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Simon Franglen's AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER (2022)


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4 hours ago, leeallen01 said:

 

 

Personally, I love the new Franglen theme heard in 'The Tulkun Return.' 

 

Very Horner-esque and hummable.

Yeah that track was a highlight for me for sure.

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32 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

I want to build a time machine and go back to that fateful day in 2015 to stop Horner from climbing onto that plane.

Yeah Avatar is my second favorite Horner score and I will always wonder what Horner would have done with this great movie and the sequels.
 

Franglen’s work is great though and I’m very happy about the music especially under the circumstances. It’s not Horner of course but the score is respectful of the first score and Horner’s sensibilities as a composer while not being a ripoff that mimics him but goes into new directions.

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1 hour ago, Gibster said:

Watching the movie helps a lot with this one

I usually find this to be the case with most scores. If I’m planning on watching a movie then I usually don’t listen to the score before I watch it but if I don’t plan on seeing a movie then I can just enjoy the music.

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55 minutes ago, Gibster said:

Is it possible someone can send a timestamp of the family theme from the album? Thank you

The Family theme is used in the End Credits song and appears in many different tracks. For instance the theme is featured heavily in the track Hometree.

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After a couple listens, I think this score is as good as we could have hoped in the circumstances. Some of it is actually pretty moving. Enjoying the new themes.

 

Yes, the action music is the weak point. I wish it weren’t mixed in such a muddled way that emphasizes the electronics over the orchestra. Everything sounds so processed and plastic. Franglen’s work would seem much stronger if the mix didn’t make it all sound like a generic wall of noise.  Horner’s score did a great job balancing the electronics against the orchestra. Not that the action music would suddenly become good, but it’s really hurt by it. 

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3 hours ago, Taikomochi said:

After a couple listens, I think this score is as good as we could have hoped in the circumstances.

 

What do you mean by circumstances?

The circumstances for this film are that they had years to bring a composer on board, had hundreds of millions to spend, and had pretty much any film composer alive at their disposal that would have liked to write for this film. Except the one that wrote a score 13 years ago.

And I wouldn't say that score was especially among his greats.

 

There's no excuse.

 

I like that a movie that needs a billion or two to be profitable because they spent so much should be excused for not being able to come up with a memorable score.

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It’s a plenty good score on its own that continues Horner’s sound in a thoughtful, authentic way. It’s imperfect, but I’m not mad about it. If there wasn’t the first score for it to pale in comparison with, it would be a great score with no qualification 

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For those that have heard the score, which other scores have similar action music? Just trying to set my expectations up front. Thanks.

 

Also, how does this compare to Franglen's Avatar theme park album?

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41 minutes ago, WampaRat said:

PS- “Songcord” is a really lovely take on the new theme (family theme?) for this film. Sung beautifully by Zoe Saldana.  Maybe start with that first and then you can hear it develop throughout the score. Lots of great iterations of it.

The songcord actually plays very early in film so it is a good way to start the ost. The extended album which is chronological will have the songcord (not the same version as the version we have on the regular album) as track 2.

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Anyone else hate the way “The Spirit Tree” ends? Without having seen the film, it seems like it is meant to lead into a reprise of the credits music from the first film. So anticlimactic how it ends. Hoping that it ends up on the expanded album. 

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6 hours ago, crocodile said:

I am pretty sure Horner’s theme plays over some of the main on ends at least. I haven't heard the album though yet.

 

Karol

I can't remember if that's the case but it's possible. I definitively remember there being a smooth transition from the final cue into the song (which sounded different to me in the movie than on the OST).

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After listening to the album a second time I like the score even more. The Family theme is great and I think Kiri's theme is my second favorite of the new themes. It is used in quite a few tracks and the variation in 'From Darkness to Light' it's brilliant how Kiri's theme is used alongside the Family theme with the choir. Really looking forward to the extended album.

 

Hopefully Disney upload a FYC. 20th Century did put out one for the first score with all the cues basically.

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Nice for a background listen, like one of those countless Zimmer et al. nature documentary scores. I am convinced Simon Franglen is just an AI that put together 50% recent Horner stylistics and 50% trailer clichés and that's the result. 

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I wonder what this was going to sound like had they brought JNH as the composer. That man has a knack for finding musical inspirations in fantasy films that deal with water somehow.

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I never forget that Don Davis interview which i will quote here (it proves Cameron musically has something like the lowest common denominator and has been pretty successful running with it):

 

Quote

Actually, I gained a lot of respect for Horner during Titanic, because Horner was accommodating Cameron in ways that I thought a composer the stature of Horner had no reason to accommodate anyone. He completely handled the situation with absolute humility and professionalism. I don't think there are very many composers who would have acquiesced to Jim Cameron the way Horner did. Horner gave Jim exactly what he wanted. I think there are some people who think that the Titanic score may be overly simplistic, or some people object to the Celtic nature of it, or whatever, but I can tell you that if any other composer had scored that picture, Jim would have fired him and at least four other composers before he got what he wanted.

 

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Well, nobody said he was easy to work with, or had the most musical savviness. But somehow, these great, iconic scores turned out of the process nonetheless.

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3 minutes ago, Thor said:

Well, nobody said he was easy to work with, or had the most musical savviness. But somehow, these great, iconic scores turned out of the process nonetheless.

 

That's were we differentiate: i consider this stuff loved by either deaf guys or guys who are much more in love with movies than with music (as Music). Is Abyss great? Titanic? Probably for guys that like movies more than music, but to me as a purely music-driven person, i have a hard time accepting that people find stuff like that the pinnacle of the medium.

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I actually thought, when I listened to the Deluxe Edition of Aliens what a good job Cameron did in the music selection leaving out all these heroic militaristic fanfares Horner composed and just using the suspense and action music, which made the movie much better than it would have been putting all of Horner's music in like replacing the fanfares for the landing preparation just with these military snare drums. There I thought, Cameron really knows what He is doing. But that was long before Avatar.

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8 minutes ago, publicist said:

 

That's were we differentiate: i consider this stuff loved by either deaf guys or guys who are much more in love with movies than with music (as Music). Is Abyss great? Titanic? Probably for guys that like movies more than music, but to me as a purely music-driven person, i have a hard time accepting that people find stuff like that the pinnacle of the medium.

 

Ouch.

 

THE ABYSS is one of three scores that got me into film music in the first place in the early 90s (the other two being TWIN PEAKS and JURASSIC PARK), so it's like a family member to me. Love it dearly -- both the chilly, electronic underwater music, the military, percussive stuff and the religioso awe and wonder kitch at the end. TITANIC is an amazing score that deserved all the kudos it got. It always pleased me that teenage girls got the -- at times -- harrowing and dissonant score to go with their purchase of a Celine Dion song. :D I consider ALIENS Horner's second-greatest score of all time, after THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS. And THE TERMINATORs, for all their unlistenability on their own, are IMO the pinnacle of how to do sound design-inspired scores.

 

So yeah, definitely pinnacles of their medium, all of those.

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6 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

Ouch.

 

THE ABYSS is one of three scores that got me into film music in the first place in the early 90s (the other two being TWIN PEAKS and JURASSIC PARK), so it's like a family member to me. Love it dearly -- both the chilly, electronic underwater music, the military, percussive stuff and the religioso awe and wonder kitch at the end. TITANIC is an amazing score that deserved all the kudos it got. It always pleased me that teenage girls got the -- at times -- harrowing and dissonant score to go with their purchase of a Celine Dion song. :D I consider ALIENS Horner's second-greatest score of all time, after THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS. And THE TERMINATORs, for all their unlistenability on their own, are IMO the pinnacle of how to do sound design-inspired scores.

 

So yeah, definitely pinnacles of their medium, all of those.

 

 

Thor, you have Van Gogh's ear for music. ;)

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13 minutes ago, Thor said:

The one that’s left, presumably.

 

No, take another pick. But hey, if there are guys who think 'The Abyss' is good music, who am i to argue?

 

But this doesn't belong in a AVATAR 2-thread but a much bigger question FILMmusic vs. filmMUSIC. Sadly you would have to title it 'User Mattris from Star Wars Disenchantment thread held captive Kathleen Kennedy until she confessed that Emperor Palpatine was Jabba's brother' to get some attention.

 

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I mean, I like the Aliens score, it's a fun and often thrilling score, but it's mostly an amalgamation of ideas best explored in other scores. I really do think the movie's reputation has a lot do with the score's popularity

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5 minutes ago, Romão said:

I mean, I like the Aliens score, it's a fun and often thrilling score, but it's mostly an amalgamation of ideas best explored in other scores. I really do think the movie's reputation has a lot do with the score's popularity


Oh gosh, don’t even get me started on this masterpiece.

 

Perhaps suited for another thread, though.

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Listening to the album right now. It is fine actually, not quite unlike what Franglen did with Horner stuff on The Magnificent Seven. Yes, it is somewhat of a "modern trailer on steroids" take on his sound but, to be frank, the previous score already established that. It's quite pleasant in and out of context and, like the film, I enjoy it for what it is but with no great attachment.

 

The opening song track, however... well... let's just not talk about that.

 

Karol

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1 hour ago, GerateWohl said:

I actually thought, when I listened to the Deluxe Edition of Aliens what a good job Cameron did in the music selection leaving out all these heroic militaristic fanfares Horner composed and just using the suspense and action music, which made the movie much better than it would have been putting all of Horner's music in like replacing the fanfares for the landing preparation just with these military snare drums. There I thought, Cameron really knows what He is doing. But that was long before Avatar.

 

All these heroic militaristic fanfares? You mean that one 3-minute cue? Big deal.

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