Oooooooh, I like that a lot!

Mahlon

Other apparent talents:

http://www.seattlepi.com/tv/1401ap_people_danica_mckellar.html

 ...NOOOOOO! Not Winnie! [:'(]

I only know you from this thread (long ago) and your website, Mike, but I can say in all honesty it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy!  All the best my man!!

Congratulations Mike.

All the best for the future with the new Mrs Verta.  Noticed that you hadn't been about for a while.  You've obviously been posting elsewhere! [;)]

Colin

Thanks, guys!  Yes, I've been away awhile, writing wedding music :)

_Mike

@mverta said:

Thanks, guys!  Yes, I've been away awhile, writing wedding music 😊

_Mike

We look forward to hearing it if you choose to upload it. Unless of course you were speaking allegorically...

Kling on.

Colin

Congratulations Mike, both on the music and the marriage!

I've been following with much interest although I must admit that some of the tech talk is way over my head...

I have been listening to some of your work on your website and I am most impressed. Beautiful work!

I've always been a big fan of the Wonder Years and I hope they'll release it some day on dvd.

The last episode was so endearing...

Jef

www.aeronaut.be

Hi Jef

I remember when the series started back in the 80s and was a fan myself. I suggest you do a bit of Googling- you'll find that it's available on DVD.

Colin

@ct1961 said:

Hi Jef

I remember when the series started back in the 80s and was a fan myself. I suggest you do a bit of Googling- you'll find that it's available on DVD.

Colin

Hope you googled. All 115 episodes on DVD for $19.99!        http://www.dvdglobe.tv/Drama/380/The-Wonder-Years.html

Hi Colin,

thanks for the link.

I don't want to hijack this thread and turn it into a "wonder years" thing, but I fear that these are pirate releases.

As far as I know there has only been one official "best of" dvd in bad quality.

Perhaps Mike could ask his lovely wife if she knows if we will ever see a decent official "Wonder Years" release on DVD?

Jef

Yes, all releases of the The Wonder Years are pirated.  The show used a lot of source music in it, and it hasn't been released due to complex licensing issues with all the music.  It's unclear when or if they'll ever be resolved.

_Mike

Thank you for the clarification Mike!

Nevertheless I hope they will solve it and that there will be a decent official release of that wonderful tv show.

I listened to the amazing work on your website and I'm sure we will hear a lot more of you when going to the movies in the following years. 

Keep up the great work and my best regards to your beautiful wife.

Jef

I like Mike V's arrangement better than Mike G's arrangement. :) 

I probably shouldn't comment as mverta has not been very pleasant to me and has always ignored my own music, but anyway his arrangment/performance is much better than the new Star Trek score which uses the old theme in a rather sappy way at the end.  The mverta version is much more imaginative and powerfully scored, and the performance even sounds better than the big live orchestra they have. 

That film's score is disappointing to me.  The main theme does not sound right for scoring the spectacular shots of the Enterprise.  But maybe I have been spoiled by Jerry Goldsmith's awesome original score.

I have waited for some comment to appear regarding the new Star Trek score (maybe it already has - I don't follow the forum in that detail), but I believe the above comment to be HIGHLY complimentary. I found it to be not only the worst Star Trek score yet, but an utterly uninspired, mute, not in the same universe in terms of conveying feelings or impressions of youth, vision, passion, mystery, wonderment, fit only for C movies (if there is such a thing), and I am totally surprised at the Star Trek Admiralty - if not for choosing the composer - for allowing that score to complement one of their films, when it would have been unsuitable even for the cartoons - yes, I prefer those cues to this indigent soundtrack [don't get me started on the plot...]

The gig should have gone to Mike.

Kind words, guys - you too, William... thanks!

I'm highly suspicious of the new Star Trek "score."  It is true I am not a fan of Giacchino's work; I think if you need 30 great seconds, call Giacchino, but I honestly don't believe he knows what to do after that.  His long-form chops are severely lacking, in my opinion, and true symphonic sensibility - the idea of an entire score unfolding as a 90+ minute suite - is a necessary hallmark of all the greats.  But this score was suspiciously poor.  He's way better than that.  I would almost cry "ghost written," but there's no way he was too busy on another project to phone in a major franchise "event" movie like that...  I honestly don't know.  Knowing how perverse the film business is these days, I try to give everyone in creative the benefit of the doubt, but the score basically doesn't belong in the lineage at all.  Horner kicked complete ass at 33 years old with WOK, and Goldsmith's original is, well, genius.  I really don't know what happened.  I'd be nervous as hell, too, if I got the Star Trek call, but you gotta step up, you know? 

I'm really at a loss.  What a great gig, too. 

_Mike

P.S. Yes, I too don't understand why he insists on taking other's perfectly good themes and just slapping random string glissandos on them.  Especially the original theme for Star Trek, which is such fun to use.  I mean, how about just a little nod when Kirk first takes the Big Chair?  Anything?  Ah, well...

The main theme which was used in the new film was strangely wrong and inappropriate.  It was not soaring at all.  It was completely static mass of sound.  How could someone create that for Star Trek??!!

I hated James Horner's trite score for WOK, with the pathetic cliche of arpeggiated augmented triads for "SPACE" and the total ripoff of the Prokofieff "Alexander Nevsky" MAIN MOTIF of the Germans.  That is something that James Horner specializes in.  Total fucking ripoffs.  Astoundingly plagiaristic composer.   Some that come to mind:  Willow - a rewrite of the first movement main theme from Schumann's Third Symphony.  It is exactly the same, except with fanfares added.  Humanoids of the Deep - a rewrite of Ive's Unanswered Question.  Sorceresses - a rewrite of not only notes but ORCHESTRATION of Shostakovich's 5th 2nd movement.  These are not mere influences, such as you might have with John Williams who is an expert and very knowledgable composer/conductor who understandably is influenced by the great composers he loves. With Horner, it is conscious, coldly calculated plagiarism.  And BTW those are only examples that I happened to notice while watching the movies - I have no idea of how many others  might exist. I have a feeling an entire catalogue could be compiled.

Though on the subject of Jerry Goldsmith's score to the first film, despite the film's occasional clunkiness it may be the greatest orchestration AND film score ever written.   It is intensely imaginative and vivid writing, with the most heroic main theme since Korngold.  I defy anyone to write something that great.  I was thinking the other day about who influenced the two great film composers - Jerry Goldsmith and Berrnard Herrmann.  Part of the reason was I was listening to Vaughn Williams 6th Symphony.  The last movement is all pianissimo, an eerie sound depicting a lifeless landscape, and is obviously an influence of Goldsmith's score sections depicting the huge alien spacecraft.  But Goldsmith, being the original composer he was, did not steal but simply couldn't help be influenced.  Just as Herrmann was highly influenced by Holst and Rachmaninoff, in both his vivid orchestrational approach and his lyrical romantic quality.