JAMES HORNER

I agree here with Ralph. War of the Worlds has one or two great moments but the score as a whole is nearly unlistenable - or shall I say unenjoyable?
And it is from someone who can endure - and sometimes even like - Morricone's quirky tension music!

I'm surprised you all have so much to say about AVATAR when only a few clips have been released, and when we haven't even seen the music in context.

You evidently weren't here when The Dark Knight was on its way. This is nothing.

True, I remember that thread. I just never followed it, so I was spared the long diatribes and speculations.

Indeed. Whatever is NOT listenable on dinner with friends is not enjoyable outside the movie? This is very odd to me...

BOOOOOOO!!!! HISS!

There are always strange people in the world. People like you and Justin who don't like Krull.

Well, then it´s my personal preference ... and that of most other people.

I´m no ignorant. I know that there are people out there who find this score enjoyable, and I´m happy for them. And I tried to say it again and again, as a score, this is brilliant. But beyond the tiny space of filmmusic geekdom, this kind of music makes people scream in agony.

That doesn´t say anything about its quality, but I dont believe you want to tell me that WotW has the same level of listenability as, for example, Schindler´s List. And this is all that I´m talking about, and you know it, yet you prefer to dig deeper into a discussion that makes no sense whatsoever. You know WotW is hard to listen to for normal people, and for a lot, if not most, score geeks too. Hell, if we would be talking about any other dark film music or other stuff that´s deemed unlistenable, like Iron Man, which is actually a gazillion times more listenable to the general public than WotW, this discussion would have been over the minute it was started.

But it´s John Williams, isn´t it?

It's bound to get some criticisms. I very much doubt that it's going to live up to the hype on the first listen! (But then, as ever, it will gather its fans gradually throughout the next year... I reckon.)

I'm rarely less than satisfied by his music.

Steven and James, you are the exception of the rule it seems, the satisfied babes.

A fan 'never fully satisfied' with Horner's music can't be much of a fan!

Not really, i can't listen to that stuff. But dissonant orchestral textures in film music are a treat for me

When I hear things like that, I wonder if people really understand why Zimmer's score works in that film. For those viewers who like TRL, a big part of its particular appeal is that it feels so spiritual for a war film. The film itself is almost a spiritual experience, and a big part of the reason for that is the pan-theistic medley of ideas contained in Zimmer's score and the remnants of the temp track (Faure, Ives, Part, Jovanovich). It wasn't just a war film, and it wasn't just about the action, nor was it about triumphing over some (equally spiritually confused) enemy, because there was something more. The music (and narration) was providing that perspective.

So too in THE NEW WORLD, Malick is trying to make that story more than just a love story. He wants the spiritual there. But Horner's score rarely gets beyond a melodic expression of the ideas of colonial presence and love. He is scoring the surface story (and said as much in his interview with Schweiger, that this is the only level at which he felt the film should work), rather than going to the next level, as Zimmer's score for TRL does. (And Morricone's score for DAYS OF HEAVEN, and the use of Orff in BADLANDS, for that matter.) The odd moment when Horner's score does say a bit more than 'this is a love story', e.g. the vocal during the battle scene, was in the film, and it has transformative effect, abstracting from the war onscreen and suggesting broader perspective of human history. The one thing you can say about both the Mozart and the Wagner pieces is that neither of them are connecting to the love story. They're both pitching ideas against the film that are deeper, more significant, more mysterious. Ideas that aren't there.

I'm not saying that this produces a more accessible film. I think the film would have to have been edited along the lines of what Horner was scoring to pull in big crowds. And more people here would like it, I imagine. But it is a stunning, mysterious work of art, and Horner's music just wasn't consistent with that vision, whether you like the vision or not.