Path: ...!Xl.tags.giganews.com!local-1.nntp.ord.giganews.com!news.giganews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail
NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2024 22:50:33 +0000
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2024 15:50:33 -0700
From: Pluted Pup <plutedpup@outlook.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
User-Agent: Hogwasher/5.24
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Message-ID: <0001HW.2C2E243900109E3D30D7BA38F@news.giganews.com>
Subject: Re: Superman (1978) John Williams' score
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
References: <v5hksf$28sr0$1@dont-email.me> <atropos-6B7FBA.12231526062024@news.giganews.com>
Lines: 78
X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com
X-Trace: sv3-bea31v2pPLy9sx5EcJ3Otk4ax/mMaC/5uRPEsOzjh43AQnU8Ovt7IuMbkba5+guJgfASPChX1whQS0W!Eauqh3ZKQkfO89HasmgulAD9YwO7oH+zJ0m0gBa6sM1VsNJZPhQw7mwohfWsL324CSULpn+gNBQr!qQPv
X-Complaints-To: abuse@giganews.com
X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html
X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers
X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly
X-Postfilter: 1.3.40
Bytes: 4995

On Wed, 26 Jun 2024 12:23:16 -0700, BTR1701 wrote:

> In article<v5hksf$28sr0$1@dont-email.me>,
> "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>  wrote:
>
> > Throughout June, TCM was playing various movies to celebrate the scores
> > of Hollywood's best-known composers. To honor John Williams, they chose
> > to play Superman. In the host's comments, it was new information to me
> > that Jerry Goldsmith had turned the movie down as he was scoring
> > something else, although you'd think the guy who scored Chinatown over a
> > weekend after the earlier composer was fired would been able to do it,
> > just by never sleeping for two months.
> >
> > It's a great score, but it's always always always annoyed me that you
> > cannot hear the score properly over the opening titles because of all
> > the whooshing noises as each title flies by. I've always hated that.
> > Salkind hired the guy who had just received an Oscar for Jaws, so I
> > think the audience really wants to hear the music.
> >
> > Yes, I know the main theme is derivative (of previous works of his own,
> > plus the usual romantic composers that movie music is supposed to sound
> > like), but the first four notes of that one major theme in the music
> > conveys such a sense of joy and optimism, it's just perfect.
>
> So much of the criticism many film composers have of "being derivative"
> is wholly undeserved. Almost every time it's done specifically and
> intentionally by the composer on orders from the director.

The ultimate derivative soundtrack is the "composer"
Tom Jonson in The Braineaters (1958). It's his only film
credit on imdb.com, listed as "music by" but on the
screen itself it says he's the composer. He managed to
compose his soundtrack to include lots of Russian
classical music, like Prokofiev's Nevsky Cantata, and others
I forget, but it's one of my favorite soundtracks!
I like tried and true classical music much better than the
freshly composed stuff that imitates classical music.

May as well mention Robot Monster (1953), one of my favorite
soundtracks, this is unique, so far as I know, by Elmer
Bernstein, and it's too bad the idea to issue a separate
soundtrack wasn't pursued so the recorded parts were thrown
in the trash. (Robot Monster was produced by a rogue's
gallery).

>
> For example, the opening scene of STAR WARS, with the huge Imperial Star
> Destroyer rumbling in overhead, almost endlessly. People say Williams
> just lifted that part of the score from Holst's "Mars" from "The
> Planets", but the reality is that Lucas actually temp-tracked that scene
> with Mars and when Williams came in to score it, Lucas kept sending him
> notes saying, "Make it sound more like Mars. I really like the sound of
> Mars there." So Williams basically mimicked Holst's piece as close as he
> could without risking a copyright violation.
>
> So now all these years later, we have lackbrains like Hutt claiming
> Williams all but plagiarized Mars in STAR WARS.
>
> The same is true for so many composers whose creativity is leashed by
> whatever the director wants, not what they can actually produce.
>
> > One of the pieces I really like is "Welcome to Krypton" (I really have
> > no idea what it's called), slightly reminiscent of Aaron Copland and
> > early Charles Ives.
>
> 1M1 Prelude / 1M1A The Planet Krypton
>
> > Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor isn't the way I ever pictured Lex Luthor but
> > he made it work. Of course it would have been better to create an all-new
> > character for the movie. Why was Valerie Perrine a henchwoman? Yes, she
> > got to distract Major Nelson in that one scene
>
> Which doesn't age well, as a bunch of soldiers surround a pretty girl
> passed out on the side of the road and instead of summoning medical
> help, they all giggle and start planning on how they're going to
> sexually assault her.