James' Top 50 Of The Decade So Far (It all ends here...)

[RobinHood26]

To be fair, JP is a bit frustrating like Godzilla 2014 in the sense that dinosaurs take a long time to show up.

Jurassic Park first act drags a bit IMO.

 

First scene is a dino scene. Also they arrive at JP 20 minutes in. We see the first full shot of dinosaur like 23 minutes in. The helicopter scene on the way to JP is only the 5th scene in the movie. 

[solaris]

It doesn't really matter if it rips JP or not. The movie itself is better. So...

 

Now James.... I really like you. I really do. But..... Jurassic Park IS better than Godzilla. And I didn't mind Godzilla.

 

[Noctis]

Jurassic Park is cinema magic. There is no film that has been able to capture what it did.

[Jessie]

Yep: Home Alone 1,2 are my favourite comedies all time, I LOVE The Addams Family (both movies), Independence Day, The Matrix, Titanic and the animation before 2000 is muuuuuuch better than what we get now.

I was just about to say that you better like independence Day and you do love that.

[The Futurist]

WETA do amazing mo cap (Apes, Avatar, king Kong, Gollum) whereas ILM do amazing explosions, destructive action scenes (Transformers, most marvel movies etc)

No, no, no that's the biggest miscompetion I hear about Weta all the time.

There are things called rendering and animation and Weta is world class in these areas.

FYI, Weta became famous for the first LOTR movie in 2001 when they developped the in house software called MASSIVE that allowed to create the first CGI armies and they sold this software to other VFX companies.

You can't reduce them to mo cap and fyi, the mo cap scenes all go through animators that tweek very little details to amp up the quality of the mo cap, especially the eyes which are a bitch to align the stares.

I saw a picture of the cooling system of Weta s server farms and trust me these are not for mo cap only but high quality rendering of very complex animation.

Also, ILM has developped their mo cap ring, hell every big vfx studio has.

Edited February 18, 2015 by A Grey Future

[Jessie]

No, no, no that's the biggest miscompetion I hear about Weta all the time.

There are things called rendering and animation and Weta is world class in these areas.

FYI, Weta became famous for the first LOTR movie in 2001 when they developped the in house software called MASSIVE that allowed to create the first CGI armies and they sold this software to other VFX companies.

You can't reduce them to mo cap and fyi, the mo cap scenes all go through animators that tweek very little details to amp up the quality of the mo cap, especially the eyes which are a bitch to align the stares.

I saw a picture of the cooling system of Weta s server farms and trust me these are not for mo cap only but high quality rendering of very complex animation.

Also, ILM has developped their mo cap ring, hell every big vfx studio has.

I had no intention of going into specific detail and I wasn't hindering WETA's achievements in any way lol

[baumer]

It's better than the Star Wars score.  And not all movies have to have a stand out, perfect, epic scores like HP, LOTR, POTC or TF. 

 

[baumer]

Williams is much more knows for hs work in the Potter series than SW and the two are NOTHING alike. And Zimmer and Shore copied Williams? What?! C'mon Tele, be objective. The SW score is iconic. As iconic as others mentioned though? Not for modern audiences.

 

Sorry dude, you're hot and everything and you like Transformers and that's cool.  But Williams is known for about 8 scores before Harry Potter.  Besides Star Wars, there's Jaws, Raiders, Superman and ET just to name a few.  Potter is way down the list.  I think you need to examine your life a little here.  This piece unfortunately applies to what you just said....still love you but....

 

[dashrendar44]

Even if you discount the concepts Tele is talking about, the Star Wars score is the most iconic score of all time.

There is no score that comes even close to the lasting impact it had on movie goers and film composers.

The scary thing about the Star Wars score is that there is not a cue or melody that isn t memorable or humable, it s just fantastic all the way through.

It has always been my theory that Spielberg/ Lucas movies wouldn t have had the same impact without Williams' scores.

The guy IS the genius of film scoring, there s no other composers that has written as many memorable and iconic themes and melodies.

Hans Zimmer on Scoring Man of Steel : " trying to copy what Williams did on the first Superman Movie, well there s no need, it s like saying you are gonna write the new Beethoven s ninth symphony ( or fifth I am not sure) it s impossible".

Oh, yeah, forgot to mention that Williams is also the father of superhero film scoring. Ask the question to any film composer, when they score a superhero movie, what is the score they want to aspire to, what is their favourite superhero movie score, they all have the same answer : Williams ´Superman score.

 

A guy like Zimmer couldn't come up with something like The Battle Of Hoth nor The Asteroid Field even if he tried. When you hear those cues, you hear reminiscences of the majestic and epic symphonic orchestrations of Stravinsky, Holst, Dvorak, Wagner, Korngold.

 

That's why I kinda loathe Zimmer as the go-to blockbuster composer today, he mostly does bombastic simplistic and repetitive trailer music based on trite chord progression used in pop music and electro, he is not composing a soundtrack specifically for the movie. Even his older scores are kind of "I write a single song with a single motif as a theme with loud drums to cover the poverty of the almost non-existent melody" (those awful cheesy synths!) and then spliced it all over the movie fast or slow that you can put it anywhere in the movie without any subtle variations or re-interpretations. That's not good scoring for me. I loved True Romance soundtrack when I was young but gosh does it lacks variations throughout the movie beside being a Badlands rip-off of Carl Orff's music (At least Malick seeks credits to the original composer instead of asking a hack to rip it off...)

 

For hence, The Battle Of Hoth wouldn't work on anything in Jurassic Park because it suits the footage's editing at 100%. Every single note, every single instrument's phrasing, every thematic variations match a character/an element/an action on the screen in terms of flow, rythm and atmosphere correlated to what is happening on the screen. You cut the sound and just keep the footage, the music tells you the story. SW trilogy can almost be watched as a silent film.

 

(The extremist side of that approach is called "Mickey Mousing" as in scoring like a cartoon or a slapstick comedy, the music is totally synchronized with everything happening on screen, it can be annoying and straining because it's like being assaulted with too much stimulis that are redundant like the character falls, the cymbal crashes? But the greatest composers are those that harness the power of the symphonic orchestra to create a complimenting and assorted soundscape and musical universe to the footage without being overbearing).

 

Nolan's Batman soundtrack could be The Rock's, Armageddon's, Broken Arrow and every single action movies from the last 20 years. it's how generic and poorly layered it is. It's like Zimmer doesn't even watch the movies he scores anymore, he just lays and piles noise on synths that are cut, spliced ad-lib in loops without much attention spent on matching the flow and the inner rythm of the sequence's editing and how shots flow into each other in a sequence (and that's actually quite the fact). That's why every dweeb that wants to make a fan-edit looks like the last trendy blockbuster uses Zimmer's music and not WIlliams.

Edited February 19, 2015 by Red Room of Dash

[Ozymandias]

BATTLESHIP is terrible on every level, and makes you realize what a visual savant Michael Bay is.

 

Its considerably better than Jupiter Ascending, though.

[Avatree]

 

Williams is much more knows for hs work in the Potter series than SW and the two are NOTHING alike. And Zimmer and Shore copied Williams? What?! C'mon Tele, be objective. The SW score is iconic. As iconic as others mentioned though? Not for modern audiences.

I realise everything has already been covered but: LOL.

 

 

 

I LOVED Godzilla 2014 but calling it better then Jurassic Park is ridiculous.

 

Not really. It's just an opinion.

[James]

Sorry dude, you're hot and everything and you like Transformers and that's cool.  But Williams is known for about 8 scores before Harry Potter.  Besides Star Wars, there's Jaws, Raiders, Superman and ET just to name a few.  Potter is way down the list.  I think you need to examine your life a little here.  This piece unfortunately applies to what you just said....still love you but....

 

All being mainly big US phenomenons. I am speaking of beeing known for something that has it's base in the popularity of a movie and for the last time: The World =/= the US. 

And I mean it: if I'd play the main Potter theme today to someone they would know it. If I'd play the Raiders theme or the ET one or the SW one they wouldn't. It's about the audiences today.

 

Also, for the record, denying Zimmer's work as one of the best composers working today is just.... what?!

 

Its considerably better than Jupiter Ascending, though.

You are soooo funny.

Edited February 19, 2015 by 69 Shades of James

[RobinHood26]

I don't live in Romania but I find it hard to believe no one would know the Star Wars theme.

[James]

I don't live in Romania but I find it hard to believe no one would know the Star Wars theme.

Of course there are people who know it, but none in my circle so far (friends, family friends, highschool, college friends). I am honestly beyond curious what SW7 will do here.

[baumer]

James, u do realize that SW made a pile of money internationally, right? I mean...the way u talk about SW youd think it made Moetecai numbers internationally.

[baumer]

Of course there are people who know it, but none in my circle so far (friends, family friends, highschool, college friends). I am honestly beyond curious what SW7 will do here.

That would be like me saying because my 21 year old stepson doesnt know the Wizard of Oz theme that its not popular.

[pepsa]

That would be like me saying because my 21 year old stepson doesnt know the Wizard of Oz theme that its not popular.

 

Wizard of oz isn't know at all here in Belgium, none of my friends knew their was a movie about oz, other than Oz great and powerfull. Altought I think most people know the starwars music (I even knew the music before I saw the movie ) somethimes we look to much to the popularity in the USA.

[baumer]

Youre missing the point.

[chasmmi]

i do weekly quizzes with my students who are Koreans aged between 10 and 14.

one week i did a film quiz where played film scores. the most correctly guessed was jaws. second was star wars (a few teams confused it with superman) them came Indiana Jones and James Bond (confused with mission impossible).

even those these kids were born in the21st century i think ifi played avengers man of steel and avatar they would have scored Zero on those questions.

Edited February 19, 2015 by chasmmi

[Alpha]

Of course there are people who know it, but none in my circle so far (friends, family friends, highschool, college friends). I am honestly beyond curious what SW7 will do here.

They're hiding the truth from you, James. They watch Star Wars without you.

FIND THE TRUTH.

Edited February 19, 2015 by Alpha