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      CommentAuthorSouthall
    • CommentTimeJan 19th 2014 edited
    Demetris wrote
    Btw, we've heard it before:

    but, still, this is AWESOME! punk
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvxvC0SLiCM


    He's announced his retirement?

    (JOKE!)
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      CommentAuthorDemetris
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2014
    Interesting HOLLYWOOD REPORTER:

    Composers round table interview, with Hans Zimmer (12 Years a Slave, Rush), Christophe Peck (Frozen), Henry Jackman (Captain Phillips), Thomas Newman (Saving Mr. Banks), Steven Price (Gravity) and Alan Silvestri (The Croods) join our roundtable to discuss the music in their movies.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1PcGSnFlUw
    Love Maintitles. It's full of Wanders.
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2014
    Yeah, I caught that when it came out some months ago. Great, as the THR roundtables always are, although the questions aren't the best. The best thing is seeing the composers interact on their own.
    I am extremely serious.
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2014
    Southall wrote
    He's announced his retirement?


    I'd not looked at the Zimmer thread for some time, so saw this as a brand new post and for just a zillionth of a second I felt a huge elation love

    Southall wrote
    (JOKE!)


    ...followed a zillionth of a second later by slant
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2014
    Your hatred of his music is THAT strong, eh?
    I am extremely serious.
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2014
    Thor wrote
    Your hatred of his music is THAT strong, eh?


    You're forcing me to be serious now Thunderer. wink

    I like quite a fair bit of Zimmer but I do wish he'd go away for awhile. I think maybe more accurately I wish his prevailing style would go away.
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
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      CommentAuthorSouthall
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2014
    I don't hate Zimmer or his music. I just don't want to hear the whole "one size fits all" approach permeate pretty much everything, as it has. I fear now that even if he did go away, that wouldn't.
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2014
    yeah Said better than I could.
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2014
    Timmer wrote
    Thor wrote
    Your hatred of his music is THAT strong, eh?


    You're forcing me to be serious now Thunderer. wink

    I like quite a fair bit of Zimmer but I do wish he'd go away for awhile. I think maybe more accurately I wish his prevailing style would go away.


    You know I take my film music interest VERY seriously! smile
    I am extremely serious.
  1. Southall wrote
    I don't hate Zimmer or his music. I just don't want to hear the whole "one size fits all" approach permeate pretty much everything, as it has. I fear now that even if he did go away, that wouldn't.


    I don't think, however, that the one size fits all approach is his fault whatsoever. He himself is very perplexed about it. And actually, this is the reason of his recent failures. He is so obsessed with reinvention (and has been since the 90s even) that he doesn't notice his failures both in terms of the reinvention he wants to achieve (because wherever his big idea doesn't fit, he reuses old patterns) and in terms of basic functionality (more than a couple of blunders in recent times) as film music.
    http://www.filmmusic.pl - Polish Film Music Review Website
  2. It's not his fault, but like it or not, he's the cause of it and he needs to shoulder the responsibility that that entails. I mean, you hear strains of practically every major Zimmer score bleed through into the film music of the next five years or so. The power anthems post-Crimson Tide. The wailing woman post-Gladiator. The pseudo-swashbuckle post-Pirates of the Caribbean. The endless ostinati and aversion to outright heroics post-Batman Begins. The horns of doom post-Inception. And now the drums post-Man of Steel, if the samples for that Junkie XL 300 score are anything to go by.

    If Zimmer really wanted to change things, then what he should do is tell his various assistants and additional composers to have a bit more artistic integrity once they set out on their own "solo" careers. The really damaging thing is, I think, the lack of ambition on the part of composers like Steve Jablonsky (who I still think is very talented but who seems to have no backbone whatsoever) to stand up to the directors and producers and say "no, I'm not going to follow your temp-track." The fear of hearing the answer "then I'll find someone who will" is, I think, still too great, but if Zimmer were to encourage everyone in RC to do that, then maybe things would be different. I don't know.
  3. Well, the "I'll find someone who will" is so real a fear, because there is half of the city who they battle with for assignments. I can't tell how and why I know that, but I know for a fact that he looks for people with distinct styles to join RCP. It's not supposed by principle to be just a repetition of the sound. I think the more damaging thing here is that they do the additionals for the Big Man himself, which means that they can't really showcase their own separate styles and on that basis they are thought to be the Zimmer-lite of the film scoring community.

    Then again, when Hans kickstarts a career he is quite careful to give away projects that actually feel what he deems to be the composers' separate styles. This is how Powell got AntZ, Chicken Run and Shrek 1 with HGW for example. I think it can be safely assessed that if a project isn't by personal connections (the collaboration between a particular director and composer, for example), all the assignments get through him, in quite a few cases he's actually himself asked first.
    http://www.filmmusic.pl - Polish Film Music Review Website
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      CommentAuthorSouthall
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2014
    I thought to be honest that the "one size fits all" was the whole point of Remote Control. You want a score that sounds a certain way, you want it cheap and you want it quickly, that's where you go. It doesn't matter who the designated composer is, you know what you're getting. Honestly, that was I thought the whole business model and the whole reason for success. McDonald's isn't the most successful restaurant in the world because it's the best, it's because it tastes the same everywhere, and is cheap. That's the thing. (I don't mean it as an insult, by the way - it's market forces at work.)
  4. That's certainly become the end result of RCP but I don't think it's what Zimmer was/is trying to accomplish, necessarily. If that were the case, then we wouldn't be able to talk about the success stories of John Powell and (to a lesser degree) Harry Gregson-Williams. I think Zimmer just likes to surround himself with talented composers and likes the idea of giving them a leg up into the industry...it's just that the cost of that "leg up" seems to have become a diminishment of whatever individual style those composers brought to the table in the first place. And it's the producers who make it that way, not Zimmer.
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      CommentAuthorSouthall
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2014
    But someone like Powell only really started sounding like himself after he left and went out his own way. While he was there, he was one of the cogs in a much bigger wheel.
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      CommentAuthorDemetris
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2014 edited
    Southall wrote
    But someone like Powell only really started sounding like himself after he left and went out his own way. While he was there, he was one of the cogs in a much bigger wheel.


    Exactly. This is the case with everyone that left RC. But did you notice how the frequency and budget of their projects gradually falls after they left RC? Better music though.

    Don't tell me he urges his composers creative juices to flow within RC 'cause one within RC they are there to emulate the big man. Only when they leave they depart from the trademarked RC sound and music signature. Some succeed, others don't.

    I like the big man, i really do.

    I don't like his army output though, with few exceptions.

    I wish the rest of the film music didn't follow him everytime he set a new sound though. It's getting tiring. Edmund above set this example perfectly:

    Edmund Meinerts wrote
    It's not his fault, but like it or not, he's the cause of it and he needs to shoulder the responsibility that that entails. I mean, you hear strains of practically every major Zimmer score bleed through into the film music of the next five years or so. The power anthems post-Crimson Tide. The wailing woman post-Gladiator. The pseudo-swashbuckle post-Pirates of the Caribbean. The endless ostinati and aversion to outright heroics post-Batman Begins. The horns of doom post-Inception. And now the drums post-Man of Steel, if the samples for that Junkie XL 300 score are anything to go by.


    But as i said, when you look individually at his projects, i really like Z.
    Love Maintitles. It's full of Wanders.
  5. Southall wrote
    But someone like Powell only really started sounding like himself after he left and went out his own way. While he was there, he was one of the cogs in a much bigger wheel.


    That's not true. When Powell co-wrote Shrek, AntZ and Chicken Run, when he did Endurance (could be argued it's as far from RCP as it can get) and I Am Sam, I think as far as the first Bourne score, he was still in Media Ventures. Being in Media Ventures Harry Gregson-Williams scored projects such as The Magic of Marciano, Spy Game (which could be regarded as a first full-on HGW score stylistically), co-wrote AntZ, Shrek and Chicken Run (a massively controversial move by Zimmer, BTW, he got the original composer fired because Nott didn't agree for MV-based assistants working on it), wrote The Borrowers as part of Media Ventures.

    Some composers are based in RCP and do their own stuff without referencing Zimmer at all at moments, there are Zanelli scores like House of D, there is Jim Dooley who is on the edge of being indie (but still RCP-based)... It's not that simple. The only pure MV score Powell wrote was Face/Off and even there you can find hints of what would become his distinct style.
    http://www.filmmusic.pl - Polish Film Music Review Website
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2014
    Edmund Meinerts wrote
    It's not his fault, but like it or not, he's the cause of it and he needs to shoulder the responsibility that that entails.


    If you phrase it like that, you imply that it's a big problem. I do not share that assessment. I'm perfectly aware that there's a TREND going on, of course (and I've even given lectures about it), but trends come and go. I'm not worried about that. Plus, there's so much versatility if you look outside the relative small niche of Hollywood action films (and even within it), it doesn't amount to THAT much when all is said and done.
    I am extremely serious.
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      CommentAuthorDemetris
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2014 edited
    Thor wrote
    Edmund Meinerts wrote
    It's not his fault, but like it or not, he's the cause of it and he needs to shoulder the responsibility that that entails.


    If you phrase it like that, you imply that it's a big problem. I do not share that assessment. I'm perfectly aware that there's a TREND going on, of course (and I've even given lectures about it), but trends come and go. I'm not worried about that. Plus, there's so much versatility if you look outside the relative small niche of Hollywood action films (and even within it), it doesn't amount to THAT much when all is said and done.


    Yes, but don't you agree that this trend coming from 1990 still strong is a bit too far-stretched over the course of 24 years already? And to have in mind that film music is very young in general.
    Love Maintitles. It's full of Wanders.
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      CommentAuthorDemetris
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2014
    PawelStroinski wrote
    Southall wrote
    But someone like Powell only really started sounding like himself after he left and went out his own way. While he was there, he was one of the cogs in a much bigger wheel.


    That's not true. When Powell co-wrote Shrek, AntZ and Chicken Run, when he did Endurance (could be argued it's as far from RCP as it can get) and I Am Sam, I think as far as the first Bourne score, he was still in Media Ventures. Being in Media Ventures Harry Gregson-Williams scored projects such as The Magic of Marciano, Spy Game (which could be regarded as a first full-on HGW score stylistically), co-wrote AntZ, Shrek and Chicken Run (a massively controversial move by Zimmer, BTW, he got the original composer fired because Nott didn't agree for MV-based assistants working on it), wrote The Borrowers as part of Media Ventures.

    Some composers are based in RCP and do their own stuff without referencing Zimmer at all at moments, there are Zanelli scores like House of D, there is Jim Dooley who is on the edge of being indie (but still RCP-based)... It's not that simple. The only pure MV score Powell wrote was Face/Off and even there you can find hints of what would become his distinct style.


    Powell and HGW wrote their best material (by far) outside RC.
    Love Maintitles. It's full of Wanders.
  6. But the thing about this particular "trend" is that it's far, far more pervasive than any other has been in the history of action film music, as far as I'm aware. I mean, sure...there are certain scores written back in the 80s that are expressly trying to emulate (and nothing more) the Williams/Star Wars sound like Masters of the Universe or The Last Starfighter. But with the concurrent rise of alternative approaches like those of Horner and Poledouris, later Elfman and Zimmer, and the continuing prolific output of Goldsmith, there was never anything like the monopoly that the RCP sound currently holds. Who is there, at the moment, who can even come close to Zimmer in terms of lasting, trend-setting influence? Where is his counterweight?

    I'm talking about the big-budget Hollywood stuff with the above; diversity continues to flourish in smaller settings and abroad. But for me, the fact of the matter is that I'll always be most invested in the Hollywood scene and I don't like to see it homogenized to the extent that it has been.

    I do enjoy a lot of RCP-styled scores, I think they have their place and I don't want the sound to go away entirely. But a bit of freshness would go a long, long way.
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      CommentAuthorSouthall
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2014 edited
    PawelStroinski wrote
    Southall wrote
    But someone like Powell only really started sounding like himself after he left and went out his own way. While he was there, he was one of the cogs in a much bigger wheel.


    That's not true. When Powell co-wrote Shrek, AntZ and Chicken Run, when he did Endurance (could be argued it's as far from RCP as it can get) and I Am Sam, I think as far as the first Bourne score, he was still in Media Ventures.


    In that case I stand corrected, if Bourne was when he was still there. (I'd still argue that that's the only exception. The animated scores you mention are very consistent with all the other animated scores written by Team Zimmer at the time.)
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2014
    Demetris wrote
    Yes, but don't you agree that this trend coming from 1990 still strong is a bit too far-stretched over the course of 24 years already? And to have in mind that film music is very young in general.


    I would argue that the trend of the power anthem (from BLACK RAIN onwards) is different from the ostinato approach (from BOURNE IDENTIY onwards). But no, I'm not really worried. As I said, we're just talking about one part of the overall scene, and trends come and go; or develop over the years.
    I am extremely serious.
  7. But that's the thing; this trend isn't going!
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2014
    Not yet, but it's developping.

    Incidentally, I actually think there are some GOOD scores inside that trend too.
    I am extremely serious.
  8. A couple of new reviews, including the cool Days of Thunder

    - Days of Thunder
    - Mission: Impossible 2
    - Point of no Return
    - Younger & Younger

    Enjoy
    waaaaaahhhhhhhh!!! Where's my nut? arrrghhhhhhh
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      CommentAuthorSteven
    • CommentTimeFeb 18th 2014
    It doesn't get any faster than this. Well for Cruise's career, Days of Thunder came just at the right time. He was the hottest young actor in town and for director Tony Scott the right man to lead a NASCAR race into movie making history. Days of Thunder turned out to be another successful motion picture experience, having the right amount of action, romance, testosterone and humor to perfectly fill your evening. And the same could be said about the music of Hans Zimmer.


    Um... did you see the film? uhm
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeFeb 18th 2014
    I'd certainly like to hear your review of the film Steven. biggrin
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
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      CommentAuthorlp
    • CommentTimeFeb 19th 2014
    Steven wrote
    It doesn't get any faster than this. Well for Cruise's career, Days of Thunder came just at the right time. He was the hottest young actor in town and for director Tony Scott the right man to lead a NASCAR race into movie making history. Days of Thunder turned out to be another successful motion picture experience, having the right amount of action, romance, testosterone and humor to perfectly fill your evening. And the same could be said about the music of Hans Zimmer.


    Um... did you see the film? uhm


    It's a guilty pleasure that I'd indulge in anytime. FWIW, Days of Thunder was a very influential movie for Nascar.
    • CommentAuthorLars
    • CommentTimeFeb 19th 2014
    i also like the movie Days Of Thuner and the main reason is zimmers score. his music fits all the things, thomas said about the movie, perfectly. when the simpson/bruckheimer logo comes up and then the first picture of the movie with the sunrise over the racing track together with zimmers main theme, i knew immediately, this will be a great evening with a great movie.

    i also agree with the Mission: Impossible 2 review. maybe it's not the "typical" Mission: Impossible score, but it's a unique score for a Mission: Impossible movie. and most important it's the perfect score for THIS Mission: Impossible. the music fits perfectly to woos visual style, his direction of action scenes and also to the romantic parts. maybe a lil bit over the top, but very concise and sustainable. when you read the tracklist you already know the scene and how the music sounds in this. also without reading the tracklist you know exactly which scene it is. zimmers music has simply a big impact in every scene. i can't tell that about the other Mission: Impossible scores, although they are maybe on a better technical level (i'm pretty sure they are).