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Bill Conti's score, however, is one of the main reasons I cannot own, nor ever watch again the Bond movie it totally ruins for me. THAT makes Serra's score look like pure genius by comparison. :-<
My biggest problem right there with the GE soundtrack. This should be a prerequisite for any composer hired for a Bond film, to understand and give us the Bond sound. The films demand that as it's part of the legacy Barry left. Arnold, despite his deficiencies in the action department, does that and he's getting better at doing so while injecting some things of his own that worked, QOS was a big step forward for him and I'd be content with another effort which I think he will get.
I liked the SF soundtrack because I can at least say that Newman paid some attention to the legacy, unlike Serra.
Just read that John Barry was offered the Goldeneye job but turned it down.
Often one has to be forced out of a comfort zone; This was done to Arnold with Casino Royale; he had to compose without relying on the James Bond theme. Outside of Tomorrow Never Dies, Casino Royale is his finest work. I am not against Arnolds return; the break may produce an inspired score.
Yes, that'll be good ol' Serra whining on with 'The Experience of Love'
I call it "The experience of turning off and not listening"
I call it "the experience of ripping off Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music" ;)
Aside from being a person of his time in an otherwise timeless film, Serra's score seems very focused on blending his music with the mood that the movie wants to convey: that of a Bond living in a world where time has moved on past the Cold War and that of his feeling of being peerless. This is best sounded-out when he finally meets Alec again "back from the dead". Another mood blending instance is his score for when he's on the beach with Natalia. The scenery and score blended well together although the acting surely did not live up: bad acting and passive dialogue pressed onto the audience.
It seems like the composers who work very well to closely blend their scores to fit the mood that the writers are trying to convey on-screen are the ones who take the brunt end of the stick: Thomas Newman's score isn't all that good and it borrows a bit from CR yet David Arnold didn't get an Oscar nomination for neither CR nor QOS for pieces like The Dead Don't Care About Vengeance"
How to render your argument meaningless in the opening statement! I'm guessing youre not a high court barrister dramaticscenesofQOS?
And there lies the problem with the score for me, at times it sounds like someone on magic mushrooms let loose on a synthesizer keyboard. As @SirHenryLeeChaChing states, at least Newman and Arnold understood they were composing a Bond movie and were clever enough to give nods towards Barry and the past within their compositions.
Even Serra recognizes he should have perhaps paid more attention to the legacy rather than playing the frustrated artist once the critics had their say. Serra says: "Now I would have composed something different to avoid the problems, plus I would have been a bit more professional instead of being so artistic."
However it is the right score for the film. It defines Goldeneye. The entire tone of the film, the portrayal of Bond, and how the franchise is having to move away from the Soviet Cold War era that had existed until that point.
The film deals with the effects of the cold war finishing, and a large chunk of the story (pretty much everything up until they go Cuba) deals with this. I would find it very tough to watch the St Petersberg/Severnya scenes with a traditional bond score. It just wouldn't work. The score amplifies the script, and the cloud the end of the soviet era casts over the first and second acts.
It doesn't completely work. The score for the Aston/Ferrari chase is pretty shocking, and the original score for the tank chase is hideous, and I'm glad they replaced it. I find that the majority of the score does incorporate the Bond theme really well, and Serra provides some really interesting interpolations of it. It's not Barry's 007 theme, nor is it Normans's, it's Serra's version of the Bond theme. and in this film it really works.
As I mentioned, Goldeneye is a very different Bond film, and Serra's score recognises this. I wouldn't change it for anything.
Thank you! I hadn't heard of nor read Serra's comments about the score but it's nice to read it and feel justified in what had been only my educated opinion as a fellow composer to this point, that indeed Serra did do what he wanted without regard to the musical legacy. I always knew he was more capable than this sonic garbage after listening to other work he had composed and always wondered what he was thinking. It takes a real man to publicly admit he put out a crummy effort by Bond standards and his own, and I have greater respect for him and his talent as a result.
Let's be honest here, if they hadn't redone the "Drive in St-Petersburg" track in the last instance, there would have been absolutely nothing on this soundtrack that would have resembled the real Bondian music feel/vibe.
It seems that Eric Serra's ego was so big that he said like: "hey I am bigger than anything that the Bond franchise has to offer, so I will just score the music that I feel like I embody and give a big a screw you to every-Bond-body"
I just invite you to listen to the score of Luc Besson's movie "LEON" (also scored by Eric Serra) and find out how much similar it is to the Goldeneye Score.
Luckily after Serra, David Arnold took over, who as John Barry admirer could put his ego aside and take the Bond music into the 21st century while staying true to the series.
And when everyone was criticizing (imho wrongfully) Arnold for becoming too predictable and uninspiring, Thomas Newman took over the role of scoring the Skyfall score.
And in my opinion Newman did let his ego speak in exactly the same way as Eric Serra did in 1995 and also produced a score which isn't typically Bondian.
Funny how time changes, and in this case (with the help of the bought media and the sickening marketing system) Newman is even nominated for an Oscar on this one..
But at the same time there's just some utter shit tracks in there which are just inappropriate and clash with the scenes they're put with. "Ladies First" and "We Share The Same Passions" lead the pack, and as for "A Pleasant Drive in St. Petersburg"....holy shit.
Are you joking? Leons score is genius whilst GEs is awful. The only similarity is the scene with Bond and Natalya on the beach and even that is a pale imitation of anything in Leon.
You arent yet another troll by any chance are you?
I...I enjoy it. Bring on the love hate.