The Dark Knight - Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard

8 orchestrators and 3 conductors? Man I really hope this is better than the first one. These are 11 hands dealing with the orchestra...I wanna hear them in the score! I´m afraid we´ll hear more of Wesson´s ambient design though.

I can't speak for other people, but I for one have never thought Burton's vision was the pinnacle version of Batman. In fact, I think Nolan hit the nail on the head and made one of the best superhero films I've ever seen. I just wanted a better score! I don't mean an Burtonesque Elfman score, it wouldn't make sense, but I would have preferred a bigger and more memorable musical statement for the character since the character is a 'big statement' on screen, and a memorable one.

I just don't agree that JNH's and Zimmer's score was the perfect score to this film, which is the feeling I get from most pro-Batman Begins score fans. It was a good approach, and it worked, it was just poorly executed - it was an average score. There was plenty of room for a "big theme", and we can argue about why it didn't need one till the cows come home, it just needed the right type of big theme - memorable, sweeping perhaps, but not "Superheroesque". A theme full of anguish, pain, emotion and perhaps even hope. A GREAT theme to a GREAT film. Did we get one? No, I don't think we did.

I love watching great films with great scores, scores that you remember after seeing the movie. Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are BLOCKBUSTER fantasy films, and blockbuster fantasy films go hand-in-hand with memorable scores IMO. The success of films have on many occasions been in large part due to the score, and if a great score can make an average film better in any way possible, then why not a great score to a great film? IMO, a score should at least be as good as the film.

My point also. It didn't have to receive a score like Elfman's Batman; it just needed a good one, and the point I've been labouring so unsuccessfully to make is that any number of composers could have provided it. And the reason I've been so unsuccessful, I guess, is that no matter who was hired to score the film, Nolan would still have insisted on a score consisting of droning drivel, so it doesn't really matter.

Nodding.

There is no way I could have said it any better. My applause to you, Mr. dH :D

And again I completely disagree with the cheesiness comments.

BTW, to Steven and James. You guys GET it!

-Erik-

He'd have gotten it back in BB itself if Hans and James had a free reign over their music. Since Nolan doesn't want the character to have a big memorable theme, he's not gonna get it no matter whether the composer is Zimmer or John Williams. That's darn annoying, really! I wish he would just give the composers allowance to compose freely and then see for himself how it works.

My humble apologies, but I disagree IMHO the score worked wonders in the film, it really fitted the high-tech tone of the film. The Scarecrow scenes were especially enhanced a lot by it.

Just my humble opinion though, a grain of salt.

I think you're confusing 'realism' with 'seeming realistic' or 'believability'. Nolan tends to use the terms interchangeably, but I assure you, based on all his films so far, he's no realist. He just wants narrative developments to feel believable. The demands that 'believability' places on music for films can of course, be very subjective. It turns being whatever Director X wants it to be.

Erik my friend, don't take me wrong or anything but what you did is not BATMAN BEGINS. It's something else, perhaps a movie from your childhood or even teenage years, it's something entirely different and from another era. I am not saying it's good or bad (personally i didn't like it but that's just my opinion) but i am sure you know that if Nolan saw that he would at least giggle.

His vision for Batman (which is infinitely superior to anything done before imo) got the music it needed and the new score is a (little, but still) step further down the development road, i am sure it'll absolutely fit the new movie.

I'm listening to it...

It's amazing !

Like a Dog Chasing Cars is !

The Harvey Dent track by JNH is a true MASTERPIECE...


And the final 16 minutes tracks is gorgeous too !



Amazing score !

Demetris, my friend, I could give a flying FUCK what Nolan's thinks of my suite.

Again, I don't think what I did was perfect... far from it. It was an exercise to see if a more traditional approach would work along the lines of Elfman's original with his theme. I think the theme fits and some of the propulsive percussion writing and up tempo, furious orchestral writing (tumbler on the roof) works as well. But as with all temp tracks you aren't going to capture all of the emotion or excitement of the scene because the score was composed and timed out for another movie. I think that if Elfman or any other composer with the orchestral chops to do so would have been able to capture the right emotions, the excitement and develop a an ACTUAL musical theme that would have been more traditional in the approach and giving this great film a score it truly deserves.

Maybe I rifle through my collection and find something - not nessarily from Batman - that would help illustrate my approach. Beltrami's Hellboy, Elfman's The Hulk, Walker's Mask of the Phantasm, some Goldenthal, etc.

-Erik-

Well, that´s enough...



Why do you feel that way? I mean, shouldn´t a film score´s only task be to work in the movie? Don´t you think that your demand a score should have the ability to work outside of a film and to work as a stand alone piece of music is the demand of a passionate lover of a specific kind of music, but not necessarily about what a specific movie needs?

I mean, we´ve been there before, but isn´t it obvious that Hans Zimmer and his gang write music that satisfies the taste of a lot of people (directors and producers included)? Is it bad music just because it is not as complex as the work of other composers? Or is it bad because it doesn´t meet your standards? And do you really think that hitting on it again and again will change the taste of those who like it?

You should have noted - long ago - that your (among others´) constant critique isn´t changing one thing about it. It just lengthens a discussion that will never lead anywhere.

You are not going to change taste. It may be bad taste - in your opinion - but don´t you think it is time to let different people enjoy different taste and stop bashing on a certain kind of music that is loved by a lot of people, just because it doesn´t meet your high expectations?

I mean, music taste is constantly changing, not only in film scores. Why can´t you just let it go, celebrate the scores which are written in your style and just ignore what you don´t like? I see your point that the more of the modern stuff appears, the less of the classic stuff will be composed, but aren´t you especially in a position to get your hands on a lot of stuff that still meets your expectations? I mean come on, your taste is aimed at a damn high level, and if even Williams himself isn´t able to meet it every time he writes something new, wouldn´t you see that as a sign that you might aim too high?

Taste changes with the generations. That´s a given fact. While I recognise the greatness of film music written fifty or sixty years ago, I wouldn´t want my modern urban crime movie sound like that. While I recognise the fantastic work that Star Wars has been, I am perfectly able to like what they did in Sunshine. You may not, but still, that doesn´t change that what you find bad is nothing else than how things are done today. You can´t change that. You´re fighting a fight you can not win, just because you limit yourself to an excellency that is judged by standards which are already no longer exactly that: standards. The standard has changed. You may hate that, but it´s the way things are. And I´ll say it again, there are a lot of people who strongly disagree with you. That doesn´t make your opinion any more right than theirs. It just shows that taste is different, and if you judge something that´s different from your taste as bad just because it doesn´t meet certain expectations of yours, then I think this is a mistake.

Who says that film music is only good if it´s composed with twenty plus different layers?
Who says that film music is only good if it contains at least twenty plus themes?

You kind of do, but don´t you see who narrowminded that is?

I respect your wish for scores to meet your standards, but I don´t think you have the right to judge other people´s taste as bad just because they don´t have yours.

Again, blame Nolan for that. It would've been the same even if Goldenthal or John Williams were the composers And considering this pressure that was on HZ and JNH, the resultant score is very good IMHO.