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

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

I thought Franglen did a great job.  Pays respect to Horner's work while also having memorable new material that carries a good amount of emotional weight.

[enderdrag64 624]

Ooh so if "A Farewell to Arm" is on the expanded OST then I'm guessing this post is from this score

 

 

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

That was such an awesome scene

[Jay 37,281]

Funny that two scores in the same year would have the same pun cue title

 

EDIT: Nevermind, that was from Fallen Kingdom, not Dominion

[Mr. Who 919]

22 minutes ago, enderdrag64 said:

Ooh so if "A Farewell to Arm" is on the expanded OST then I'm guessing this post is from this score

 

 

Good find! Payakan is so great in that scene and in any other scene he's in actually.

[D_A_R_T_H 24]

The Weekend's song is the ending song, but is Zoe Saldana's too?  

like this ?  
...
End song 1 The Songcord
End song 2 Nothing is Lost 
End credits 

I haven't seen the movie yet

[Mr. Who 919]

12 minutes ago, D_A_R_T_H said:

The Weekend's song is the ending song, but is Zoe Saldana's too?  

like this ?  
...
End song 1 The Songcord
End song 2 Nothing is Lost 
End credits 

I haven't seen the movie yet

The Weeknd song which starts with the Family theme navi chorus is part 1 of the end credits (after the spirit tree). Then the Songcord plays later in the end credits. Versions of the songcord also play early in the movie and at the end (before spirit tree I think) and both those versions are on the extended album.

[Edmilson 7,384]

Just finished listening to the expanded edition of the album. I really wish I could love this score as much as anyone here, but unfortunately this is not for me.

 

The score album (and presumably the movie, which I haven't seen yet) have a great start. Leaving Home is a great cue, with a majestic theme that reminds me more of a mix between JNH and Zimmer than anything Horner wrote. It's an amazing opening and a great theme.

 

It's so good that, after that first track, nothing on the album can top it. I found the action music to be particularly grating, with the same synth percussion and string ostinatos that we've heard several times in other recent blockbusters.

 

It's the same problem I have with action music for most big budget stuff from Hollywood these days. Much like stuff like Black Adam, it is screaming in your face "IT'S SO EPIC AND POWERFUL, RIGHT?". And despite Franglen throwing everything but the kitchen sink, his action music doesn't hold a candle to Horner's War or The Destruction of the Hometree or even Quaritch's Death, which aren't even on my top 10 JH action cues but are much more effective than Franglen's "epicness".

 

The soothing water cues from the middle of the album are pleasant enough but nothing memorable.

 

Anyway, the problem I have with this score is the same I have with a lot of the music written by this current batch of composers, including Balfe, Holkenborg, Tyler, etc.: they do everything to sound epic and dramatic and grandiose, but overall fall short of the intended result.

[DangerMotif 1,037]

 

I assume this music isn't on the Ost? I didn't hear it on the expanded

[Faleel 5,329]

12 hours ago, TolkienSS said:

 

I don't think I called it unlistenable. I called it generic and unremarkable. 

You CAN listen to it.

>>>>The point

 

 

 

 

You

[greenturnedblue 372]

I really like the 'cat jumped on the piano' moment at 0:57 of knife fight. reminds me of the plucks at 1:25 of Fleeing from Kijimi in TROS

[TolkienSS 405]

2 hours ago, Clockwork Angel said:

>>>>The point

 

 

 

 

You

 

I don't think I'm being quoted as a supposed film score guru, like Clemmensen is - thank god - so whatever elusive point you're talking about is fundamentally irrelevant to the point I made.

 

To borrow a thought, though: if I don't understand your point, how about phrasing it different (or at all) instead of just insulting me?

[Lockdown 238]

8 hours ago, Gibster said:

 

I assume this music isn't on the Ost? I didn't hear it on the expanded

Mighty Eywa, at least the second half sounds like similar.

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

Simon Franglen's music is frankly pretty in line with Horner's score for the first (which I love but isn't some long-lined old fashioned score like Legends of the Fall.  Most of it is very very modern in style).  

[midgemania 54]

Hello all! Long time lurker, but I finally made an account and am excited to be a little more involved in the discussions on here!

 

 There are so many interesting thoughts above, and clearly articulated opinions on both sides of the debate. I’ll declare my bias and say that I have rather enjoyed Franglen’s recent work - especially The Curse of Turandot and Notre Dame Brule. However, his score to The Magnificent Seven left me cold, so I was really keen to see what he did following on in Horner’s footsteps again. 
 

All in all, my thoughts on him in general align with my opinion of the score. I think he’s comfortably a cut above the plethora of ostinato-driven adrenaline-junkie (pun intended) composers that litter the modern scoring landscape, but he doesn’t quite reach the heights of the great masters of the recent past - of which I would certainly count Horner as one. I think Franglen’s thematic, more romantic cues are first-rate, and would sit comfortably amongst the very highest composers of film music. In this film, his “Family” theme as heard in Leaving Home and Sanctuary are glorious, and I equally adore End Titles from Notre Dame and Turandot Theme from The Curse of Turandot. In my opinion, these cues show a spark of melodic flare that is too often lacking, and it’s certainly nice to hear him just let an orchestra play a big thumping, romantic tune. 
 

His greatest weakness remains his action scoring, which is perfectly competent and never anything other than professional, but largely unremarkable. It certainly fails to hit the heights of Horner at this peak in Avatar, but then that’s an extraordinarily high bar that even Horner himself failed to reach on multiple occasions. I think there are some encouraging signs in Franglen’s work for this score - Na’vi Attack and Knife Fight show an orchestrational intelligence often lacking in modern composers. More tracks like this, and fewer like Rescue and Loss or A Farewell to Arm, which are anodyne at best. 
 

A final thought on his action scoring in his defence. I still would contend that Franglen has a stronger command of harmony and melody that sets him a little apart from those composers who insist upon riffing in Dminor for 4 minutes, and I can at least admire his attempts at trying to craft a more thematic score in spite of the anonymous action chugging. 
 

Sorry for rambling on - I promise that my contributions moving forward will be more succinct! Again, a pleasure to be here and I look forward to joining in with more conversations. 

On 18/12/2022 at 11:54 AM, Mr. Who said:

Right now I have RDA split into 3 sections where the A sect is a harmonic idea you hear in the beginning of A New Star, the B sect is the ascending line which also appears in A New Stark and the C sect is a horn line which is used in response to the B sect. There's possibly a trumpet motif related to the RDA as well but I haven't pinned everything down yet atter only 2 listens. Hopefully the bonus tracks will make things clearer.

Having listened to both versions of the score, and watched the movie last night, the trumpet motif you’re referring to is almost certainly a theme for Quaritch. It plays in a more melancholic fashion towards the end of the film. 

[Knight of Ren 785]

Yeah, I agree that Franglen's action is the weakest part of the score for me, even if there are some nice highlights, especially in the climax of the film. I watched it yesterday and it was nice, a bit too long, and not all parts of the movie worked for me, but the underwater stuff was stunning, and I really liked the action-packed thrid act.

 

The score works great in the movie, and especially shines in all the water tribe scenes, where Franglen's underwater theme gets extended development. I think that might be the most intantly recognizable theme because of its instrumentation, but the heart of the movie is definitely the family theme, which gets arranged in many different ways through the movie. Kiri's theme made quite an impression on me, because on album it felt a bit elusive at times, but after watching the movie, it makes a lot of sense and it's such a beautiful melody. I also noticed a theme for the giant whale Payakan, that was made clear by its appearances in the action sequences during the end of the film, especially near the beginning of Na'vi Attack, before Horner's main theme, and I think a couple of times more.

 

I am now listening to the expanded album to see if I can pick up on the military themes, since in the movie they weren't that prominent and appear mostly in action sequences, where they get usually drowned beneath sound effects. Even so, I think this material is definitely not as strong as the Na'vi material, which also happened with Horner's score.

 

I think they tracked a lot of different cues from the first movie directly into some scenes, without even arranging them a bit different. I noticed "You Don't Dream in Cryo", "Pure Spirits of the Forest", "Thanator Attack", "Jake Meets the Na'vi" and also "The Destruction of Hometree" with that dramatic danger motif.

[Mr. Who 919]

Theres a good interview where Franglen talks about the creation of the songcord and the Payakan theme. He studied whales if I remember correctly for the latter.

 

There is definitively some re used tracked material but I’m not sure how often it was re recorded or not. Often it segues nicely into new cues. The destruction of Home Tree except after The Hunt definitively felt tracked. So did the flute cue (from 3m2 from the first score) but it’s used multiple times so might have been re-recorded once and tracked in other scenes I guess.

[Jurassic Shark 12,024]

Just now, Mr. Who said:

He studied whales if I remember correctly for the latter.

 

Like in googling "whales" and then watching the first Youtube video on the list?

[Mr. Who 919]

3 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Like in googling "whales" and then watching the first Youtube video on the list?

Whale song

Might have been this interview:

 

[Knight of Ren 785]

49 minutes ago, Mr. Who said:

There is definitively some re used tracked material but I’m not sure how often it was re recorded or not. Often it segues nicely into new cues. The destruction of Home Tree except after The Hunt definitively felt tracked. So did the flute cue (from 3m2 from the first score) but it’s used multiple times so might have been re-recorded once and tracked in other scenes I guess.

Yeah, perhaps some cues were re-recorded, but others to me sounded like they were tracked from the first one. For example, the reprise of material from "Fight to the Death" that appears in "World Upside Down" is re-recorded and re-arranged for that new cue, but as you mention, the Destruction of Hometree feels tracked in.

 

I just finished listening to the expanded album, and I think there are only three or four cues worth having from that release, especially Sanctuary and the Songchord variations. The rest feel a bit underwhelming or redundant (like Train Attack that is mostly made out of material that already appears in Na'vi Attack). This time around I noticed a trumpet theme that I think is for Quaritch, that gets prominent development during the end of "Eclipse" and through "Bad Parents" and "Knife Fight". Apart from that, I haven't noticed any other particular motifs for the military, but I'm sure there are a couple more, apart from the overall style of their cues, so if anyone has figured it out and can point them out with some timestamps I would appreciate it a lot.

 

I also noticed more prominently the Payakan theme and it works great when it appears in choral, heroic mode in action cues, like at 0:48 of "Na'vi Attack" or at the end of "A Farewell to Arm".

[Mr. Who 919]

I split the RDA material into 3 sections: The ascending line, The horn response and a harmonic progression. they all appear in A New Star. I can try to check timestamps later.

[DangerMotif 1,037]

1 hr and 41 minutes isn’t exactly an extended score for a 3hr film. I wish they would have released everything if they where gonna do that. Credit to Bear McCreary for actually releasing everything 

[Jay 37,281]

The episodic LOTR albums are not actually fully complete, but yea I agree with the spirit of what you're saying

[mstrox 6,643]

Yeah, they had an opportunity here to appease both OST lovers/normies and also C&C nuts and they blew it pretty spectacularly.  

[Jay 37,281]

What?  It's no where close to "spectacularly", at all!  There's only few short passages from a few episodes unreleased.

[mstrox 6,643]

 

4 minutes ago, Jay said:

What?  It's no where close to "spectacularly", at all!  There's only few short passages from a few episodes unreleased.

 

Sorry, I was talking about the Avatar 2 release!

[Taikomochi 1,136]

I am honestly glad the Horner re-recordings are not heavily present on either album. They are very awkwardly inserted into the score and would greatly disrupt the flow of the album. That said, there is obviously more material than that which was left off the expanded album, which is unfortunate. 

[Jay 37,281]

10 minutes ago, mstrox said:

 

 

Sorry, I was talking about the Avatar 2 release!

 

Ohhhhhhhhh

[midgemania 54]

20 minutes ago, Taikomochi said:

I am honestly glad the Horner re-recordings are not heavily present on either album. They are very awkwardly inserted into the score and would greatly disrupt the flow of the album. 

I’d need to listen with more faithfulness in order to compare, but having listened to the soundtracks before seeing the movie, I wonder whether the score in the film suffers from bad music editing, including the awkward additions of material from the first film. Cameron obviously has a reputation for doing that, and there are a number of cues from the A2 soundtrack that do not appear in the movie, assuming the chronology is in fact intact.

[Taikomochi 1,136]

It’s difficult to say, though the one re-recording that made it into “World Upside Down” is quite awkward. That couldn’t just be the result of music editing. 

[Jurassic Shark 12,024]

42 minutes ago, mstrox said:

 

 

Sorry, I was talking about the Avatar 2 release!

 

That was clear.

[midgemania 54]

25 minutes ago, Taikomochi said:

It’s difficult to say, though the one re-recording that made it into “World Upside Down” is quite awkward. That couldn’t just be the result of music editing. 

I must say that doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the way that Destruction of Hometree was just glued onto the end of The Tulkun Hunt. I rather like World Upside Down - that was the kind of Horner nod I was hoping for from the score, and it makes dramatic sense 

[Mr. Who 919]

9 minutes ago, midgemania said:

I must say that doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the way that Destruction of Hometree was just glued onto the end of The Tulkun Hunt. I rather like World Upside Down - that was the kind of Horner nod I was hoping for from the score, and it makes dramatic sense 

I generally don’t mind the tracking and thought that it worked most of the time and often the reusing of stuff from A1 was incorporated into the score. I do hope though that there’s less of this in the third movie.
 

The destruction of Hometree did stand out a bit because they could have easily rearranged it so that it wasn’t so obviously from the first score. It does kind of make thematic sense to use it there but the version used was too similar or even identical.

 

 

[filmmusic 1,823]

An IFCMA member, Daniel Schweiger, picks this up among the best scores of the year....

https://filmmusicinstitute.com/the-best-scores-of-2022

 

Quote

Evolving from a synthesist on the likes of “New Jack City” and “Grand Canyon” to his first, fateful arranging teaming with James Horner on 1991’s “Fievel Goes West,” Simon Franglen has been an indispensable part of realizing that iconic composer’s sound, a collaboration that grew to Franglen playing, programming and eventually fully taking over the mantle to finish Horner’s posthumous “The Magnificent Seven.” Having Impressed with scores since for “Peppermint” and “Notre Dame on Fire,” Franglen now returns to Pandora to taps into the departed Horner within Eywa and to fantastically coming into his musical own in Hollywood blockbuster land. Employing just a bit of Horner’s previous themes, it’s really the spirit of what that composer established for James Cameron’s planet that flows through this soundtrack, the vibrant branches of what Horner established sprouting with Franglen’s own unique eco-friendly soul. Weaving a sense of bold, enchanted wonder with his seamless use of electronics, tribal rhythm and an epic orchestra packed with brass nobility, operatic chorus and lush strings, Franglen builds a ravishing new world for us to be melodically joined with, while also delivering dynamic action sequences whose construction never gets lost in the “busy music” jungle. Like Cameron’s approach, the reason Franglen’s score works so well is because the true, old school spirit behind it is driven by raw emotion, a feeling for imperiled space whales and blue-green cat people that centers the score, whether it’s being washed over us with spiritual electronics or blasting the evil sky people with triumphant fanfares. And given the entrancing song “The Way of Water” (co-written with The Weeknd and Swedish House Mafia), Franglen certainly has Horner’s way with a tune. One thing I can be sure of is that Jedi Master is smiling down on his Padawan, who’s spectacularly carried on a legacy with a big, unabashed demonstration of the vitality that a full-blast symphony plays in sweeping audiences away to into the grand cinematic sci-fi experience, all while losing none of great score’s ability to singularly touch the human heart.

 

[Edmilson 7,384]

2 hours ago, midgemania said:

I wonder whether the score in the film suffers from bad music editing, including the awkward additions of material

Every Horner score for Cameron suffers from bad editing and awkward additions of material from somewhere else. The climax in Avatar has some truly atrocious tracking.

[crocodile 7,982]

I like this score actually, it's definitely better than expected. Some of it does remind me of JNH, oddly.

 

Karol

[Knight of Ren 785]

9 hours ago, Mr. Who said:

I split the RDA material into 3 sections: The ascending line, The horn response and a harmonic progression. they all appear in A New Star. I can try to check timestamps later.

If you can share thse timestamps it would definitely make it easier to identify, since I'm having trouble to differentiate them in the cues. Thanks in advance!

 

3 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Every Horner score for Cameron suffers from bad editing and awkward additions of material from somewhere else. The climax in Avatar has some truly atrocious tracking.

Yeah, when I rewatched the first movie Cameron's awful editing was pretty noticeable in the War sequence, especially when I realized one of my favorite parts of the track were replaced by material tracked from Quaritch Down, which doesn't make a lot of sense, because it plays like 5 minutes later in the film. I'm referring to this part:

 

[Thor 7,462]

Fairly easy to make a playlist out of this one, as it was just a matter of deleting tracks rather than re-shuffling them (which is often the case). So I ended up with this 45-minute AVATAR 2 "album" which will suit my need just fine (might consider removing "Na'vi Attack" too at some point to make the perfect concept album, but for now I thought it was good to have at least one action track included):

 

 

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

22 hours ago, midgemania said:

I must say that doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the way that Destruction of Hometree was just glued onto the end of The Tulkun Hunt. I rather like World Upside Down - that was the kind of Horner nod I was hoping for from the score, and it makes dramatic sense 

ah so the danger motif after the whale is killed is a Horner track. Felt like it.

 

 Anyone planning to do a full thematic breakdown? Might help with parsing the score. I had a slightly meh reaction to the score in the movie, save for one theme which I don’t know what it represents. But I am willing to re-engage with the score with more understanding.

[Jay 37,281]

1 minute ago, TheUlyssesian said:

 Anyone planning to do a full thematic breakdown?

 

On 18/12/2022 at 4:51 AM, Benhip said:

I spotted 3 major themes :

- the Family theme, which is the most frequent. You can hear it in the second half of « The Spirit Tree », from 1:30 to the end of the cue.

- the sub-water theme (maybe someone has another title), in my opinion the best leitmotiv of the soundtrack, but a bit underused. It is the first theme you can hear in the score, at 0:30 in « Into the Water », and Franglen explores it in « The Way of Water.

- the last one is, in my opinion, more a motif than a theme. It is an three-notes motif linked to Payakan, and it can be heard in the eponyme track.

- there is also a electronic motif which appears each time we see an arrow on screen. An exemple is 4:06 in »Rescue and Loss.

 

[Taikomochi 1,136]

There is a theme that I think is for Quaritch that appears prominently in the second half of Eclipse, in Bad Parents, and in Knife Fight. I think there might be some subtle iterations in the earlier action tracks. 
 

There is a theme that (maybe?) represents the kids in the first half of Eclipse and on solo vocal in Family. 
 

I don’t think those are any of the themes mentioned above but could be wrong. 

[D_A_R_T_H 24]

All available tracks 

1. Leaving home (Hometree)
2. Songcord Opening
3. Happiness Is Simple
4. A New Star
5. Train Attack
6. Masks Off
7. Converging Paths
8. Rescue and Loss
9. Family Is Our Fortress
10. Sanctuary
11. Into the Water
12. Training Montage
13. The Way of Water
14. Where the Men Hunt
15. Payakan
16. Mighty Eywa
17. Friends
18. Cove of the Ancestors
19. The Tulkun Return
20. The Hunt
21. Kids in Peril
22. Na’vi Attack
23. A Farewell to Arm
24. Eclipse
25. Bad Parents
26. Knife Fight
27. World Upside Down
28. From Darkness to Light
29. Family
30. Songcord Chapter
31. The Spirit Tree
32. Nothing is Lost - the Weeknd 
33. The Songcord – Zoë Saldana

[CrimsonRain96 11]

11 minutes ago, D_A_R_T_H said:

1. Leaving home (Hometree)
2. Songcord Opening
3. Happiness Is Simple
4. A New Star
5. Train Attack
6. Masks Off
7. Converging Paths
8. Rescue and Loss
9. Family Is Our Fortress
10. Sanctuary
11. Into the Water
12. Training Montage
13. The Way of Water
14. Where the Men Hunt
15. Payakan
16. Mighty Eywa
17. Friends
18. Cove of the Ancestors
19. The Tulkun Return
20. The Hunt
21. Kids in Peril
22. Na’vi Attack
23. A Farewell to Arm
24. Eclipse
25. Bad Parents
26. Knife Fight
27. World Upside Down
28. From Darkness to Light
29. Family
30. Songcord Chapter
31. The Spirit Tree
32. Nothing is Lost - the Weeknd 
33. The Songcord – Zoë Saldana

So that’s where “The Songcord” is supposed to go………(after “Nothing is Lost”, I mean.)

[Jay 37,281]

5 minutes ago, CrimsonRain96 said:

So that’s where “The Songcord” is supposed to go………(after “Nothing is Lost”, I mean.)

 

On 19/12/2022 at 1:35 PM, Mr. Who said:

The Weeknd song which starts with the Family theme navi chorus is part 1 of the end credits (after the spirit tree). Then the Songcord plays later in the end credits. Versions of the songcord also play early in the movie and at the end (before spirit tree I think) and both those versions are on the extended album.

 

[Edmilson 7,384]

5 hours ago, Thor said:

Fairly easy to make a playlist out of this one, as it was just a matter of deleting tracks rather than re-shuffling them (which is often the case). So I ended up with this 45-minute AVATAR 2 "album" which will suit my need just fine (might consider removing "Na'vi Attack" too at some point to make the perfect concept album, but for now I thought it was good to have at least one action track included):

 

 

You left out the very best track on the album, Leaving Home (aka The Hometree), and also Sanctuary. Not a fan of Franglen's new family theme? For me, these two tracks are the ones I'll certainly return to the most.

[Jay 37,281]

Leave it to Thor to create a "concept album" that doesn't even include the concert arrangement the composer wrote directly for album use...

[Mr. Who 919]

What does concept album really mean? A collection of cues that aren't action music or just a short album?

[Thor 7,462]

12 minutes ago, Mr. Who said:

What does concept album really mean? A collection of cues that aren't action music or just a short album?

 

Tied together as one conceptual piece or theme. In this case, my idea was to make it pretty close to an ethnic, New Age-type album, much in same style as Enigma, Vangelis' OCEANIC or 1492, that type of stuff. But obviously, to suggest some other elements as well, like the action music -- more like 'sprinkles' of energy for variety. However, since Franglen's action music was so lacking, it can be more detracting from that concept than add to it. Chugging ostinati and epic choirs aren't intrinsically tied to that. So I haven't yet made up my mind if I want to retain the "Na'vi Attack" cue. Also important that it doesn't wear out its welcome. 45 minutes is right there in the "Goldilocks zone" for a single sitting.

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

Getting Morricone's Nostromo vibes in the b section of Leaving Home at 1:52

 

2:57

 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Isn't making a playlist that undermines the composer's Intentions (or whatever) against Thor's religion?