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People talk about Newman having done amazing work on Bond and elsewhere but I just don't get it.
Yes, we've had some dodged bullets in the past...and then there are the bullets that connected.
This.
It's no surprise that my favourite track of Newman's tenure by far is Chimera is bold and brash and uses the whole orchestra. That is a Bond soundtrack. Unfortunately he does it so rarely.
The renditions of Skyfall and WOTW are also good but I'm not giving him any credit for those because they are someone else's compositions and he was clearly ordered to include them as they appear just once rather than being continually interwoven through the soundtrack like Barry or Arnold did.
There's plenty of bond theme in QoS. Even the no good about goodbye theme sounds derived from the Bond theme, like the other theme songs he was involved with
I'm not sure what happened with SP, but then again in my view the entire film suffers from a predictability and unoriginality, and Newman's effort is similarly trite.
Having said that, I did like "Los Muertos Vivos Estan" very much. Why it starts with the Hinx theme on the album version I'm not sure though.
That's exactly how it is. I happen to know one of Germany's foremost movie composers and he's a big fan of Newman and totally subscribes to this school of thought. His own works mirrors completely this style as well. To me it's another way of touting and spelling "boring" but to each his own.
I didn't say Arnold's score suck. Au contraire, I said the opposite.
And my ears are fine thank you very much ;)
And for those who say there's no Bond theme in Skyfall, see -
Grand Bazaar Istanbul, The Bloody Shot, New Digs, Brave New World, Day Wasted, Enquiry, Breadcrumbs, She's Mine and Deep Water.
I think it's boring too. Music shouldn't be sonic wallpaper, It should be in the forefront to paint a musical picture of what's going on. I hate that school of thought.
His American Beauty score is the only one of his where I feel he enhances what's on the screen.
Funny you say this. Whereas I actively disliked the SF score I also for some reason felt that SP was actually an improvement. Not sure why, given that it seems to have just been a rehash of SF, but there you go.
As with SF, the brief reference to the title song is a stand out moment.
Bond making love to the girl on the train while heavy orchestration plays, then soft piano as the sun rises in the morning, ... I don't know; I've always had a thing for that somehow.
Edit: also, the Rome car chase? Rather love the music there.
Both absolutely botched the action material though. No Newman action cue will make its way on to a compilation album in 20-30 years, apart from maybe "Tennyson".
We will probably hear "Severine", "Mother" and "Madeleine", though.
Overall, he was okay. The lack of enthusiasm for the style of the series became more apparent over the two films, though.
I'm not sure if it's because I knew Newman composed the track specifically for the earlier film, and not the latter. It's probably also because it goes on and on for what seems like forever in the latter film.
The composition is more sinister & mellow in SF as well. It's more bombastic (with a few Bond theme notes thrown in) in SP.
The "Moors" theme (which I too enjoy well enough in Skyfall) carries through something like 4 different tracks during Spectre's finale. It just plays over and over and over.
Oh yes, there is more to Skyfall that I enjoy than just those examples I listed. I also particularly like "She's Mine" with its energizing build and big Thunderballesque finale.
I had hoped we'd get more stuff like "She's Mine" in SP. That cue worked very well in that scene. Probably Newman's best action-y cue
Serra's GE score might have been abysmal but at least it has personality.
The criminal Serra tried his best to damage that film and the franchise.
"Criminal" is a bit much considering the good tracks he did contribute, but his original tank chase music is indeed one of those dodged bullets. A big one. More like a mortar shell.