@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.