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  4. Star Trek XII

  • Star Trek XII

    E
    E

    I have been away for a while - and still am (to the chagrin of those who miss my easy, collegial disposition), I just logged in very quickly to share my immeasurable enthusiasm, not merely about the black holes of the script vs. characters/timeline, but also about the soundtrack, which excepting the fact that the main part was a rip-off from Batman, that apart from constant f****** stabs and completely inappropriate, cliched piano-strings Bold&Beautiful kind of setting I couldn't pick up an idea, noting the complete exposure of half-way-through-1st-year polyphonic skills, and ignoring that the 7-8 orchestrators engaged could not orchestrate their way out of a paper bag if their lives depended upon it, it was otherwise a very fine score...

    Congratulations, again, Giacchino....

    Don't worry, logging out right now!
  • civilization 3C
    civilization 3C

    I hate to agree, but his score for the 2009 Star Trek exercise caused me to turn the thing off after about 40 minutes. it was music that didn't belong in the setting, jarringly so, and it was extremely loud and impossible to ignore.
  • P
    P

    Hang on a second! Hold the phone!

    Who directed either of these two films you're talking about?
  • civilization 3C
    civilization 3C

    Giacchino is JJ Abrams' guy. The ST picture from 2009 was no great loss to vacate from.

    I like it when I don't notice the music in a film. I notice hackneyed music a lot, though. This was just egregiously bad.

    I don't typically opine in the negative about some music. Somebody likes it, what is there to gain by it. But this is an interesting case for me. This was so bad I googled to see who did it! Something about this guy doesn't sit right with me. It looks like he decided to schmooze his way into film composing, just a guy with all the connections in the world, perfectly placed in Hollywood. I get too much of an impression of a kind of copy/paste modus operandi.

    Then there is Fringe. There is clearly more than one composer there. As the series went on, what I assess as not so good seemed to take up less of the time and what I thought was better grew. Then I start seeing another name, 'Chris Tilton' I think...
  • W
    W

     Stop talking about this worthless bullshit and go listen to some Beethoven. 

  • J
    J
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    @William said:

     Stop talking about this worthless bullshit and go listen to some Beethoven. 

     

    Ya know William, you bring up a pretty good point here.  Why was Beethoven a better film composer, before man ever put image to celluloid, then most of those today who go around calling themselves "film composers."  And let's face it, our pal Ludwig kicked the oxygen habit nearly 200 years ago but his music still has a contemporary filmscore like essence about it today.

    I was watching Fantasia with my 6 year old the other day and I was reminded at how well the Classical music worked in that film.  My 6 year old absolutely loved it.  He's Beethoven's littlest biggest fan now.  Of course, I think the images were actually composed for the music rather than the other way around but still...

    But this got me to thinking about Beethoven's 7th that was used in that powerful scene in The King's Speech.  Although I appreciated Desplat's minimalism and the constant one note hit over and over to symbolize the King's Stuttering, like he was stuck in a rut for nearly the whole film, why did they resort to Beethoven for that climactic scene.  I think Desplat won a Golden Globe or something for "his" score but he owes at least some of it to Beethoven.

    It always seems as though Beethoven's 9th, 4th movement, the so-called "Ode to Joy," is the go to score when you need something dramatic for your climactic scene and your so-called "composer" just wants to cue his usual drone block chords LOUDER!!! like that's supposed to signify DRAMA. Or you're just too cheap to hire a real composer to write a score so you stick to the public domain stuff.

    At least Stanley Kubrick made Beethoven's music an integral character in his A Clockwork Orange.  However, I'm not exactly sure if Wendy Carlos's occasional Bloop! Blop! Moog interpretations did much to drive the point of Alex being a cold hearted punk.  So why not do the entire score that way?  Why the inconsistency.

    And since we're on the subject of Star Trek, didn't Beethoven make a cameo in Star Trek Insurrection?  I don't think the piece they played was part of the score however. 

  • J
    J
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    @Errikos said:

    I have been away for a while - and still am (to the chagrin of those who miss my easy, collegial disposition), I just logged in very quickly to share my immeasurable enthusiasm, not merely about the black holes of the script vs. characters/timeline, but also about the soundtrack, which excepting the fact that the main part was a rip-off from Batman, that apart from constant f****** stabs and completely inappropriate, cliched piano-strings Bold&Beautiful kind of setting I couldn't pick up an idea, noting the complete exposure of half-way-through-1st-year polyphonic skills, and ignoring that the 7-8 orchestrators engaged could not orchestrate their way out of a paper bag if their lives depended upon it, it was otherwise a very fine score...

     

    So Erik, I'm intrigued, what did you like about the score.

    Your post here is kind of like saying:

    Aside from the fat growing around her ankles, her mustache that had a mustache on it, her hidious Beaver-like buck teeth, her ass so big it still had snow on it during the Summer, and the hair growing on her back reminiscent of a Chia Pet, Marilyn Monroe was an otherwise beautiful woman[:P]
  • P
    P

    JJ Abrahms is a fucking genius! This guy worked out long ago that what you do to make money is to go from the bottom up. What does that mean cinematically?  What it's always meant.

    You start off by making something that is a sure bet when aimed at an audience with an IQ - (or very low intelligence level, low self esteem or think that one day their lives will get better when they're abducted by aliens - that sort of thing) - of around 12 and then anything above that is a bonus. But IQ's of around 12 is a huge audience - so you don't have to worry about that.

    Think of it another way. If you make films today that are top down - you are almost certainly working pro bono, unless you're very lucky and it strikes a chord. (for example - a stammering idiot who became king- that sort of thing). In other words they get categorized as 'art films'. That's what I have always said and like about the French film industry and just recently I noticed they were trying to protect it against something or another. Hollywood and garbage probably - I don't know.

    The British film industry decided a few years ago that the only way to go is make low budget drivel that involved extreme gratuitous violence every 25 seconds set in ludicrous situations. 

    Awesome stuff from the UK right there.
  • P
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    Incidentally - these type of films have spawned an enormous audience of enormous people. Are any of you fat people here? Obese people love this type of film. I don't know why. Perhaps that's why they're fat. I don't know - I'm not a psychiatrist. This is why I don't go to the cinema. I have this phobia about being stuck between two fat people and the constant fear of being trapped and unable to get out. And the film turns out to be a fat persons film. And on and on......
  • DietzD
    VSL Team
    DietzD
    /Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library
  • W
    W

     Whatever you do Paul, don't go EVA to service the AE35 unit.
  • E
    E

    Out of respect for you guys that you responded to this latest of many outright insults to symphonic music (for film or otherwise), I'd just like to say:

    Jasen, the very last part of my review was sarcastic, there was not the slightest redeeming feature in that score. Even the re-work of Courage's original theme for the end credits was inane. I wonder who Giacchino's ghostwriter was for 'Up'...

    Paul, I know what you mean...,

    Bill, premature congratulations on your Beethoven - I was waiting for the final version for comment,

    J. J. Abrams, go hang yourself. If you lack imagination, respect, and taste, to such a degree, let go of the franchise, or let Star Trek die a noble enough death...
  • P
    P

    Has JJ Abrahms ever made any romcoms? Star Trek XXX is really a romcom right? Have you ever noticed how overweight persons, especially females that use their cell phones to talk to one another, actually in the cinema while watching the film,  love romcoms where it becomes very much a vacarious affair? I never do anything vacariously personally. Vacuous - yes, almost certainly. But that's the time we live in.  

    To get caught stuck between two fat birds in the cinema while they actually talk or text to one another using mobile phones  during the movie is my idea of being in Hell. I try to rule that out of my life. [^o)]

    It's either that, or I become a crash test dummy.
  • PaulP Paul moved this topic from Orchestration & Composition on