ALEXANDRE DESPLAT

Oh yes you could!

There ARE better scores than Star Wars.

What I am trying to say is that a lot of scores try to be great by cloning Star Wars. There are actually some great clones out there, but most of them are just soulless. Hence I prefer to look for something different in a new score, not for something I´ve heard before.

And yes, there are better scores than Star Wars. But I would never challenge the leading role Star Wars played in reviving thematical scoring.

Still wanna go outside?

Not many, admittedly, but some....yes!

Names please.

Intriguing... I want examples of these soulless Star Wars clones.

-Erik-

Good example, Ralph. I actually agree.

Some of the best flowers fade very quickly though.

Good example - Mark Snow's OLDEST LIVING CONFEDERATE WIDOW. I couldn't get enough of that score the day I heard it, particularly the main melody. But a few days later, it was as though I'd gotten every bit of enjoyment I could out of the score. There was nothing more, and I've only occasionally listened to it since. I call these quick burn scores. The Wolfram de Marco score LOFT is another - loved it the first time, started to see how repetitive and temp tracky it was the second.(Maybe PERFUME is another recent example that 'faded' after a while.)

The idea that you don't (or I don't) always see the good immediately is not just applied to minimalist scores and the like. (JOSHUA took a few listens, though.) HELLBOY, which I listened to in the car this morning, was the opposite case. The first listen, I didn't connect. I didn't know one track from another, and it all sounded a bit overhyped and anonymous. And yet I know now that it's a really fine album, and the score in its film function is probably very strong too. It took a few unimpressed listens to see the value in it.

STAR WARS is a bit different. It's not just brilliantly-composed, but given the number of times I saw the film as a child, it's like how some patriotic people must feel when they hear national anthem - makes you all warm and bubbly. That kind of connection is hard to compete with.

But some would consider Krull and Star Trek II to be a clone of Battle Beyond The Stars. I mean, most of the ideas for those scores can be found in Horner's soulless score for Roger Corman's sci-fi classic!

-Erik-

I don't know man... pick another one.

-Erik-

Good example. Very good score too.

There´s another one:

Personally, Masters of the Universe is a favourite of mine. But I know a lot of people who think it´s a soulless Star Wars clone.

One of the things the recent posts illustrate is that there is a huge gap between the perception that Star Wars was this great influence which changed all of film music, and the reality that actually barely anyone else has written anything like it since.

It's GREAT. Absolutely GREAT! But this theory that we suddenly saw an end to the bad ways of film music before and turned on to great film music afterwards is a weird one for me. The year before Star Wars, the Oscar was won by The Omen; the year after, it was won by Midnight Express.

Well, of course SW didn´t stop all that came before, and didn´t start all that came after. But its role in film music is undisputed, I think.