JOHN WILLIAMS

IMHO, Episode 2 is only an average score. Tracks like Jango's Escape are generic.

Duel Of The Fates was in AOTC too?!

Edit: Oh yeah, when Anakin is on that speeder bike thingy?

Yup. They should have just put it on the shelf after The Phantom Menace and never referenced it again.

-Erik-

John Williams is the new Hans Zimmer.





























as far as the denser thread in maintitles' award goes

Bah! You don't need 4 CD's of a the unedited recording sessions for Schindler's List. Zzzzzzz...

-Erik-

You need the commercial release. That's all.

-Erik-

Looking at his style lately, chances are I'll probably never buy another Williams score ever again in my life. I only got 4CD monster because the guy wanted to trade and this was the only non-MP3 thing he had. IF it had been MP3, I'd have skipped it like every other Williams bootleg. He just doesn't draw my attention anymore.

The passages mentioned above are proof positive for Return of The Jedi as being justifiable inclusion to an awesome trilogy. Though Revenge of the Sith comes close to being in there too!!

Let's throw the chronological aspect of these films out the door right now. When my little boy sees these films for the first time we will start with the classic trilogy starting with Star Wars and ending with Jedi. Then I will warn my boy the the prequel trilogy sucks... he will weight his options and if he so chooses I will show him the prequel trilogy last. This bullshit that Lucas intends on new audiences to see the films from Episode 1 to Episode 6 in order is ridiculous. What that does is completely ruins one of cinema greatest moments... "No, I am your father,"

Ok, with that out of the way I would have used The Emperors theme... and I heard rumors that The Imperial March was a last minute recording as Williams had recorded something else to go underneath that sequence in ATOC. A glorified version of The Emperor's theme would have been spectacular because what is happen on screen is all his doing.

"Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design."

Plus, we get some great close ups of the Palpatine himself with a little snicker. He is watching HIS army fly off. This has NOTHING to do with Darth Vader.

Anyway, the reason I mentioned the chronological aspect earlier is that some might say "Well, putting The Emperor's theme over a shot of Palpatine ruins the surprise in ROTS when he is revealed as the Sith Lord." Bah! We all know that Palpatine and The Emperor are the same people so get over it!

-Erik-

My theory is that he just needs to write much music in a very short time, so he simply can't just think several weeks about his concept (when to use which theme,...) anymore. John Williams doesn't get younger and the schedules are surely not less narrow than 20 years ago.

Ummm... no. That's stretching it. First of all, let me say that all of his stuff is miles ahead of anything written by any other composer during any time period. But his music in the past 10 years or so doesn't hold a candle to his absolutely brilliant work in the mid to late 70 and into the 80's. Yes, he is still in top form but the style change has meant that we are starting to see a side of Williams where he is beginning to sound the same. Lifting material from previous scores and inserting them into his new ones. That's the big thing that disappoints me about some of his more modern work. Did you hear ANY of that in his 70's and 80's work.

But I will give props to a man who is 76 years old and really has no reason to change things up and experiment but does it anyway for his own creative kicks. So, I applaud that. I'm just finding that some of his stuff is starting to sound the same and that something you wouldn't find in his music 20 to 30 years ago.

-Erik-

Interesting. I find as much variety between Geisha, Munich, War of the Worlds and Revenge of the Sith (all written in the same year!) as any other four consecutive scores in his career - a lot more than most, actually.

For whatever reason I just find it a lot easier to sit and listen to his modern scores than some - by no means all - of his "golden period" ones.

I think my wording was wrong. Yes, all four of those films all sound VERY different which is something I brought up a few years ago when discussing Williams 2005 output.

Hummm... I'm trying to find the right words to describe what I'm getting at. I mean, there have been cues written by Williams that could be interchangeable in any other score written by Williams in the past 10 years. Does that make sense. I'm not even sure if that sounds right.

I guess it's like hearing AOTC action music in the latest Indy IV samples. Would Williams have done that 20 or 30 years ago? Would he have lifted so heavily from The Lost World and inserted it into his Minority Report action music 20 to 30 years ago? Would he had shamelessly lifted passages from Far and Away and Saving Private Ryan in his "An American Journey" piece 20 or 30 years ago? I don't know if anything I've said is valid or understood but there is something about his modern music that just rubs me the wrong way... sometimes.

I'm also turned off by some of his generic action music. Action music that use to be melodic. The Asteroid Field in Empire compared to The Asteroid Field in AOTC. One is now a most requested concert piece and the other is... well, there is rally nothing special about it whatsoever. Do you see what I'm getting at.

-Erik-

No

How much I love his recent action music sound, I must admit that I am getting more annoyed by the fact that his recent action music DOES start to sound the same and is very close to actually start ripping off Igor Stravinsky's dissonant style rather than referencing it, which is probably what I have against some of the AotC and even Revenge of the Sith action music. Lost World does belong to my favorite Williams scores and the second place for purely action score in the recent period would go for Minority Report which alongside AI I would call an underrated gem. Yes, the music is heavy, but for a Herrmannesque SF thriller based on difficult literary material and full of narcotic vision and pure darkness, I wouldn't expect anything else. I adore Pre-Crime to the Rescue, e.g.