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Is there a movie you love with a score you hate?


WampaRat

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1 hour ago, Bespin said:

 

NO.

 

We are two.

 

But I'm not a Trek fan...

 

Hey! I'm the one who brought it up! :)

 

7 hours ago, Datameister said:

The synths are super cheesy and dated, but I've come to accept them as part of the vibe of the film, which I adore.

 

Exactly this. It was meant (in places) to go along with intentionally cheesy effects and creature work. While still being able to manage the more sincere parts of the film. (Guide My Sword.)

 

7 hours ago, Datameister said:

If you were to properly record that score with a great orchestra, I think a lot of opinions would change.

 

An interesting idea. I wonder if Knopfler would ever go for it? Wait, never mind: https://filmconcertslive.com/movies/princessbride/

 

And

 

Ok, I'm sold. I want this now. But I still love the original.

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2 hours ago, Tallguy said:

 

Hey! I'm the one who brought it up! :)

 

 

Exactly this. It was meant (in places) to go along with intentionally cheesy effects and creature work. While still being able to manage the more sincere parts of the film. (Guide My Sword.)

 

 

An interesting idea. I wonder if Knopfler would ever go for it? Wait, never mind: https://filmconcertslive.com/movies/princessbride/

 

And

 

Ok, I'm sold. I want this now. But I still love the original.

This is awesome! I’m completely used to the cheesy Casio keyboard score. It has its charms. But I’ve often wondered would an orchestral score for this film would sound like. I almost got to the point where I was chopping up bits of Powell scores (Shrek, Ferdinand, a couple others) to make my own temp score for a remake of  Princess Bride (Heaven Forbid! But Powell would be PERFECT for that job)

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I never really thought about this question until I watched Inception recently. Can't name many endearing qualities about its score, Hans Zinger sounds like a hot mess here. Totally the wrong movie for his newer, enlightened and sophisticated 'wave pop'.

 

This may be because Zinger misjudged the conceptual character the music should portray in the film; that is, time. Every film has an invisible and supplemental subconscious character called the score, but it needs to add some kind of new information or else it sounds thoughtless. The Matrix's score was a brilliantly-written character.

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The movie starts good with its mysterious arpeggio, then the sudden introduction of the rock drums kills the medieval mood, but after a while I somehow get used to this strange Ladyhawke flavour. At least, it's something different, and as we all know, variety is the spice of life.

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LADYHAWKE is one of my favourite scores of all time. Here's an ancient defense thread I did on FSM.

 

I also find myself really liking a lot of the "hated scores" mentioned in this thread -- THE PRINCESS BRIDE, MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, GOLDENEYE (my favourite Bond score, no less!) etc. etc. 

 

Then again, I know that there are people who love the dreadful scores and composers I listed myself, so what goes around, comes around. Fascinating how two individuals can listen to the same thing, and one finds it to be a glorious jewel, the other a piece of turd. Brains, gotta love 'em!

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Agree on what's been previously said about Goldeneye ... I wish either that Arnold had begun his run of Bond scores with it, or Barry had been tempted back one last time. That sub-videogame crap that accompanies the DB5-Ferrari chase ... ugh. Plus the tank chase having to be rescored by someone else so that it actually included the Bond theme *facepalm*. 

And don't get me started on the hideously insipid end-credits song ... what a steaming pile of weedy merde. No other Bond composer has ever sung on their compositions, Monsieur Serra ... maybe you should've followed their lead, non?

At least Bono, the Edge and Tina Turner 'understood the assignment' regarding the title song.  


 

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44 minutes ago, Sweeping Strings said:

And don't get me started on the hideously insipid end-credits song ... what a steaming pile of weedy merde. No other Bond composer has ever sung on their compositions, Monsieur Serra ... maybe you should've followed their lead, non?

 

After a-ha's "The Living Daylights", it's my favourite Bond song!

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2 hours ago, Sweeping Strings said:

That sub-videogame crap that accompanies the DB5-Ferrari chase ... ugh.

 

I swear, the opening 10 seconds of that cue is 90% of the reason that people think they hate this score. They hear that and give up. Not only is the rest of the score great, the rest of that track isn't bad.

 

1 hour ago, Thor said:

 

After a-ha's "The Living Daylights", it's my favourite Bond song!

 

This, otoh, is a slightly shocking statement. ;)

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16 hours ago, Thor said:

 

After a-ha's "The Living Daylights", it's my favourite Bond song!


If There Was A Man ... now THERE's a good Bond end-credits track (see also TND's Surrender). 

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17 hours ago, Tallguy said:

This, otoh, is a slightly shocking statement. ;)

 

I just realized I spoke about the wrong song. I obviously meant the Tina Turner opening song. I agree that the end credits song isn't that good.

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21 hours ago, Thor said:

 

After a-ha's "The Living Daylights", it's my favourite Bond song!

It's my favourite Bond song, and my favourite Bond score.

GoldenEye (the song) would be a close second, with License Licence To Kill, third, and Surrender, fourth.

Curiously, both You Know My Name, and Another Way To Die, are really growing on me.

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"Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" contains "The Kraken",

aka. 'the #1 track that kicked me right out of the movie and back into the theater' by its blatant use of anachronistic sounds.

I know that had already been a common complaint against "Curse of the Black Pearl", but it didn't hit me until the second film.

 

Jack Sparrow's action theme never quite sounded like true film music to me either.

Something about it seems 'off'...

And then there's the pieces of music copied from the first film too (Sparrow's entrance).

I never do like it when I recognize not themes, but whole performances.

(Which indeed Williams has done several times in Star Wars films as well; and I wish he hadn't.)

 

But on the other hand, Davy Jones was pretty great again.

So on the whole, it's just an enormously uneven score.

Creating just a ton of whiplash while watching.

Thankfully I have mellowed down on it over the years...

 

Of course I originally started out loving the first PotC film score.

I was blissfully unaware of its similarities with other Zimmer-ite work from before.

But once I heard Cutthroat Island, well... that love got instantly replaced.

 

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10 hours ago, Thor said:

 

I just realized I spoke about the wrong song. I obviously meant the Tina Turner opening song. I agree that the end credits song isn't that good.

 

 

Oh good. Yes, Goldeneye is top notch.

 

8 hours ago, AC1 said:

Isn't The Living Daylights generally regarded as one of the worst Bond songs ever?  

 

Is it really? Maybe it's because there's not many Bond songs I consider "bad". Even Man With the Golden Gun has grown on me. (Another Way to Die is trash.)

 

3 hours ago, Pieter Boelen said:

"Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" contains "The Kraken",

aka. 'the #1 track that kicked me right out of the movie and back into the theater' by its blatant use of anachronistic sounds.

I know that had already been a common complaint against "Curse of the Black Pearl", but it didn't hit me until the second film.

 

 

Wow. My biggest complaint when I saw DMC in the cinema was that I couldn't HEAR the Kraken theme. I LOVE that track. Isn't the orchestra in most pirate movies "an anachronistic sound"?

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22 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

It's my favourite Bond song, and my favourite Bond score.

GoldenEye (the song) would be a close second, with License Licence To Kill, third, and Surrender, fourth.

Curiously, both You Know My Name, and Another Way To Die, are really growing on me.


The cool thing about You Know My Name is Bond's MO is right there in the lyrics ('Arm yourself, because no-one else here will save you ... ') etc. Plus the little squeal of feedback just before the first chorus (more noticeable on the single version, if memory serves). 

The combo of Jack White and Alicia Keys suggested that we were gonna get a bluesy alt-rock/soul stormer with Another Way To Die. Erm ... not quite, to say the least. 

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I get what you're saying. Messy and all as QOS is, what with the combo of the writer's strike and wrangles over MGM's future it's perhaps somewhat of a miracle that it got made at all.   

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On 11/02/2022 at 10:22 PM, Tallguy said:

Wow. My biggest complaint when I saw DMC in the cinema was that I couldn't HEAR the Kraken theme. I LOVE that track. Isn't the orchestra in most pirate movies "an anachronistic sound"?

Didn't orchestra's exist at the time?

On the whole, I always figured a good orchestral score tends to sound pretty timeless.

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21 minutes ago, Pieter Boelen said:

Didn't orchestra's exist at the time?

On the whole, I always figured a good orchestral score tends to sound pretty timeless.

 

Years ago I saw a whole thing on the evolution of the orchestra and the instruments used and that the "Hollywood sound" for movies set in the late 1600's to the mid 1700's was itself an anachronism. This is why scores like Ladyhawke don't bother me very much. Or PotC. 

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Yeah the orchestra as we know it today crystallized in the mid to late 19th century as I understand it.  Although modern film scores that are actually recorded with an orchestra often greatly expand the low brass compared to traditional classical orchestras.

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2 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

This is why scores like Ladyhawke don't bother me very much. Or PotC. 

 

Ladyhawke bothers me because it's such an ill fit for this particular film and its ways of storytelling (the somewhat similar Princess Bride doesn't feel as forced). POTC looks and feels exactly right for the RCP scores it got. I don't think this 'anachronistic' argument holds much water, as 99% of the audience don't give much of a shit about this, but if it starts to stick out like a sore thumb, something went awry. 

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20 minutes ago, publicist said:

I don't think this 'anachronistic' argument holds much water, as 99% of the audience don't give much of a shit about this, but if it starts to stick out like a sore thumb, something went awry. 

For me, it was just the electric guitar and obvious rock influence.

But I understand why that choice was made.

I like to think I've mellowed down a bit on my opinion there; compared to that first gut-response of "what the hell".

 

These days, I actually like pirate rock and such.

With special bonus points for the metal written by me long-distance-friend Franco Tempesta from Argentina.

 

Anyway, enough of me derailing the topic already...

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6 hours ago, publicist said:

POTC looks and feels exactly right for the RCP scores it got. I don't think this 'anachronistic' argument holds much water, as 99% of the audience don't give much of a shit about this, but if it starts to stick out like a sore thumb, something went awry. 

 

The music did stick out like a sore thumb to me in POTC, but then again the film itself did as well. Interestingly, the reggae-ish Monkey Island scores don't feel anachronistic to me at all in contrast.

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2 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

Are you kidding me?  McCarthy's Generations score is like my #3 or 4 favorite Trek score.  Madness!

 

We just watched this yesterday. I was struck by how beautiful the music was. I also realized that (aside from Courage and Steiner arranging on The Motion Picture) McCarthy is the only Star Trek composer to have done both the TV shows and a movie. (Ok, you're not going to hold the Voyager titles against me, are you?) 

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7 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

The music did stick out like a sore thumb to me in POTC, but then again the film itself did as well. Interestingly, the reggae-ish Monkey Island scores don't feel anachronistic to me at all in contrast.

 

Because graphics and 8-bit sound align. As for POTC, i remember i found it sledgehammer-y and brutish, but i certainly didn't wish for a Korngold score instead, saying it wasn't the rock idiom i did question, but how it was applied. 

 

Still, things improved so markedly by POTC III, i'm not complaining too much about the ugly duckling which is the first one.

13 hours ago, Pieter Boelen said:

I like to think I've mellowed down a bit on my opinion there; compared to that first gut-response of "what the hell".

 

The style didn't offend me as much as how brute it was (see above) and how derivative of other scores (Kilar's Dracula).

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4 hours ago, publicist said:

Because graphics and 8-bit sound align. As for POTC, i remember i found it sledgehammer-y and brutish, but i certainly didn't wish for a Korngold score instead, saying it wasn't the rock idiom i did question, but how it was applied.

 

I should have been clearer. Sure, the early Monkeys were lo-res style (though always 16-bit sound, if we want to get technical). The third game has a cartoonish look that looks more like a comic book than a typical game of its time, and the later ones (especially Escape, but to a lesser extent also Tales) have an ugly 3D design. And the games themselves are intentionally anachronistic, too. Yet I accept the music as *pirate* music, because (like the games) despite all its goofiness and stylistic excursions, it feels like its heart is in the right pirate-y place, something I never felt with POTC (score or film).

 

With POTC, it's both the rock idiom and the sledgehammer for me. But yes, I also mostly like the third score.

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On 11/02/2022 at 12:52 PM, AC1 said:

Isn't The Living Daylights generally regarded as one of the worst Bond songs ever?  

Not by me :)

On 11/02/2022 at 2:26 PM, Thor said:

 

If it is, that just means I love it even more.

:thumbup:

 

 

 

15 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

Are you kidding me?  McCarthy's Generations score is like my #3 or 4 favorite Trek score.  Madness!

No, I'm not kidding you, Stu.

There is much S.T. music that I love, but this man's scores, just grate on me.

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30 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Not by me :)

:thumbup:

 

 

 

No, I'm not kidding you, Stu.

There is much S.T. music that I love, but this man's scores, just grate on me.

 

Mixed feelings on this post, Richard.  On the one hand, you're just wrong about McCarthy.  On the other, "Living Daylights" is my favorite Bond song ;) 

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1 hour ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

 

The Living Daylights is an exceptional song.

 

Neo Steely Dan, a-ha, The Living Daylights, Prometheus, ... You guys should live together!

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1 hour ago, Disco Stu said:

Hey I don't like Prometheus....  I've posted before about how I think Ridley Scott made two good movies ever

No, let me see. Would they be 

Spoiler

G.I. JANE, and 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE

 

by any chance? :lol:

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