I loved this film, and I thought many quiet moments like these were expertly done by Williams. The soundtrack album is short, but that's mostly becuase they seem to have decided to restrict the music to a few key scenes.
I'm so grateful that the first four decades of my life (so far) have overlapped with Mr Williams. I look forward to Indy 5.
They rarely make film openings like this any more. In your face, loud score, hardly any dialogue, no hurry.
Merry Christmas everyone
Totally agree. This opening absolutely blew me away in the cinema. I was DESPERATE to get the soundtrack afterwards. If ONLY more movies had this, especially Batman movies...
Any list of mine starts with the scenes that got me into film music in the first place as a kid, and that's all the monster scenes in Harryhausen/Herrmann collaborations, of which there are too many to list.
Same goes for Morricone's spaghettis. Ecstasy of Gold and all those gun'downs'.
These two examples are what told me there was more to a film soundtrack that an opening theme. And yet most people's reactions to hearing of my collecting of film music is the idea that I collect and listen to themes compilations. The nearest most folks get to soundtracks.
We all miss Horner, but Simon Franglen did a great job, especially during this sequence. I remember the cinema being completely still and in awe during the entire sequence.
I like Stephen King a lot, but I think it's fair to say that in this case I sought out the (thick) novel and read, just so that then I could watch the film, just so that I could finally see what scene this beautiful Doyle piece, which I used to have on repeat back in the 90s, was from.
Slight anticlimax, as always in these situations - but only slight.
Simply put, this is one of the best pieces of film score ever written.
The cue "Winner None." The film WARGAMES.
Composer Arthur B. Rubinstein pulls out all the stops and presents a masterclass in musical storytelling. In only a few short minutes Rubinstein portrays excitement, wonder, horror, panic, and chaos while at the same time Mickey Mousing the shit out of this scene that not too many could do. Just count how many synch points he hits within this single cue. The mathematical precision of some of these "hits" is just extraordinary. This type of writing elevates the film from a simple lighthearted tale about a kid hacking unwittingly into a military supercomputer programmed to simulate, predict and execute nuclear war. It gives the film credibility.
This is the type of scoring that should be celebrated and taught in film studies and lectured in film music classes for decades. IMO, THIS is what film music is all about... and it's a damn fine piece of virtuosic music to enjoy on its own as well.
This wonderful little statement of the main theme was not included on the original score CDs, but thankfully made it onto the 25th anniversary LLL edition.
Simply put, this is one of the best pieces of film score ever written.
The cue "Winner None." The film WARGAMES.
Thanks Erik. I had watched this way back when I was much younger, but had never even been aware of the score since then. I'll look up the whole thing now, based on this.
