STEVEN PRICE

Now I don't know what 'more musical' means, but I do know the music in PHILLIPS certainly dramatises less.

(For example, Captain Phillips himself has no theme. His opponents have a theme, the Navy have a theme, and Delta Force do -- if not a theme, certainly a sound. Meanwhile Sandra most definitely has a theme in Gravity, and it's shaped pretty well to the journey. Her opposition -- that ring of debris -- certainly does too.)

I never said it was, so I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with. I just said the GRAVITY score plays up the core drama of that film more. The CAPTAIN PHILLIPS score is more about the threat than the protagonist. This is not a criticism. That's true of many a thriller, where the protagonist often doesn't have an arc.

Where is the Horn of Doom in GRAVITY? Funnily enough, CAPTAIN PHILLIPS is absolutely riddled with it.

There is a very clear melody for Sandra Bullock's character that runs through GRAVITY. I'm a little surprised you can't hear it.

I would like to move on as well. I wonder how Hans feels when every time he comes up with a new musical sound design device for a specific concept, it's then copied ad nauseum over the next few years, and lesser composers misuse it just because they or the director thinks it sounds cool; which in retrospect can, depending on your perspective, cheapen its original use. I wonder if he feels pressure knowing he's shaping the future of film music, if he gets annoyed that everyone copies him and steals his ideas, or if he just thinks its all hilarious?

Me neither.

And let's not single out Zimmer as a composer who may feel a bit aggrieved at being copied. Although it may sound like it sometimes, most composers are not sitting around waiting for him to come up with their next idea.

Probably it's the execs who are buying up Zimmer's CDs and sending them to composers.

Maybe i wasn't clear enough; i didn't mean there are Tron parallels in Gravity; i rather meant that the trend that started with Tron, now allows (and demands) electronic, sampled and synthy sound design to be considered whole scores. Anyone who dares writes a theme will be hunt down soon.

It's not, of course. But it introduced this trend, along with Inception and the Batman scores, of heavily-relying on sound design. And whilst Tron and Batman and of course Inception, where all - to me, brilliantly executed and full of motifs, other producers / studio execs and directors see only the surface of those scores' success story. Together with their composers, either because the composers want it for quick money, or because they have this style forced down their throat, choose isolate the sound design elements and specific 'trendy' sound elements, take it out of the big picture (i..e. a previously full score, functioning and complete with themes), and build new scores wholly based on sound design, with nothing else in it.

I don't remember a recent era where a score like Gravity would get celebrated so much; i don't mind the score per se, but the success of the movie brought too much attention to it. It's definitely overrated. It's a shame that in a brilliant year for film / game / tv / docu music, where you don't really know what to choose first to make a top ten list, 'cause there's SO MUCH GOOD MUSIC around, a droney score gets all the attention.

I've always seen the 'basic' evolution as this:

Zimmer's power anthems --> THE BOURNE IDENTITY (more specifically, the "Bourne riff") --> BATMAN films --> INCEPTION --> TRON --> loads of other ostinato-driven scores (PRIEST, GRAVITY, OBLIVION, ENDER'S GAME, MAN OF STEEL etc.)

Of course, there are variations within the sound, but this is roughly the timeline I tend to give in my lectures on the evolution of Hollywood action scores in the last 20 years.

The only theme I noticed being missing was the Misty Mountains theme which, while awesome, wasn't even written by Shore anyway. It was more like a theme from the first film as a self-contained story.

Calling the entire score "themeless" is a bit of an exaggeration and risks scaring people away, don't you think?

Misty Mountains held the score together. And that score was heavily depended on leitmotifs.

As i said in shittybook: It's like someone shouted Shore in and scold him for all the memorable thematic material in the first Hobbit. "Don't you dare use leitmotifs and cheesy Misty Mountain variations again, this is 2013 Godamnit!" So, gone are the themes, in comes standard Middle Earth underscore.

I don't care about sugar-coating my words to 'not scare people away' Matt. This is the reason i was tired with maintitles the previous time and sorry, i won't do it again; if someone doesn't like what i say they're free to ignore me.

Thing is that there's so much brilliant stuff around to not showcase the weaknesses of some scores, always imo - not a fact. And since it's all subjective and not facts, everyone has ears to go and listen and judge for themselves. I don't think my words have near such a power to steer people away from the music they like.

To me, Hobbit 2 is disappointing in my books. It's made up of lots of suspense and Middle Earth underscore, and action stuff that doesn't stick to your mind.

There's so much good stuff around from smaller names, people need to get over the same and same and look to expand their horizons to younger, fresher and more energetic composers who are struggling out there and write brilliant music. Shore, Silvestri and JNH (lately), seem to be very tired with the whole game. Even Williams' latest output isn't up to his standards. But there's so much good new stuff around to choose from, i am thrilled.

I should be getting The Hobbit score in the post tomorrow, I'm trying to avoid peoples opinions and comments about it.

Definitely!

I don't have such powers my friend

I've already listened to it, but I can say I would be unswayed by Demetris' remarks.

I certainly don't agree that it's themeless, but I can understand that what themes it does have are not quite so upfront -at least on an initial listen- as the Rings Trilogy scores. I think with repeated listens the themes will become blindingly obvious, given that I already managed to pick a few out on my first listen. I still stand by my comments that I find this far more interesting than the first Hobbit score, obvious themes or not.

And D, facebook isn't shitty if you use it properly. My newsfeed is filled largely with interesting things from interesting people and interesting organisations, of which are either film music, science or philosophy related. It's amazing how much better facebook becomes when you take 'regular' people off your news feed. I have very little interest if John Smith just ate a large dinner.

You'd have thought so?