Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Score in the film) - SPOILERS ALLOWED!

[Joni Wiljami 1,206]

Just saw the film. Wonderful score. If this was Johnny's last one, thank you for all the music Sir. Love you. 

[crumbs 14,317]

As a diehard JW fan, the temp track love made the experience frustrating. Direct lifts from Minority Report, War of the Worlds, Tintin, and all 4 previous Indy films. I spent most of the film catching myself asking "where was that 3 second lift taken from?"

 

I don't blame JW in the slightest, of course. These are immensely complex and time-consuming scores. The fact we still got nearly 2 hours of original score isn't lost on me. If that meant lifting a few bars from other scores, so be it. At the end of the day, Helena's Theme is the hero of the score and it shines the brightest. It's surrounded by a plethora of kickass and totally original music; I just wish the lifts weren't as blatant.

 

Either way, much like the film, it's a melancholic affair. Knowing this is likely JW's final foray in film scoring. An overwhelming sense of sadness hit me during the credits, just sitting in a near-empty cinema wondering if this was the final time I'd ever hear new JW music in a theater. The film felt like closing a chapter in my life... and if that's the way JW goes out, then what a way to go.

[King Mark 3,631]

maybe the Dial theme that ends the credits is really JW's Farewell theme

[crumbs 14,317]

15 minutes ago, King Mark said:

maybe the Dial theme that ends the credits is really JW's Farewell theme

 

His "farewell" is omitting all the wonderful music you want from his OST, specifically because he knows it annoys you.

[King Mark 3,631]

What about the "final action sequence" and Finale of the film before the credits Is there lots of unreleased music?

[Damien F 1,742]

13 minutes ago, King Mark said:

What about the "final action sequence" and Finale of the film before the credits Is there lots of unreleased music?

 

The finale before the credits is just like New York, 1969 with the Indy theme suddenly appearing. There probably is some microediting of the final action sequence (which is really Battle of Syracuse and continuing into Centuries Join Hands) but would need to go through scene by scene to figure out what is missing. Nothing as glaringly obvious as Lando Arrives.

[crumbs 14,317]

I think it's just heavily microedited on the album. The film has big lifts from WOTW, KOCS and TOD in this section and they're totally missing on the album, so maybe one of the cues was left off as well.

 

Almost the entirety of New York's cues being missing is the major bummer. The parade music is awesome and unique, plus Helena's Theme is established throughout this act as well. The Minority Report lifts are pretty obvious but it eventually transitions into fun riffs on Helena's theme.

[King Mark 3,631]

Well I remember when people first saw Revenge of the Sith they were saying "no major cues or highlights were left off the OST"

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

1 hour ago, crumbs said:

 

His "farewell" is omitting all the wonderful music you want from his OST, specifically because he knows it annoys you.

His final "gift" to King Mark

[Damien F 1,742]

There is a brief statement of Indy's theme in the Battle of Syracuse in the film that has been microedited out of the album.

 

I think the film also has more statements of that rhythmic thumping that permeates much of the Battle of Syracuse track.

 

I listened to my audio again. In the movie, there is almost exactly 5 minutes between the music at the start of the Battle track and the music at the end of the track. There is about 10 - 20 seconds of those 5 minutes with no score. The track is 2:50 on the album so that leaves roughly 2 minutes that have been microedited out including that statement of Indy's theme.

 

I can remember three statements of Indy's theme in action scenes that were omitted from the album. That one from the Battle and then two statements in the tuk tuk chase scene.

[crocodile 8,017]

Interesting, Williams gets a sole orchestrating credit in the end credits.

 

Karol

[Edmilson 7,466]

And what about the movie's prologue? Didn't Mangold said that the prologue would take about 20 minutes of movie? How much of it is unreleased? Is the only track representing that part of the movie just Germany, 1944? Since that track is less than 5 minutes long, so are there about 10-15 minutes of unreleased action material from the prologue?

[Damien F 1,742]

1 minute ago, Edmilson said:

And what about the movie's prologue? Didn't Mangold said that the prologue would take about 20 minutes of movie? How much of it is unreleased? Is the only track representing that part of the movie just Germany, 1944? Since that track is less than 5 minutes long, so are there about 10-15 minutes of unreleased action material from the prologue?

 

Yeah, the 1944 prologue is 20 minutes long. It isn't wall to wall action, there are some quieter moments interspersed between the action for dialog / suspense moments. A lot of the actual action music is repurposed TLC music but there is also some new action cues too especially towards the end of the sequence.

[Brónach 1,302]

then they reaaaallly should have put on the album prologue cues that aren't this one

[artguy360 1,843]

Listening to the soundtrack a 3rd time thru, it has some faults, and I wish Indy's theme featured more, but it does not sound like a copy and paste score to me. The callbacks are fun, and the brief snippets of lifts don't bother me. The soundtrack has plenty of original themes and Helena's theme really shines throughout.

[TheUlyssesian 2,478]

26 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

And what about the movie's prologue? Didn't Mangold said that the prologue would take about 20 minutes of movie? How much of it is unreleased? Is the only track representing that part of the movie just Germany, 1944? Since that track is less than 5 minutes long, so are there about 10-15 minutes of unreleased action material from the prologue?

 

I think Prolog 1:07 onwards is in the film. Maybe though not all of it.

[crocodile 8,017]

29 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

And what about the movie's prologue? Didn't Mangold said that the prologue would take about 20 minutes of movie? How much of it is unreleased? Is the only track representing that part of the movie just Germany, 1944? Since that track is less than 5 minutes long, so are there about 10-15 minutes of unreleased action material from the prologue?

It's just a small segment of the long sequence. The new music and old quotes are weaved together throughout the whole thing.

 

Karol

[Damien F 1,742]

I listened to the movie audio again from the 20 minute 1944 segment. The music can fall into these categories:

 - No score (this is rare)

 - Suspense music

 - Copy and paste TLC action music

 - New action cues

 

A majority of the first 15 minute or so is mostly suspense and TLC music. There are occasional spurts of original action stuff here but it is difficult to nail down because it can be like long suspense music, then a flurry of action for a few seconds, then back to suspense again.

 

The remaining 4 / 5 minutes or so definitely has the most of the original action music that's not from TLC. This has been microedited into oblivion in the 'Germany, 1944' track but at least some of it remains on the album.

 

I'm looking forward to Jay's inevitable spreadsheet breakdown of that sequence because it sounds very messy (I don't have the time to do it myself).

[JNHFan2000 2,966]

Just saw the film!!!

Can't wait to listen to the album now.

 

I do feel some great stuff is missing.

 

But what we have is brilliant nontheless.

[TheUlyssesian 2,478]

1 hour ago, Damien F said:

I listened to the movie audio again from the 20 minute 1944 segment. The music can fall into these categories:

 - No score (this is rare)

 - Suspense music

 - Copy and paste TLC action music

 - New action cues

 

A majority of the first 15 minute or so is mostly suspense and TLC music. There are occasional spurts of original action stuff here but it is difficult to nail down because it can be like long suspense music, then a flurry of action for a few seconds, then back to suspense again.

 

The remaining 4 / 5 minutes or so definitely has the most of the original action music that's not from TLC. This has been microedited into oblivion in the 'Germany, 1944' track but at least some of it remains on the album.

 

I'm looking forward to Jay's inevitable spreadsheet breakdown of that sequence because it sounds very messy (I don't have the time to do it myself).

 

This might line up with Mangold's statement of intent for the prolog - He said explicitly that he wanted the audience for the first 20 mins to feel as if they were watching a old Indy movie - that is why they deaged Ford and have Nazis and have the kind of action scene that were in the previous films.

 

Brining this approach to the fore in the music would then also logically mean using some of the same music from previous films.

 

So maybe that is also a reason a the music in the prolog is either tracked or lift heavy - it is the intention. It is a feature and not a bug perhaps.

[TolkienSS 407]

25 minutes ago, TheUlyssesian said:

 

Bringing this approach to the fore in the music would then also logically mean using some of the same music from previous films.

 

 

I know we need to cut Williams some slack at 91, and we don't know what Mangold wanted *in detail*, but re-recording whole sections from the 80s films doesn't pass as "creating a feel of classic Indy", it's copy-paste. 

Whether the reason is radical rescoring because of editing, or Mangold wanting this temp rehash, or Williams simply not being able to do it at 91, the result sounds lazy.

It feels like one of those 80s Superman sequels that repurpuse large portions of Williams' original.

[Coco314 16]

Quite enjoyed the movie, that, all in all, is a heartfelt final chapter, and I came much more satisfied than with Kingdom of Crystal Skull, which left me very empty.
KOCS had : an annoying sidekick, didn't play the age angle, had a boring McGuffin, an atrocious photography, forced humor (a shocker), some frankly hard to swallow WTF moments, and some ugly fake FXs that made you feel you were not there..
DOD has : a great sidekick (Phoebe Waller-Bridge is the obvious MVP), makes the age of the caracter center stage, has a McGuffin thematically connected, is well lit (save some ugly green screens, more on that later). However, it does not have the playfulness of classic Spielberg (the one he actually still showed in "Tintin" but as said, was largely absent from Indy IV), a few more than exaggerated moments to be sure, and a few less than stellar FX/too much green screen as well (I fully understand this will put completely off some people, you're warned). 

I thought the introduction worked like gangbusters (save for the de-aging, we are not quite there yet).
As for the rest, everything is not perfect for sure - there are some good character bits and some overlooked ones - some bits are really not that credible - I am not talking about the inevitable fantastical elements from an Indy finale, more some "stunts" that are not stunts - a lot of the action feels unreal - again a little like in the previous movie - when Vic Amstrong was performing incredible stuff in the 80s, it felt so "real" and raised so much the stakes - well I guess we still have Tom Cruise (that, yes, is obviously not 80 years old).
The last half hour will be divisive, but i thought it was risky and welcome move and absolutely successful with a handful of great moments (despite some ugly green screen work) 
But , all in all, a movie with a lot of rhythm, care and love. Considering all the ways the movie could have gone south after Spielberg exit, my congrats to Mangold for making a Indy film that feels part of a whole and is not an indecent extra chapter. 

And the score certainly helped in that regard.
I managed to stay away from Helena's theme for over a year, it is a winner - the versions in the movie are much more dynamic than in the wonderful concert version in the End credits. There are obvious motives for the bad guys and the Dial as well, dynamic scoring that propels the movie and yes - a few  "quotes" (all of them of the album, which I found rather surprising, actually). 
I was relieved that the Raiders march wasn't overused (it is notably absent from some map cues), to be there just at the right time and favor new material - a forte of the Indy films. In the movie, the score is very much present, front and center, incredibly dynamic and propelling, carrying all the scenes and mixed pretty high! 
Let's never forget we are so lucky to have 91 year old Williams having scored this, hard to imagine it any other way.

 

My memory is that there was some good introductory stuff from the themes early in the movie (in NY) that may be missing from the album, but nothing major I would say.

[Jay 37,369]

3 hours ago, crocodile said:

Interesting, Williams gets a sole orchestrating credit in the end credits.

 

Karol

 

No, he did not.

[Pieter Boelen 740]

Just came back from watching the movie.

It's fun! I like it.

 

The OST does a reasonable job representing the movie.

I didn't notice anything major missing.

 

On the other hand, yes there IS a lot missing.

I would've preferred more from the opening, the Tuk Tuk chase and the finale.

All of those are only partially complete.

[Damien F 1,742]

Yeah, that sums up the OST rather well.

[King Mark 3,631]

4 hours ago, Pieter Boelen said:

 

I didn't notice anything major missing.

 

On the other hand, yes there IS a lot missing.

 

 When we have Blu Ray rips to hear the unreleased music properly I'll become important ,like every other Williams score

[TheUlyssesian 2,478]

On 27/06/2023 at 1:29 PM, King Mark said:

Can anyone confirm what the end of Prologue theme is ? Dial of Destiny theme?

 

10 hours ago, King Mark said:

maybe the Dial theme that ends the credits is really JW's Farewell theme

 

I think that is Archimedes' Theme, not the Dial of Destiny theme.

 

See here -

 

 

[crocodile 8,017]

Dial theme seems to be this simple rhythmic motif that pops up every now and then. It's not a long-lined theme.

 

Karol

[iamleyeti 114]

Got to re-listen to KotCS last night and the Skull motive is really something… It's haunting the entire soundtrack, carries a lot of the tension. 

[Raiders of the SoundtrArk 2,433]

This score was so great.

Like crumbs said, there's a lot of nod to previous Williams score, the Tintin's one from Auction at Hotel l'Atlantique being an absolute highlight, the other are rather enjoyable quotes (I really like the WotW quote, which suited perfectly the movie).

Among the other quotes, I loved the rewriting in a different tonality of the nazi theme from TLC in the opening of the movie

 

Too bad there's nothing from the New York chase because the piano writing was so great

Spoiler

espacially when Indy goes down the subway

Another highlight of the score not fully present on the OST is the Airport scene with the perfect rendition of Voller's Theme and the bombastic Helena's theme rendition

 

Finally I missed a complete suite of Voller's Theme as presented in the End Credits

 

[edit: don't know if it has been mentionned but one of the source cue was written by William Ross and is quite fun]

[Damien F 1,742]

39 minutes ago, May the Force be with You said:

This score was so great.

Like crumbs said, there's a lot of nod to previous Williams score, the Tintin's one from Auction at Hotel l'Atlantique being an absolute highlight, the other are rather enjoyable quotes (I really like the WotW quote, which suited perfectly the movie).

Among the other quotes, I loved the rewriting in a different tonality of the nazi theme from TLC in the opening of the movie

 

Too bad there's nothing from the New York chase because the piano writing was so great

  Reveal hidden contents

espacially when Indy goes down the subway

Another highlight of the score not fully present on the OST is the Airport scene with the perfect rendition of Voller's Theme and the bombastic Helena's theme rendition

 

Finally I missed a complete suite of Voller's Theme as presented in the End Credits

 

[edit: don't know if it has been mentionned but one of the source cue was written by William Ross and is quite fun]

 

Do you remember exactly what was happening in the movie during the airport scene with that unreleased bombastic rendition of Helena's theme you mentioned? I'm struggling to remember such a moment from that scene that isn't on the OST.

 

If it is when

 

Spoiler

Helena chases after the plane and climbs into the landing gear

 

I'm pretty sure that is all at the end of The Airport track

[Raiders of the SoundtrArk 2,433]

I was more referring to the Voller's theme not being complete on the OST but yeah the Helena's part is fully released

[edit: actually after many listening and a second viewing everything is right there]

[Pieter Boelen 740]

10 hours ago, King Mark said:

 When we have Blu Ray rips to hear the unreleased music properly I'll become important ,like every other Williams score

Could very well be.

[King Mark 3,631]

At the end of the day, there's a lot of unreleased NEW music, while we got a 67 minute OST (13 minutes of space left on  the c.d.) , a version of Helena's Theme that belongs as a separate single  and  2 tracks with mostly re-recorded  music ,1944,Germany (TLC and RotLA) and New York,1969  (Marion's Theme and Raiders' March)

 

How could this not be disappointing in terms of OST assembly.

[Taikomochi 1,136]

It’s not disappointing because it means we have two hours of music from one of the greatest living musical minds that statistically should not exist, even if we don’t immediately have access to all of it.

[King Mark 3,631]

yeah but the same can be said of the Star Wars sequels OSTs. Williams could have retired ages ago.

 

I know it's his last score but my evaluation of the OST contents doesn't get a pass because of this and there's about 20 minutes of potential space that could have included more original contents

[Damien F 1,742]

Germany, 1944 isn't purely re-hash. There is some new material in the mix also.

 

The 13 minutes of black space is what annoys me the most. It's not like he had to make microedits to fit as many cues as possible on the CD. Why microedit Indy's theme from the tuk tuk chase and Battle of Syracuse. That's frustrating, as is the exclusion of the New York parade music.

 

BUT even if the CD was 80 minutes long with no violin version of Helena's theme, there would still be a lot of unreleased music. We've always known this.

 

I try to not let the disappointment of unreleased cues impact my enjoyment of the brand new music we do have on album, especially when I really think the OST isn't as bad as previous albums in terms of holy grails.

[Tom 4,661]

I mean the question seriously.  Would you rather have a complete, very short score, like the Fabelmans (well, nearly complete), or three times more music of a much longer, very incomplete score?  

[King Mark 3,631]

5 minutes ago, Damien F said:

 

 

BUT even if the CD was 80 minutes long with no violin version of Helena's theme, there would still be a lot of unreleased music. We've always known this.

 

  Yeah but it would still be a lot better .

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

19 hours ago, crocodile said:

Interesting, Williams gets a sole orchestrating credit in the end credits.

 

Karol

Nope? 
 

i remember the words

 

music orchestrated and conducted by

JOHN WILLIAMS • WILLIAM ROSS

 

but i could be wrong

2 minutes ago, Luke Skywalker said:

[Pieter Boelen 740]

15 minutes ago, Luke Skywalker said:

Nope? 
 

i remember the words

 

music orchestrated and conducted by

JOHN WILLIAMS • WILLIAM ROSS

 

but i could be wrong

You are not wrong.

[MrJosh 892]

I know the Minority Report bit was the Spyders music, but which bit of WotW is quoted in the film? 

[crumbs 14,317]

28 minutes ago, MrJosh said:

I know the Minority Report bit was the Spyders music, but which bit of WotW is quoted in the film? 

 

Fragments of The Ferry Scene, The Intersection Scene and Attack on the Car are all featured towards the start of Act 3.

[Pieter Boelen 740]

1 minute ago, crumbs said:

 

Fragments of The Ferry Scene, The Intersection Scene and Attack on the Car are all featured towards the start of Act 3.

I must admit the WotW did not stand out to me.

Unlike in Skull where the lift really obvious.

I prefer the Skull additional development though.

It's such a good track!

[crumbs 14,317]

7 minutes ago, Pieter Boelen said:

I must admit the WotW did not stand out to me.

Unlike in Skull where the lift really obvious.

I prefer the Skull additional development though.

It's such a good track!

 

They were brief and none made the album. 

[MrJosh 892]

The lifts from the non-Indy movies are really interesting. I wonder how that happens. I guess it could be as simple as Mangold using some of that music as the temp tracks. I can't imagine Williams going to his shelf and browsing for a few bars here and there to utilize.  

[crumbs 14,317]

3 minutes ago, MrJosh said:

The lifts from the non-Indy movies are really interesting. I wonder how that happens. I guess it could be as simple as Mangold using some of that music as the temp tracks. I can't imagine Williams going to his shelf and browsing for a few bars here and there to utilize.  

 

It's definitely as simple as that, yeah. Some things are literal copy pastes while others are rearranged to varying degrees.

 

But I actually prefer the Auction cue in DOD to the cue it's based upon (from Tintin), so it's not all bad.

[Pieter Boelen 740]

1 hour ago, crumbs said:

But I actually prefer the Auction cue in DOD to the cue it's based upon (from Tintin), so it's not all bad.

It's actually a fun piece.

The more I listen to it, the less obvious the lift becomes.

[Knight of Ren 789]

Finally watched the movie and I quite liked it a lot. I'm a defender of Crystal Skull and I would say this one is more or less on the same level, not reaching the level of the original trilogy, but still fun and entertaining and with a couple of unexpected surprises.

 

I went into the movie having managed to stay away from the soundtrack so I don't know how the presentation will be, but what stood out the most was the different uses of Helena's theme, which is the absolute star in here and it's the melodic element that shines above the rest, which I have to be honest, found a bit anonymous at parts. I think with repeated listenings of the soundtrack I will pick on the secondary ideas, but none of them was as impactful on a first watch like, for example, the Grial's theme or even the Crystal Skull theme.

 

Even so, there was some great action music during the Morocco sequence and the third act had both wonderment and action which I hope are contained on the release. William's quotes of his own material were a bit distracting but not particularly grating, and were nicely interwoven with the rest of the material. I would say the one that stood out the most in a negative way would be Tintin's the Adventure Continues during the auction sequence, because it was clearly similar, but not entirely, and my mind instantly played the original track, which made it a bit distracting.

 

Just some first thoughts. Now on to listening the album on repeat for a couple of days!

[mrbellamy 6,287]

2 hours ago, crumbs said:

 

It's definitely as simple as that, yeah. Some things are literal copy pastes while others are rearranged to varying degrees.

 

But I actually prefer the Auction cue in DOD to the cue it's based upon (from Tintin), so it's not all bad.

 

Yeah idk, definitely can't agree with that since The Adventure Continues/The Duel is one of my top favorite 2010s JW pieces, and I just kept waiting for it to differentiate itself and never did, so even though swashbuckly Williams is fun anyway I'm meh after a couple listens. Maybe the use in the movie will change my mind but it will also be hard to top the Tintin sequence as a scored piece.