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Comments
FA has no unique identity of it's own, it's run-of-the-mill sad music.
WHATTITW does have it's own unique identity. So it's going to be more "glued" to whatever that piece of music was associated with (happened to be OHMSS).
Sorry if I'm not explaining my thoughts well.
Like there’s those who feel Indiana Jones wouldn’t work without John Williams music. They only say that because they never had to live in a reality where it had different music associated with it. Imagine there’s another reality where John Barry did Indy and to people there that’s so embedded with what they think of Indy that it’s hard to imagine anyone else doing it.
And it’s known that composers actually work on music enough that when they get hired they actually take cues they already wrote before and apply them to the film. Imagine if Barry decided to use a different arrangement he had in his back pocket, and 50 years later us fans say we can’t imagine OHMSS having any other music.
Like, if you were to take these three songs (Indiana Jones, WHATTITW, Final Ascent) before they were associated with anything.
The first two have strong identities (even "hooks" or something you might say) of their own, unassociated with anything else, films or otherwise, whereas Final Ascent doesn't really have it's own unique identity.
Now, take those songs and attach them to films:
Indiana Jones
OHMSS
NTTD
I think, for the reasons above, Indiana Jones and WHATTITW are more likely to be continually associated with Indiana Jones and OHMSS, because of the original quality/uniqueness of the song, than Final Ascent is to be continually associated with NTTD / The Bond franchise generally.
It all has to do with qualities of the songs outside of the films they're associated with.
Sorry if we're missing eachother on this! Maybe this is what you're saying too and I'm not undestanding. :))
Final Ascent is pretty much a knock-off of that track from Inception (repetitive four chord progression which continues to build). I think Time is considered a classic - this feels more like a rehash which doesn't hang together quite as cohesively as it did for Inception (I do like the NTTD song reference in it though). Certainly nice enough and works okay in the film - I find it steps just a bit too close to the line of being "overly-dramatic" and therefore comes off as a bit cheesy (the same argument could be leveled at Inception also).
I don't look/listen to each piece of music separately to judge them out of context.
All I'm saying is that it's derivativeness will keep it as "it did it's job well in the film", and not "it has become an iconic piece of Bond music".
I thought that was the original topic that started the conversation, whether or not Final Ascent would become an iconic Bond song, like We Have All The Time In The World, but maybe not.
Reading this as an observer, this is what it seemed like to me too. And I'm a big Zimmer fan.
When 'Final Ascent' kicks into its big finale, I love it. It works. But I recently rewatched 'Inception' and thought "jeez, this is pretty much 'Final Ascent'."
It's not really a slight as both pieces of music accomplish their goal, but neither stand out as behemoths when put next to each other. 'Time' maybe has the edge in that it's more popular among the general public though.
Yes; particularly the moment when Safin says "You made me do it", which is when the strings swell at the beginning of the song (just after the single instrument "intro" of the song), when you can see Bond realizing the gravity of what just happened, really heartbreaking stuff.
So, I went into Spotify and listened to 'Time' for comparative purposes and, yes, there is a distinct similarity with 'Final Ascent.' I'm not enough of a musicologist to say anything interesting about that except that Spotify then immediately went into its 'play other music similar to this' mode and literally two tracks later 'Final Ascent' came up ... 😄
It's been kind of funny/strange for me in reading here all the reverential comments about 'We Have All The Time In The World'. When I first got into Bond movies and books in the mid-70s it was always something of an overly sentimental ballad to me that I thought had no place in a Bond film. I know, heresy! But there it is! And I suspect I wasn't alone among my generation of fans in rolling my eyes at the romantic montage in OHMSS, both song & the scene it plays over being, arguably, the original "That's not Bond" moment! And while I played to death the LP copy "borrowed" for an extended time, oops, from the local library I always skipped WHATTITW & that daft XMAS trees' song. But, of course, my feelings have softened somewhat in the intervening years, at least regarding WHATTITW. But perhaps because I never held it in such high regard to begin with its use in NTTD does not only not bother, I actually rather admire it.
-Bond agrees with daddy to look after Tracy/Madeleine (that was in SP but still)
-Bond and Tracy / Madeleine are attacked by Spectre during their ‘honeymoon’ and get shot up in their car. (This time the glass was bullet proof though)
-Villain obsessed with Tracy
-Second act closes with a big chase, the villains after Bond and his girls, and ends with the girls being kidnapped. Leads to 3rd act being the rescue mission assault on villains base.
-villains plot is a bio weapon of sorts
Back to the music:
Zimmer is a definitively a talented soundtrack artist, and maybe a talented composer as well. But he has been derivative of his own style and ideas now for years and years. There are some effective pieces in his score, but has been pointed out, the cue Final Ascent is knocked off from Inception. I don’t know if he’s capable now of strong & distinctive melodic themes. The music for Cuba was really effective but I couldn’t recall the tune at all.
It’s telling that in the end credits, after we get a beautiful song courtesy of Louis Armstrong and John Barry, the suite comes in with pounding but generic Zimmer action stuff.
The best things about score honestly are the WHATTITW and OHMSS callbacks, and to be fair the way Zimmer uses the NTTD title track in the score. The basic musical material for all these was supplied by someone else. Zimmer did have the humility and sense to use this material though, and overall the score is a huge improvement on SP
I think that’s the difference between something unique and something that we’ve been hearing for the last 2 decades or so from Zimmer and others who emulate this style.
Not an aficionado of Zimmer, so can't comment on that.
Yeah?
Well... that's your opinion.Which you are quite entitled to.
Which, I actually respect.
But like I said, what I wrote it's just my opinion.
Nothing more.
Shame you can't respect mine, but there it is.
This movie soundtrack review site isn’t usually a big fan of Zimmer, but they are relatively complimentary about the NTTD score.
They are not a fan of the movie though, and most uncomplimentary about Billy Eilish…
A good in depth review. I like that the reviewer correctly maintains that neither Newman's or Zimmer's action cues can compare to Arnold's 😁
"Message from an Old Friend" alone bodychucks all of Arnold's action queues, save for maybe "Backseat Driver." Arnold's scores, no offense, all sound like the Star Wars prequels more than James Bond music. QoS was his best, most unique effort, and it sounds like Marc Forster is to thank for that.
Well this is certainly a new one, considering the majority of Arnold detractors usually throw the word "pastiche" around!
:))
I don't buy the soundtracks, etc. or can review Bond music in depth with any expertise, but I have a question: Can I buy, at some point maybe, all the recording sessions for NTTD? Because I would be interested. Do Bond movies have all those additional tracks released usually? I have no idea. Also, Inception is one of my favorite movies.
Oh, Yeah. Recording sessions usually pop up months later on film score download sites.