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Yes! This just made my day 10x better
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Someone who can write exciting themes with some depth.
You mean like Alan Silvestri, perhaps?
In my opinion, no. He writes in a very simple narrative. His action music has no flow, it's always starting and stopping. Compare that with what Williams or Horner can do with heroic music. That's the bottom line, Avengers didn't sound heroic. There are a few nice motifs, the last four cues on the soundtrack are "nice", but nothing exiting or memorable. The only time he knocked it out of the park was when he wrote Judge Dredd. If Silverstri can bring that kind of breath and exhilaration to his music, I'll be pleasantly surprised and very pleased.
Solium,
I have come to kick your ass.
The issue with the stop-and-start nature of the music is absolutely the fault of the ADD editing. It bothered me, too, but I still liked the score for what it was. It's very much like scoring a cartoon, so Silvestri has to make due with what he's given, which is Mickey-Mousing around and trying to hit every mark.
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Oh my god YES!!! The last Marvel/Avengers scores I've cared anything about were Cap America and The Avengers, both by Silvestri. I so hope this news is true, because I can't take much more of Brian Tyler and Henry Jackman's forgetful scores.
You sir, are a man of discrimination and exceedingly good taste!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
bruce
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Posted: |
Jun 7, 2016 - 2:55 PM
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By: |
Solium
(Member)
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Someone who can write exciting themes with some depth.
You mean like Alan Silvestri, perhaps?
In my opinion, no. He writes in a very simple narrative. His action music has no flow, it's always starting and stopping. Compare that with what Williams or Horner can do with heroic music. That's the bottom line, Avengers didn't sound heroic. There are a few nice motifs, the last four cues on the soundtrack are "nice", but nothing exiting or memorable. The only time he knocked it out of the park was when he wrote Judge Dredd. If Silverstri can bring that kind of breath and exhilaration to his music, I'll be pleasantly surprised and very pleased.
Solium,
I have come to kick your ass.
The issue with the stop-and-start nature of the music is absolutely the fault of the ADD editing. It bothered me, too, but I still liked the score for what it was. It's very much like scoring a cartoon, so Silvestri has to make due with what he's given, which is Mickey-Mousing around and trying to hit every mark.
Please take a number.
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Posted: |
Jun 7, 2016 - 3:00 PM
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By: |
Francis
(Member)
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God forbid they give the gig to Debney, McNeely, JNH. Someone who can write exciting themes with some depth.
I think God is right in this case. Ironically, don't forget a composer like Debney was hired not to write a Debney Predators score, but to deliver one that sounded like Silvestri. McNeely I've always found overrated and JNH, while he had great action scores in the 80s/90s, never quite nailed the pure action hero adventure genre for me.
I read the argument about the "stop start" action writing a lot about Silvestri, but personally I like this approach when it allows to build over a period of time (C&C) and not just highlights on an album. And when he does let loose with big tracks it rarely disappoints. He does tend to get repetitive at times, much like Horner could be, but the themes are always first rate (IMO).
When I heard his themes for Avengers and Captain America, it was also a case of "wow, are they still allowing this type of theme to be heard in a comic book movie?".
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And also there are a few things to remember here:
1) hardly any composer has autonomy to do anything they please with a film score, and this is especially true at Marvel. Guys like Joss Whedon have run from the company screaming because of Marvel's way of questioning every decision again and again, and forcing constant revisions. Every composer who has been there has seemed to suggest that Marvel kind of made them back off of more thematic approaches, which is a real bummer. The fact that Christophe Beck was able to write such a lively score for ANT-MAN last year is a minor miracle.
2) a film score is always the product of ability meeting opportunity. The greatest composer in the world could be scoring a picture, but if the producers specifically do not want him/her to do the sort of thing that might make people on the board happy (big themes that develop and play off eachother, for instance) you will not hear anything like that in the movie! I think that when Silvestri had the opportunity to play his big, kick-ass Avengers theme during the end sequence of the first movie, he knocked it out of the park. I hope similar opportunities exist for him in the new scores, but seeing as very little about Henry Jackman's two CAPTAIN AMERICA scores for the same directors is all that memorable, we might be in a scenario where that sort of writing isn't requested of him.
3) a rider to #2 is that film music - like any other creative endeavor in Hollywood - is a sales job. The composer needs to be able to convince the director/producers/studio that their approach is the right one. Hans Zimmer is brilliant at doing this, even though the music is often terrible. He's great at convincing his bosses that it's not, however!
The fact that Marvel tracked a lot of Silvestri's music into part 2, and hired him back for 3 and 4 hopefully means that they're willing to let him do what he does a little more this time. I guess we'll see. _Or_ the people who bitched endlessly about his work on Avengers 1, should prepare to do the same for Avengers 3. I think it's great news that he's back, and I can't wait to hear what he does.
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Posted: |
Jun 7, 2016 - 4:55 PM
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By: |
Tom Servo
(Member)
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God forbid they give the gig to Debney, McNeely, JNH. Someone who can write exciting themes with some depth.
I think God is right in this case. Ironically, don't forget a composer like Debney was hired not to write a Debney Predators score, but to deliver one that sounded like Silvestri. McNeely I've always found overrated and JNH, while he had great action scores in the 80s/90s, never quite nailed the pure action hero adventure genre for me.
I read the argument about the "stop start" action writing a lot about Silvestri, but personally I like this approach when it allows to build over a period of time (C&C) and not just highlights on an album. And when he does let loose with big tracks it rarely disappoints. He does tend to get repetitive at times, much like Horner could be, but the themes are always first rate (IMO).
When I heard his themes for Avengers and Captain America, it was also a case of "wow, are they still allowing this type of theme to be heard in a comic book movie?".
We need to keep in mind the realities of this business and just because you like a certain composer and somehow everyone must acknowledge their talent, it doesn't equate at all to a fairness in who is hired for what movie. There's politics involved, there are favorites and there are shortlists and right now JNH, as good as he is, doesn't seem to be on the shortlist of composers for Marvel movies. Could it be that he was offered one at some point and turned it down? Perhaps. I also don't think that McNeely is on anyone's shortlist, he just doesn't have enough big movie credentials.
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I can think of a few movie scenes that have or might have what qualifies as "ADD editing" and they weren't scored with stop/start, but in montage ways with or without punctuations to hit certain marks.
For example, I can't find it on Youtube to link to, but in "The Chronicles of Riddick" there is a fight scene where he leaps into the air and kills a guy and there are fast cuts, some quick motion, FX dialed down or out at times. "Hellhounds"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlbg1vvex5s (1:01 in)
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I can think of a few movie scenes that have or might have what qualifies as "ADD editing" and they weren't scored with stop/start, but in montage ways with or without punctuations to hit certain marks.
For example, I can't find it on Youtube to link to, but in "The Chronicles of Riddick" there is a fight scene where he leaps into the air and kills a guy and there are fast cuts, some quick motion, FX dialed down or out at times. "Hellhounds"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlbg1vvex5s (1:01 in)
Well, that's just because Graeme Revell doesn't actually watch any of the movies he's credited with scoring.
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Posted: |
Jun 8, 2016 - 1:46 AM
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By: |
Francis
(Member)
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We need to keep in mind the realities of this business and just because you like a certain composer and somehow everyone must acknowledge their talent, it doesn't equate at all to a fairness in who is hired for what movie. There's politics involved, there are favorites and there are shortlists and right now JNH, as good as he is, doesn't seem to be on the shortlist of composers for Marvel movies. Could it be that he was offered one at some point and turned it down? Perhaps. I also don't think that McNeely is on anyone's shortlist, he just doesn't have enough big movie credentials.
Fair enough, but by the same token I don't think it's unfair to point out that JNH's only true venture into comic blockbuster was a total bombfest, "Green Lantern". He has done the Hunger Games movies but again, it's a different genre and he's better at scoring sci-fi/thriller than he is at doing epic comic book movies.
Though Silvestri will no doubt be an improvement over Tyler or Jackman I don't have high hopes that the directors will allow him to return to his roots and write a score that is anything other than similar to his recent action output over the past few years.
I don't want him to return to his roots, I want him to continue the current style of scoring where he has found a nice balance between orchestra and electronics with the occasional big theme appearance. Even if he went back to full Spielberg/Zemeckis mode, people would still harp on his scores for being too micky mousy etc.
And put me down for Doyle returning as well, I like his Thor score.
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Cost cutting issues? I would have preferred the original planned "smaller scale" Captain America 3 to Civil War personally (even though it was done well, it was too many superheroes and not enough development). Was Winter Soldier from the "cost saving" period? I liked that film much better. That, Ant-Man, and Guardians of the Galaxy are my three favorite Marvel films by far, all from about the same period. I say bring the lower budgets back -- maybe they made for more creativity and emphasis on script and character over special effects action.
I believe Civil War is where things finally came to a head inside Marvel (fittingly), between Feige and Perlmutter, and Disney had to step in. Perlmutter didn't want to fork over a paycheck for Downey to appear in Civil War. Perlmutter now just handles the TV side, Feige reports straight to Disney on the film front. But things had been difficult for a long time, with reports of actors leaving or almost leaving due to Marvel not paying enough. And the issue with constantly changing composers and themes not continuing from film to film is most likely also due to Perlmutter's infamous stingyness. Someone who knows more of these things can correct me, but I believe like actors, composers are due a pay rise as they return for sequels, so for someone like Perlmutter who loves to save every penny in the wrong place, that's a no-brainer: get someone else. Silvestri returning to Avengers could be a first sign of Feige getting to bring back a composer without Perlmutter vetoing him.
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