What happened to movie soundtracks?

Kari Kamiya said:
If I have to name the last movie that had a phenomenal soundtrack, it'd be Bear McCreary's work on Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Literally written as an epic, you can follow it as a story on its own.
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I'm still a huge fan of McCreary's work on Battlestar Galactica. Everything just "fit", all the major players had their own motif that got played with throughout the series, and he used a lot of instruments other than your standard orchestral fare. And the different variations of Wander My Friends used for Apollo and his father really add weight to their often strained relationship.

As to recent movies though, I've gotta give credit to Shiro Sagisu's work on Shin Evangelion. All the Evangelion films, really, but the fourth one in particular. For all the faults I find in the story, the film itself and the soundtrack are basically Anno's love letter to classical filmmaking. The whole score is an interesting mix of standard orchestral, spaghetti western, a literal hymn, and even some paying homage to ELO, in addition to a track that sounds a LOT like oldschool Toni Braxton. Then somehow he manages to fit in a choral version of Ave Verum Corpus and the Japanese version of Joy to the World. And it all works wonderfully. Basically I think Anno handed him a huge budget and said "go crazy."

And while Hikaru Utada needs to be slapped multiple times over for joining the "OmG nOnBiNaRy" crowd, her songs for all four films really managed to capture the overall vibe of each one.


Absolutego said:
The Pacific Rim soundtrack was an absolute banger in a similar vein.
Never saw the sequel, knew that was going to be a disaster, can't vouch for what it sounded like.
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You're right, the Pacific Rim sequel was trash. It doesn't exist in my mind.
 
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StarkRavingMad said:
Hans Zimmer does almost every movie score nowadays it seems, and so many of it is blurring together now. The last time Zimmer hit it out of the park with a film score was The Dark Knight, imo.
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The Cunting Death said:
Hans Zimmer has been phoning it in for decades.
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There's a few tracks on the Gladiator soundtrack that almost sound like a dry run for his work on the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, though. I genuinely love most of the music from the Pirates of the Caribbean films.
 
Miriam Margoyles said:
There's a few tracks on the Gladiator soundtrack that almost sound like a dry run for his work on the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, though. I genuinely love most of the music from the Pirates of the Caribbean films.
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I don't think he's bad at all, I love his score for TDK, I just think he's incredibly lazy these days.
 
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I just realized from my posting about Pacific Rim that the eventual Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon guy, Ramin Djawadi, wrote that. And, as shit as those shows can be, he's been writing masterpieces for them.
I wonder how much the problem is due to to prestige TV providing a better avenue for theme development/more reliable paycheck and that's what gave Zimmer so much influence in the blockbuster scene. When I think of themes I remember from recent media it's all TV.
 
In all honesty, most movie and tv show soundtracks are just generic orchestral music. The background nature of a soundtrack necessitates its reliance on repetition and/or ambience, as the listener's engagement with the show's or film's plot and visuals prevents him from following any advanced musical structure. Even the best movie soundtracks are usually memorable because of the context of the film or TV show and would be forgettable in a vacuum. Soundtracks that stand on there own as artistic works, such as the Blade Runner, Twin Peaks, or Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence soundtracks are very hard to come by. Also, what @winterfag said about temp music is what's mostly responsible.
 
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As someone who really appreciates a good, thematic score, this issue is both intriguing and depressing. However, I've wondered about this from more of a numerical perspective.

Consider that there are only a finite amount of notes, a finite amount of instruments, chords, keys, times, etc. Also consider that only a finite grouping of musical sounds will seem pleasing to the majority of listeners. As time goes on and music is crypto-mined for material, the number of discrete scores that don't borrow or outright steal from previous works diminishes. For example, John Williams is considered the king of movie music authors - and for good reason - but many of his most famous leitmotifs were obviously inspired by previous compositions.

(I don't want to give the impression that I think Williams is a hack. Just the opposite, as I think he's brilliant beyond words.)

The question logically becomes - are we running out of "original" themes and are composers nowadays just coasting on what I call "bland wallpaper music"? I personally haven't a clue, but it would be a fascinating problem for a gifted mathematician to tackle (or AI) assuming such a proof is even possible to construct.
 
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The lack of any good themes from the Star Wars ST really hit home on why it was so shitty, and I am sad that they replaced the score for the Super Mario Bros. Movie with shitty pop songs before release.

The real question, though, is what happened to movie novelizations (that aren't kids' junior novelizations). That is a question for the ages but deserves its own thread.
 
Xarpho's Return said:
The lack of any good themes from the Star Wars ST really hit home on why it was so shitty, and I am sad that they replaced the score for the Super Mario Bros. Movie with shitty pop songs before release.

The real question, though, is what happened to movie novelizations (that aren't kids' junior novelizations). That is a question for the ages but deserves its own thread.
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the midrange movie in general has died and that's where the lion's majority of book adaptations lived.
It's all film student projects skinwalking as movies and AAA hyper-corporate disasters that gets greenlit now.
I legit do not understand how they managed to die in the age of streaming but Hollywood is dependably bloated.
 
I'm no music person but my guess would be that they're not really using them to truly communicate anything. Most scores are vaguely atmospheric rather than being seen as part of how you're telling the story the same way you'd view the setting. A lot of it is background, true, but that doesn't mean it isn't doing something for the audience. In the same way, a lot of newer stuff is very quiet. No rustling clothes, foot steps much quieter than you'd think, no ambient noise in some scenes, and fewer background extras.

Also, they just don't use brass sections like they used to. It's not really ochestra so much as it seems a few instruments and electronic fiddling.

I don't think it's music "there's only so much you can do with the music". You can do a lot it's just that entertainment is reaching peak corporatization in almost all aspects.
 
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The Dracarys violin sting was so diagetic I thought it was a sound the dragon was making. Djawadi is fucking incredible.

When you heard the clapping in BSG, you knew something was about to get fucked up. Mccreary delivers on whatever project he works on. He even worked for Bimmy!

When I was a teenager, movie soundtracks were a cheap way to beef up my music library. I might not be able to afford every band's CD, but those movie soundtracks were a fantastic cafeteria collection. That's what I thought this thread was going to be about.

I've bought soundtracks for movies I don't even like. End of Days the soundtrack is much better than End of Days the movie.
 
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Absolutego said:
the midrange movie in general has died and that's where the lion's majority of book adaptations lived.
It's all film student projects skinwalking as movies and AAA hyper-corporate disasters that gets greenlit now.
I legit do not understand how they managed to die in the age of streaming but Hollywood is dependably bloated.
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Iron Man and the first few MCU movies got novelizations...then again, given how these things are based on the scripts on the movie, reading some quip-filled capeshit would be a wretched experience.
 
Xarpho's Return said:
Iron Man and the first few MCU movies got novelizations...then again, given how these things are based on the scripts on the movie, reading some quip-filled capeshit would be a wretched experience.
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Gotta be honest I totally misread what you meant by novelizations and put the cart waaay before the horse there.
For some reason I mentally mapped that to book adaptations, not movie novelizations.
 
wtfNeedSignUp said:
It doesn't make sense considering modern Disney films have horrific soundtracks and that games by a single schitzo Japanese man have more memorable and varied soundtracks than anything that came out the last decade. Heck, most capeshit modern soundtracks are just lazily stitched 80's songs.
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Elaborate and be specific. What is it about modern movie music that makes them unmemorable? The funny thing about you starting this with Hogwarts Legacy is that it's obviously patterned after John Williams original score which quite a few people at the time including the late Alan Rickman found obnoxious.
 
The scores from the new Dune movies are some of the bestI've heard in years. I get Zimmer is overrated but I don't care.
 
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Vect said:
Elaborate and be specific. What is it about modern movie music that makes them unmemorable? The funny thing about you starting this with Hogwarts Legacy is that it's obviously patterned after John Williams original score which quite a few people at the time including the late Alan Rickman found obnoxious.
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That I can't think of a case of hearing music from a modern film and immediately associating it with that film. The only exception is the Avengers theme.

Meanwhile I still remember Duel of Fates, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Matrix music. Not to mention Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, Robocop from the 80's.

Mind you I'm not an audiophile, maybe on average each music piece is better, but there is nothing that defines a film. To me it's all either samey orchestra music, 70's songs or poor remixes of the original work.
 
Hollywood loves it nepotism, unless you one of the five composers your average joe has actually heard off they don't want them and those guys are stretched as thin as humanly possible. The pool of Hollywood approved composers is getting smaller and smaller every year, you can't just chain phillip glass to a radiator and force him to make music, as much I wish we could.
 
Absolutego said:
Ramin Djawadi
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I think he did Iron Man, as well. The music for that scene where he flies for the first time, and he goes over the carnival? That's brilliant. Perfectly captures that fun, exciting, 'roller-coaster' feel that a scene like that needs.
 
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