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It made me wonder if the clip was featuring a temp track of some Arnold cue. Thankfully the full score was much more interesting than what that clip indicated.
Another thing about that clip was that I thought it was an instrumental variation. Of Adele’s song as Bond is using the construction vehicle to hold onto the train cart.
Yeah....well, snippets of Arnold's style can be heard in some Newman's tracks.just like we can hear some Barry nods too. But it's basically Newman trying to give Bond a new sound. I think the Guy that sounded exactly like Arnold, was Richard Jacques who scored the BloodStone Game. That Game's score has Arnold written all over it. And it's a very good Bondian score too.
I think once a Composer is doing a Bond film, the score has to be Bombastic. So Newman was obviously going to be Bombastic, just like Arnold. What Arnold does Better is, his Bombastic tracks are very enjoyable. I think most fans would enjoy listening frequently to Arnold's 'Time To Get out' & 'Target Terminated' than Newman's 'Snow Plane' & 'Tempus Fugit'.
I agree. I like Newman's romantic stuff, but I find most of his action material to be pretty weak.
Yes I think that’s a good way of putting it. I enjoy plenty of Arnold’s tunes but theyre mostly kind of thin and fairly simplistic, whereas I find the sophistication and richness of Newman’s stuff to suit my preferences for Bond more. It just feels like a quality piece, which is what Bond is to me: they’re action films made by people who are far too good for it, making the most beautiful sets, the funniest lines, the best acting, with the nicest cars, in the most beautiful locations etc. So to have the music exuding this sort of rich sophistication feels right to me in a way that Arnold’s slightly unsophisticated music didn’t. That’s not to say I couldn’t enjoy it or that it was without merit, but I just have a preference of one over the other.
Exactly....romantic pieces like 'Severine', 'Donna Lucia', 'Madeleine'. Even the rejected 'Old Dog, New Tricks'....and emotive ones like 'Secret Room' were all Top-notch. But Newman just chose to experiment. Coz action tracks like 'Silhouette' shows that Newman actually knows the Bond sound.
Indeed, and he reinvented the Bond sound without just copying what had been done before but still making it feel like Bond because he’d thought about how it works when it works and what needed to stay and what didn’t. It’s not just ‘stick some trumpets in there and do the Bond theme here’.
Yeah, although his experimentation with Action Bond music wasn't entirely exciting. I think Eric Serra was the one who was better with his experimentation of a Bond Score.
I didn't really see it as experimentation at all. Newman didn't really push himself outside of his comfort zone as much as he could have (considering these were the largest scale films that he had ever scored), and that's why his softer cues are more memorable than his mostly fairly limp action material (for me, at least) because they are the things he really excels at. I do really like all of those tracks you mentioned though. "Severine" in particular is wonderful.
For me, though, his only major failure was one of thematic cohesion and structure (the focus on atmosphere is both a pro and a con), which was inevitable because of the kind of composer that he is and the type of sound which he is (rightly) praised for. I don't get the sense that he understood what makes Bond music special, beyond the superficial. They're good examples of Newman's scores, but not particularly great Bond scores.
It's the same way I feel about Michael Kamen's score for LTK, though admittedly I enjoy the action suite on that album considerably more.
Interesting, so that means if Newman was a bond enthusiast like Arnold he could have achieved far better results than he already did considering his expertise.
Exactly....Romantic pieces like Newman's 'Severine', Donna Lucia', Madeleine....even emotive ones
Yeah, true...LTK's Score actually grew on me. I like it now. And Kamen was an innate action Composer, so he was always going to do something exciting with it's action music. I think SF is Newman's Best Bond Score & it would have been better if it was his only Bond score. If Serra had returned in TND with the same themes he composed for GE, maybe his GE score wouldn't have been as unique as it is today.
Sure, I guess you could say that. Hypotheticals aside though - there are highlights from Newman's two efforts that I enjoy, but overall it's not really what I like from my Bond scores. So I understand why people might feel the same way about Arnold, even if I fundamentally disagree with the thinking behind that feeling because he embraced the format that made Bond scores the opposite of generic and run-of-the-mill, for my taste.
If the rumours surrounding Romer are to be believed, then it seems he strayed from that format too, but at least it wasn't generic (if the descriptions of it being too "out there" are true). We'll see who the eventual composer ends up being, but if it is Zimmer and one of his collaborators, I expect to feel the same about the score for NTTD as I did about Newman's two scores. A few highlights, but not what I personally love about Bond music.
Of course, I hold out hope that I will love it.
And even if there is a standard established format, surely that absolutely makes the person who adheres to it more generic? One can hardly be unique and a rule breaker if one... sticks to the rules. I’m finding the logic hard to follow.
I'd say Newman's way of scoring action was about as generic as it gets, personally.
Each to their own, though. Arnold certainly had some less inspired moments, too. But he equally had some great ones. Whereas SF and SP's most memorable moments are more intimate.
Not a lot of action films sound quite like that, no. I’d agree his best cues were elsewhere but the action didn’t seem generic to me: I’d say an action cue from a Marvel film (and you can pick any one) is as ‘generic as it gets’. Newman’s stuff has a distinctive flavour compared to that.
It gets my blood pumping, nothing generic does that. Tracks like “She’s Mine” is one of those kind of cues that elevates the material, whereas something like “The Switch” in CR actually hurts the film for me, and is the kind of over-writing sin that Arnold has been committing since the very beginning.
LTK's score grew on me rather. Yeah, true...I get your point. I really can't think of any other movie or franchise where music is so vital. I suppose that's enough reason to worry about the Score. But like you said, am also hoping the score would be lovable.
I like "She's Mine", but it doesn't really get my blood pumping. And on top of that, for every "She's Mine" there is a "Snow Plane" or "Grandborough Road"; two cues that do for me what "The Switch" does for you and actively hurts the film for me (edited for clarity) by making their respective scenes less exciting.
I wasn't accusing him of over-writing. I was just saying those cues hurt the film.
:P