to this score that I haven't felt before with his other drama scores.

 

I still found it hard to believe Balfe's Black Widow is so good. 

[Richard Penna 3,671]

On 13/11/2021 at 8:31 AM, crocodile said:

This is probably the first Ramin Djawadi score that I really enjoy. There's nothing particularly distinctive in terms of basic ingredients but the overall presentation of said ideas makes for a very pleasant listening experience. 

 

Marvel seems to be stepping up their game ever so slightly in terms of music.

 

Karol

 

Outside of his Prison Break work, I have one track from GoT (Jenny of Oldstones) that's rather nice, and actually now an interesting indicator of his ability to take a simple melody and make it really memorable. Also one track from one of Varese's anniversary compilations, Beat The Drum, which I must have decided at some point was interesting.

 

This breaks absolutely zero ground, but just plays really well as an album. I love it

 

Also noticeable is that Audience With Arishem cycles through almost every theme in the score, cycling through different instruments. It's such a refreshing difference to what could've been typical RCP droning or ostinatos.

[Taikomochi 1,136]

“Across the Ocean of Time” is my cue of the year thus far. Judging by GoT and this, Djawadi is bizarrely talented with choral writing relative to his reliance on Zimmer-y cliche (which this score overall is not)

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

https://www.filmtracks.com/titles/eternals.html

 

Chris Clemmensen is a fan!

[Richard Penna 3,671]

I'm really surprised at how glass-half-full his opinion is, with the only real negative analysis being what's left off the album. Four stars, wow!

[Edmilson 7,392]

For the first time in forever, the film music reviewers agree that there is a lot of cool music that missed the OST album. I wonder if this reaction will convince Djawadi to release more stuff later, like RGW did with Aquaman.

[JNHFan2000 2,944]

2 hours ago, Edmilson said:

For the first time in forever, the film music reviewers agree that there is a lot of cool music that missed the OST album. I wonder if this reaction will convince Djawadi to release more stuff later, like RGW did with Aquaman.

Well. Aquaman's Deluxe wasn't really great either. Those remixes🤢🤢

[Edmilson 7,392]

6 minutes ago, JNHFan2000 said:

Well. Aquaman's Deluxe wasn't really great either. Those remixes🤢🤢

It had some decent unreleased cues, but overall you're right, it could've been so much better. A wasted opportunity to release the complete music for the Sicily battle.

[Richard Penna 3,671]

I'm still routinely listening to this, and after looking back through my other primary score purchases of 2021 (Raya, The Last Duel, Jungle Cruise) I can only come to one conclusion - this is my favourite score of the year. Not in a technical or creatively original sense, but in pure entertainment and beauty. Those other three are really strong, but can't beat this one.

 

I'm also loving his Game of Thrones scores, particularly season 8. My brain must be tuned properly into his sound right now.