JAMES HORNER

Come on... Brad Fiedel!



-Erik-

The four note motif DOES appear in the score actually.

It´s his signature motif. Of course it will be in there, not out of unoriginality, but because Horner´s ego is unfathomable.

I have gone beyond the point of getting annoyed it by it to the point of actually expecting it as naturally i'd expect his signature, which is what the 4-note danger motif really is imo.

James Newton Howard in his good mode or Hans Zimmer in his Thin Red Line mode would have been nice choices, too, but I´ve been waiting so long for a really big movie scored by Horner that I prefer it the way it is.

I like Zimmer regardless of his era.

But on the other hand, TRL is already perfect as it is. No reason to do it again.

JNH, then.

It´s Williams I´m not too sure about. If he´d write some good themes, I´d be okay with it, but the way he does things right now, I´m quite certain we would get another War of the Worlds with a bit of Geisha thrown in (for the exotic soundscape); unfortunately, WotW is a great score, but unlistenable outside the movie.

Oh the irony. You are not going to believe what's rocking the house down here in Sydney as we speak.

Unlistenable. Pah. Fie on those who say so. If more scores were this unlistenable, the world would be richer.

Oh, and personally, I never want to hear the four note motif again... not unless it's a gentle love theme for flute. Either turn it on its head, or turn to another idea. TROY should have been the swansong of that idea, and even there, the laziness of it was only justified by the immediacy of the task.

I don't think it's anything to do with ego. He just likes it. Rozsa used the same basic chord progression for every single theme he ever wrote. Michael Kamen put his little "Robin Hood rhythm" (from the start of the main theme) in every score he ever wrote after one of his friends told him it was so banal no director would ever accept it in his movie when he first wrote it (in the 70s, I think).

Given the same amount of time to work on the film JNH would be a fine choice ( as would Howard Shore IMO ) but Zimmer? A big no thanks from me.

I can't find my post, but I said the same thing. I basically said: he'll have over a year invested. If we hear one lift from "Casper", "Star Trek 2" (or any of his other scores) or the danger motif, this will be EPIC FAIL for Horner, basicaly putting the nail in the coffin for any future chances on doing another '80's masterpiece. We'll be stuck with basic modern Horner, which is a hit & miss sometimes, and lacking in comparrison to his monumental output just two decades ago.

Goddamnit.

Blimey. I think Justin's put the nail in the coffin for him already there!

This is Horner. We will undoubtedly hear something from a past score (as with any composer I suppose), and having had a year to work on the film means he's simply had more time to explore more ideas. It doesn't necessarily imply he will, or even should, produce something completely original. It just means he's had time to develop ideas he probably would have had had he worked on the film for a significantly less amount of time.

We won't get another Krull. We'll get Avatar.

Also, the four note motif is just working as a prevalent counterpoint, I think. We hear it because we expect it and know the usual arrangement it will appear in (ie. definitely a trumpet solo).

With Horner's mode of composition, reusing earlier tunes isn't something unexpected. Every composer repeats themselves - let's look only at recent action of John Williams and his repetition of not only structure, but also certain motifs here and there. It's natural. And it's not a case of time. Once on filmtracks I've been reading an analysis, where a guy says that Horner's approach to music makes him repeat so much, he is struggling to give his orchestration a classical, symphonic flow.

Symphonic flow deals with lots of voices. If we have composer very adamant about giving that in film scores, repeating previous material isn't something unexpected. Polyphonic writing is hard and if you have to give decent polyphonic flow in a work written in 3-4 weeks or even a year in case of something being enslaved to a certain context, you can't blame for the fact that one of the voices or more of them repeats earlier material. Horner's string writing is especially evident here. Usually string parts have 5 staves, the string section is aa strng quintet - two violins, violas, celli and basses. Horner usually divides his violas to two groups (divisi - divided), which makes it 6 parts, each of them has to be unique in context of the rest of the works. So? This makes Horner give an unique melody or rhythm to each of the parts. It may tamper creativity if you have a month to do that.

Usually, I am not a Horner defender, but the four note motif really beckons if you have to give a rhythmic/melodic flavor, or harmonic - the danger motif sounds pretty dissonant in context of the rest of the score. Also it plays a rather symbolic role.

I have been thinking of Troy in context of Horner as a quickly working composer there. Zimmer and Horner are "great" for writing replacement scores for numerous reasons. Zimmer's "additional music" stuff aside, both composers work with patterns. Look at Troy, a main rhythmic motif of the action music is a figure using the danger motif in a rhytmic fashion (dadadadah dah dahdahah dah dahdahdah repeated ad infinitum). The string writing also features typical Horner's ascending/descending motifs. This made him pull the work off in two weeks.

I hope I made things clear. Horner is a pattern based composer, trying to give his scores a serious and very classical sound. Concentrating on technical issues (remember that we deal with a guy who started his Hollywood career with a Ph. D. in music composition/theory!), he doesn't think of every voice to sound original. He burnt out earlier than others, due to that. Even if he repeats motifs in Avatar, the year to write that composition and the obviously good-natured collaboration with Cameron on the score is still a refreshing thing. After The Thin Red Line and Prince of Egypt, Zimmer burnt out and took 1999 basically off (writing three themes for an obscure German TV series doesn't count, he does such material in his sleep). Next year he gave us Gladiator and Mission: Impossible II. Before you ditch the latter score, don't forget that M:I-2 was a friendly band effort done for John Woo, quite often tongue-in-cheek (which reviewers tend to forget). Avatar may be a restart for Horner and I hope it will be.

What the film was is actually considered a good thing? I think THE NEW WORLD is a damn fine score and if the director actually used it in correct balance in the film, instead of butching it up and replacing it with last-minute classical pieces, it would have worked wonders, then MAYBE the film could have been elevated a bit more to try and reach TTRL.

On AVATAR: i have huge confidence in Horner, i am not expecting and i don't want an 80's score (people, seriously, we are 20+ years past 80's, give nostalgia a break on this one) and even if it has the danger motif - which i still strongly believe is more like a strong ego signature rather than anything else, but i like it anyway - the score will be very interesting to say the least. Looking forward to it, unbiased.