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But we all know this will never happen, because Barry is now in legendary status, and no other composer will ever be able to come close to what he achieved with Bond.
There basically is no other composer out there that was ever as good as Barry, other than perhaps John Williams or Ennio Morricone who came close.
Certainly Newman's efforts for SF should never be held in a higher regard by the critics, which is nothing short of scandalous, considering how poor his soundtrack was, even by Arnold's standards.
Any new composer given the Bond gig should graciously accept they will never surpass Barry's work, no matter how hard they try, so should just do what Arnold has done fairly successfully with CR and QoS, and give us a soundtrack that homages Barry, mimics him wherever possible, instead of trying desperately to go off in a complete different direction.
It's a bit like the guest authors that have been writing the new Bond novels. They all should try and mimic Fleming's style as much as possible - anything less will always be a dismal failure, but at least they've all recognised this and tried to attempt a Fleming prose, successful or not.
This is the unfortunate thing about stepping in to a 50 year old franchise. The ground rules are already set, and to try and steer too much away from it won't be acceptable.
Good point. True, Arnold was not always particularly consistent , but I do think the CR and QoS scores were actually really rather good. To replace a composer who seemed to have really hit his stride and replace him with someone whose music is as anodyne and personality-less as Newman's is perverse.
And while I utterly agree that it is unlikely that anyone can ever surpass Barry, I do think EON could and should be aiming higher. I also feel that pure Barry homage is not necessarily the best route forward. The Brosnan era took the approach of just rehashing old ideas again and again , and the films are not going to stand the test of time. Bond has to evolve. The music needs to change too. Even Barry's scores evolved over the three decades he worked on Bond.
So I'd rather have Arnold over the damp squib that is Newman, but I also think EON could and should aim much higher than either of these two. And they should not be afraid of someone coming in and creating a new distinctive sound.
The fact that Newman has attempted to do things differently is not what bothers me. I don't actually want Barry rip offs every movie. It's the fact that the SF score was so utterly bland.
His Oscar winning score to The Grand Budapest Hotel is simply exquisite. I've been quite impressed by his scores, both his Kings Speech and both Deathly Hallows films was good as well but his score for TGBH was a case of someone truly deserving the award, that and the fact that Anderson's film is probably the closest he's got to a masterpiece yet.
Michael Giacchino is another for consideration, yes Incredibles was great but he also shows he can come up with a memorable theme for a well established series, I thought his main theme and score for both new Star Trek films was both memorable and stirring.
If John Williams hadn't returned to do The Force Awakens I would have felt we were in a safe place with Giacchino as he seems to know about melody but he's also not ripping off what came before.
David Holmes is another guy who I think would arise to the occasion. Newman might well produce good score for other films but this is Bond and you've got to bring a certain sound to it and stop trying to stamp your style all over it.
Unless he can reinvent the sound in such a striking way, which I think he can't (go on Thomas now there is a challenge), he should realise certain things need adhered to, if not we are just going to get a Thomas Newman score and not a Bond one.
It's just a fact of life, no Bond score will ever top OHMSS but it doesn't mean people who have been tasked shouldn't try but it seems those who've followed aren't even in a similar city let alone the same post code.
This is quite unfair I think. IF we're bringing awards into this, then we all know we have to look at the bigger picture. Then we have to look at the entire score portfolio of BOTH Newman and Barry.
We all know John Barry was a very VERY productive score composer. He was very busy with Bond, but come ON. He was equally busy, and perhaps more, with other movies. "Out Of Africa", "The Lion In Winter", "Dances With Wolves", "Midnight Cowboy" and many many others. The fact that he got nominated for Oscars, or perhaps even won them, has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with how movies are judged on the whole.
Bond films are great fun for me. Have always been. Quality-wise most of them were terrific. But as films quite a few Bond films were actually pretty bad! And come ON. You can't blaim the Academy for not awarding nominations to let's say OHMSS or DAF. For the very simple reason that only very recently Bond films finally got judged not solely as Bond films.....but also as great films on the whole, regardless of the Bond tag. Thank Craig for that. And, it is part of the success of the Craig films. Man, we should be a bit more grateful about that.
Back in the 1960's and 1970's no one gave a shit about Bond films not winning Oscars or getting nominations nominations. Everyone was happy. Even John Barry admitted several time that, after doing a couple of serious films, it was great to enter the escapist, ridiculous Bond-bandwagon again.
And now....now FINALLY a Bond film gets worthy Oscar recognition, we start....getting snobbery and start saying "Pffff, Barry should have won it". I find that completely disrespectful towards Thomas Newman. And disrespectful towards the current Bond family.
Moreover, if we for ONCE can judge films a bit more without our blinded Bond spectacles on, then we have to conclude that John Barry won A LOT of Oscars and Thomas Newman NONE.
No it is NOT. You can't place yourself in the 1960's. You only know the OHMSS music score from 1969. And then you suddenly compare them with today's Bond scores. It's not fair.
Have you ever listened to the 5 scores from 1969 movies that got nominated for an Oscar in 1970? I did. At least two of them I found even better than the OHMSS score. And it also tells you something about scores then and now. THEN scores on the whole were a lot better than now. That's the timeframe, and the quality of those days, you should take into account when coming with bold statements that "OHMSS should won the Oscar for Best Score in 1970"
Yes, because everyone should feel how you do and think how you do. We all have different tastes sir. Music, Movies, Food, Drink, Media what have you. Barry set the standard and gave us New memorable scores that were unique to the films. Newman gave us generic music that you could splice into any movie today. Newman didn't respect Barry's legacy. He was forced to incorporate Adele's theme and the Bond them. I find that disrespectful.
This isn't about awards or Hollywood politics. This is about wanting the Gold standard. The best he can deliver. I don't believe for one minute that Newman gave us his all. This isn't about being snobbish. It's an opinion. Were allowed to have them. Good or bad. That's how the world works.
As I said, I don't mind of SF, SP or any future Bond films get nominated for 10+ Oscar's, a Bond soundtrack should never be part of the nominations.
What you are stating is that Newman only managed to blag a few nominations and awards because of the film itself, and not because of the score, which I absolutely 100% agree with you on. That is obviously what happened.
But it doesn't mean this is right.
Maybe they actually liked the different approach he took. Who knows.
It was not a Barry-like score, and it did not use the Bond theme much at all, but that does not mean it was necessarily bad. Some people obviously liked it (I've seen good reviews on sites like Amazon and IMDB etc.) and it did well in a variety of awards. I personally liked it in the context of the movie, although as mentioned, I have no intention of purchasing it or listening to it on its own (I have my Barry scores for that purpose).
At the end of the day, Barry was snubbed and it's unforgiveable. The academy should make up for that glaring oversight with a Bond specific honorary lifetime achievement award (and they really should have done it for the 50th anniversary in 2012). EON should push for this. Enough members of the public will support it.
John Barry was a fantastic and prolific composer who produced some wonderful scores for the Bond films and his contributions to film as a whole is amongst the greats.
I do feel that the Academy did have a bias against the Bond films - they do have a very snobbish view when it comes to certain types of films - what they see as "popcorn flicks", and they pass over films that rightly deserve nominations: an example of this recently was The Lego Movie, which was lauded by critics and movie goers alike, but was left out of the "animated feature" nominations.
But we also have to look at the film scores that were nominated in the respective years - were they better composed for their films than the scores for the Bond films? Were the films that were nominated in stead of OHMSS at the Oscars in 1970 better than Barry's score?
Also take into account the scores from the films in 2012, were there any that deserved to be nominated instead of Newman's?
All I'm saying is, don't judge future nominations on the past.
Absolutely no way. For a start there isn't that much of a score in the film, just the odd slow banjo twang, and a few standalone musical sequences, which are not bad but definitely far from Oscar worthy.
And if you look at the other films nominated that year, the argument that Barry's OHMSS work doesn't stand up against them completely falls apart. Steve McQueen's The Reivers was nominated, which tells you all you need to know.....
That's a matter of opinion. Personally that wasn't my favourite either to win the Oscar for "Best Score" back in 1970. But I DO think John Williams ("The Reivers") and Jerry Fielding ("The Wild Bunch") really did a masterful job with their scores. IMO even better than John Barry's score for "OHMSS".
Still, I really like Burt Bacharach's score for "Butch Cassidy". You can not just compare it that easily with OHMSS. I think at the time Butch Cassidy deservedly won the Oscar.
Also, and many people tend to forget. John Barry's score for "Goldfinger" was shortlisted as the final 8 in the category for "Best Score" for the 1965 Oscars. So as far as I'm concerned it did have an honorary mention.
One last thing. I keep hearing that fans always felt that there was some kind of grudge from the Academy against James Bond and in particular its music. Well, can we now at least admit that that grudge has been lifted since "Skyfall"? Yeah, people say it was robbed from the "Best Picture" category. But come on, like Nolan's films, and many other "popcorn flicks", now finally a Bond film got 5 Oscar nods. It's frikkin' unique! And IMO still deserved Oscar recognition.
That's one of the main reasons why his Skyfall score is so great. Do people really want every single new Bond soundtrack to sound like something Barry composed?
Couldn't agree more. I think Newman should stray even further from the Barry influence, because I think when he did, those were the best pieces in the Skyfall score.
Really? I thought it was the most drab Bond score since NSNA.....
Of course its a matter of opinion, and one that I think you are probably on your own on. OHMSS is far superior to most soundtracks of any time, not just 1969. It's still probably the greatest Bond soundtrack of all time. To say The Wild Bunch, Butch Cassidy, and The Reivers were much better scores than OHMSS is nothing short of bizarre.
And that was way back in 1964, and never received one since. Utterly disgraceful!
John Barry won 5 Oscars during his career. Does it really matter that he was never nominated for a Bond film?
All great points. Agreed.
From the very beginning of the series, music has been an integral part of the Bond films.
Barry's work is a part of the series' DNA. As a fan, I have an expectation that a Bond film will have certain elements identified with the series--music for one.
I agree that composers should not be clones of Barry, but there are certain thematic elements, styles, and tones that we associate with a Bond film. With few exceptions,
SF could be the soundtrack of almost any thriller. Which doesn't mean the music isn't good.
NSNA reminds us that a Bond film that doesn't sound like a Bond film is similar to not achieving an orgasm. Enjoyable experience, but ultimately not satisfying.
Not really, if it hadn't been for the fact that Newman got nominated for his dismal efforts. That is the only real sore point for me. That is a blatant slap in the face to Barry's work on Bond, because he never got a look in. Even Arnold deserved a nomination more than Newman did.