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He cared about what he did on Star Wars. Him and George Lucas worked very closely and Williams often reprised his themes from previous movies, proving he cared about creating a cohesive work. Williams was passionate about his work on SW, which is way different than being a fan and naming your son Luke. Writing a bunch of melodies and then giving them to someone else to fit in the movie definitely doesn't sound reassuring.
I don't think we're going to be getting anything close to Barry's style here. Even less so than we have been in the last decade.
The William Tell Overture in THE LONE RANGER was actually implemented by Geoff Zanelli and most of BR2049 (aside from a select few cues, such as MESA) were composed by Wallfisch, including TEARS IN RAIN if I remember correctly.
Granted, Zimmer oversaw a lot of it (even though he was on tour), but there's no guarantee that he would do anything differently for Bond. We do of course hold Bond on a pedestal here, naturally, but Zimmer is a rock star and as I said previously, he's as much a producer now as he is a composer, and a lot of the composing he is interested in revolves around pushing sound design techniques that wouldn't be suitable for Bond at all.
However, if it is Balfe, I would at least be confident that he would do what he did with FALLOUT and use the Bond theme as a foundation from which to twist that very identifiable RCP sound around.
But no, John Barry this certainly will not be. Unless you just count a statement of the Bond theme as "John Barry's style".
Which is what Williams did on ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’: he composed a theme and gave it to John Powell to fit in the movie. So are you saying he cares/was passionate about SW or not? :)
It’s just a different method of scoring, that doesn’t mean Zimmer “doesn’t care”. As long as it results in a score that elevates the film it shouldn’t matter HOW it was done behind the scenes.
Lest we forget, the Nolan Batman films weren’t just Zimmer, it was a tag-team score between Zimmer and James Newton Howard. Makes me wonder when a Bond film will hire a duo of composers for a film.
The Bond theme will be in the new score no matter what, but I don’t want John Barry’s style. It was his style: we had it and it was obviously amassing, but he’s dead and I don’t want someone trying to ape him. Zimmer is one of the greats alongside Barry: he shouldn’t have to try and copy someone else. Obviously it’s got to sit in Bond’s world and be a part of it, but in the same way Daniel Craig isn’t impersonating Connery, a new composer shouldn’t impersonate Barry.
Nope.
It's extremely unlikely. Most likely Jeff/Rob Pfeifer.
I wouldn't want anyone directly copying Barry either. Thankfully nobody really has.
I was just explaining why you definitely shouldn't expect it from Zimmer, and I say that as a fan of his.
Yeah, true...but I think at some point as a composer working on a Bond film, Barry's style just can't be ignored completely. It mustn't be exact (a modern take on it would do) Newman knew the Barry style...but never wanted to use it fully. And it didn't help him(Especially in SP). Coz the tracks 'Severine' & the opening mins of 'Komodo Dragon' shows he knows it. The last composer to completely ignore Barry's style was Eric Serra & we know how that turned out....I like Serra's score. But I can't speak for everyone. Coz as we know that score isn't universally loved.
Using the template that Barry established would be the most important thing for me. You don't necessarily have to ape all things Barry to do a good Bond score, as Arnold proved. I never saw him as Barry-lite like a small number have done, just someone who understood what made the Barry scores special to so many. He put his own stamp on it stylistically to such a significant degree in his stronger scores that the accusations of mimicking Barry never rang true to me. Another composer with a different style could still accomplish the same thing, I feel. Be it Pemberton, Britell, Hurwitz, Romer, or one of the proposed RCP guys.
Barry would still be there in spirit, of course. He hangs over Bond like Williams will always hang over Star Wars, and that's just how it is. You don't have to ape it, but there's no getting away from it either. Just look at Powell and Giacchino's Star Wars scores as an example. They're unmistakably Star Wars, obviously, but they're not just copy and pasting Williams' throughout.
Good point's @CraigMooreOHMSS – and I can agree with all this. My reason for not minding someone aping the Barry sound/style, is mostly just because I'd want to see how a very Barry-esque score would fit a modern-day Bond. It might end up like something very out of date, but I would still like to see it. Not expecting that to happen of course.
I think Pemberton would be my pick out of current composers (if not including Arnold). As we saw with U.N.C.L.E he wasn't afraid to how his inspirations with each track, and it made for an interesting and quite refreshing score, IMO.
It'd be interesting for sure, @Torgeirtrap and I absolutely agree with you about Pemberton's U.N.C.L.E score. I revisited it recently and it is a great listen. He'd be my pick as well, though I do like some of the other choices too.
Indeed, there's several names that could be interesting to see get the gig. I definitely want a score that includes more melodies than just "sounds" – but that might be too much to ask for in 2019.
I think maybe George Martin got as close as we’ve seen to trying to do a Barry score. He did a good job of it and added his own feel, but that’ll probably do for me. Arnold’s most consciously Barry pastiche track was probably City of Lovers from Casino Royale. Again, a good track, but I don’t want to to be thinking ‘oh this sounds like someone trying to be Barry’.
No thanks. Would you want someone playing Bond as Sean Connery? It’s as bad for me. Be your own thing.
That was intentionally a retro film though, even set in the past. I rather like that it was a based on 60s Italian spy films which is a genre I’ve not seen a Hollywood film do before, but I wouldn’t want Bond going retro.
See, I just don't subscribe to this way of thinking at all. Is everyone who attempts to do lush, sweeping, romantic film scoring trying to be John Barry then despite the fact that they're just doing what the scene calls for? The notion of that is ironically incredibly limiting, I feel. It pigeon holes so many great cues. And that's not just in relation to Arnold, but all the other composers as well who have all had that lush romance present in their scores. Newman's Komodo Dragon arguably veers into "pastiche" (an awful word) territory too, but it's still a good piece of music that fits the scene like a glove and I find it hard to imagine it without it.
You're right about Martin. But I don't think he took anything from Barry other than structure of the Bond score. His style wasn't the same as Barry's and it's why LALD is one of the most unique films in the series from a musical standpoint, despite being undeniably Bondian at the same time. In fact, I would say that LALD is exactly the example that composers should be looking to if you wanted to create a Bond score without "aping" John Barry.
Not that it matters, considering I don't think that's what we're going to be getting with NTTD anyway, whether it be from Romer or one of the RCP guys. I fully expect the next film to have an incredibly divisive score. It's going to be extremely interesting.
Oh man, I would LOVE to hear it now.
No, it’s not just lush strings: it sounds specifically like Barry’s way of doing lush strings; almost more his 90s style than even his Bond stuff. There are many incidents of lush strings throughout the Bond films, but none so consciously aping Barry’s style.
Nah I think it very much does ape Barry: it’s almost hard to tell it’s not him if you’re not really paying attention. I wouldn’t want a composer to stick so close: I’d much rather something new and fresh. I want a composer to look at Bond and decide for themselves how that would be represented musically. Much like Newman did, I think they’re likely to decide on something not a million miles away from what we’ve had before (I think it’s hard to lose the brass and big epic, full sound) but I don’t want the same old.
I wouldn't want that retro sound at all (it’s a comedy score, really) but I’m sure he’d do a good enough job. I’ve never loved his stuff but it always works and he thinks up a nice tune occasionally. He and Arnold are big friends: they’re even performing together.
Anything could sound like anything if you're not paying attention, so I think you're completely wrong here. There's certainly brass and the usual featured instruments in there, but it very much has more of a feverish, percussive soul element to the instrumentation that makes it undoubtedly not John Barry, even to a casual ear. The theme song helps a great deal, and further solidifies how important it is that the composer be granted a chance to work with the songwriter regardless of their stylistic approaches. LALD is a fine example of that, managing to not ape what came before but still be unmistakably Bond.
That's what the aim should always be.
Yeah, am not saying I want Giacchino....am looking forward to Zimmer doing it. I meant a Composer doing a Bond score will do better making it 50/50.His style & the Bond style....which is the Barry sound.
Indeed....LALD is a fine example. Martin doesn't sound entirely like Barry. But one can still tell it's a Bond score. That's what I was trying to say.