It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
I hope we get a score for Bond 25 that bring back that certain classy, bombastic and fun Barry-esque sound. That might be too much to ask for, but one can hope!
Furthermore, Serra was part of that French "Cinéma du look" movement, breaking with tradition as if it were a mission statement. When producers fell in love with his Léon score and asked him to basically repeat that effort for the new computer focused and therefore tech savvy, digital era Bond film, why would he pull out some OHMSS Barry? The first Bond of the 90s, the first Bond in fact after an impossibly long hiatus, could do with a radical change in tone, or so they thought. Turns out they were wrong and Bond films, even in the 90s, still needed some YOLT and OHMSS to work best. But that doesn't necessarily mean Serra is to blame.
I urge people to take a plunge into some of his most successful scores (Le Grand Blue, Nikita, Léon and The Fifth Element) and then try to understand what he was going for with GE. Even then, whether you like the score in a vacuum or not, I honestly think it works fantastically well for the movie. Yes, the tank chase music he had planned was fortunately pulled from the soundmix and The Experience Of Love probably wasn't the best way to close the film. However, GE is one of the few genuine thrillers in the Bond series, with some exceptionally cold and tense scenes (the Severnaya takeover, getting out the train, setting timers for the London destruction, ...) and in many cases, Serra's metallic, pulsating and dark tunes add tremendously to the feeling. In the absence of opulent orchestras as used by Barry, Kamen, Arnold and others, some of GE's tenser moments also feel sharper, edgier, more serious and indeed more naturalistic at times. And that's precisely what I've always associated GE with: more grounded in reality than any other Bond film. Serra has something to do with that, believe it or not.
The reason they used SF (including many specific cues) was to tie the film emotionally to the earlier entry. To establish the connectivity which they were trying to retroactively shoehorn in, including Silva's after the fact complicity with Spectre.
Started a weekend Rogerthon (thats watching all of Rog's films in a row not some sordid sexual practice by the way) and George Martin deserves a lot of credit as being the first man to take over from Barry. He makes it quite different but at the same time its still clearly a Bond soundtrack. I would say the same for Hamlisch too who gives TSWLM the epic feel it needs. Conti is of its time and at least he came up with some decent cues although Kamen I just find tiresomely repetitive. But all of those guys you at least felt were actually trying.
And in defence of Newman SF is passable and even good in places. But its his seeming disinterest for SP that rankles so much. But there again maybe he bumped into the scriptwriters one day and after a chat decided 'Well if they can get away with doing such a lackadaisical job why should I break into a sweat?'
I wasn't saying that it would save the film, but merely improve it substantially.
Question: Does it cost them anything extra if they were to use Arnold's old scores (over Newman's)? I'm sure Barry got a decent sized check when they used his material. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Barry and/ or Norman always get checks when the Bond theme was played? I remember hearing about the court case and all the cash which Norman was owed etc.
Martin's score for LALD is funky in a way that suits the 70's perfectly, same for Hamlisch. Although Conti's effort isn't my cup of tea, at least it's fun and entertaining. Watched LTK last night, and although that score is a bit repetitive, it didn't at any point take me out of what was happening on screen. The last two scores has, in a way.
I believe it's better to look forward than to the past when it comes to Bond scores (apart from the famous Bond theme of course, but even then I'm quite happy for them to sprinkle it in then and there and not overuse it). That's what keeps them creative.
Interesting question. I remember postulating at the time that could it be that the reason that Newman didn't use a full on rendition of the Bomd theme in scenes that were crying out for it, such as the plane chase or the boat coming out from under the MI6 building as it collapses, was that it would mean EON would have to pay Norman a fee or that Newman wouldn't get paid as much for that track?
Does anyone know how the whole royalties system works? Obviously Norman gets a credit on each film and, presumably, some money as well but does he get more for a film like LTK, for example, that flogged the Bond theme to death than he does for one like CR that used it very sparingly? Or is it just a flat fee if EON play it once or 20 times in a film?
Perhaps Babs checked the figures and suddenly realised how much of the budget Mendes had pissed away with his childish explosion so rang Newman:
Babs: Tom how much of the Bond theme is there in the score?
Newman: Well at the moment I've got it going at full blast in the PTS, the car chase, the finale. After all the criticism of SF I'm really channeling my inner Barry. It's going to be a belter.
Babs: Cut them all. Sam has just blown up $100mil in one shot. There's no money left to pay Monty.
Newman: What? Seriously? I've been working night and day to make an absolutely brilliant score to appease the disgruntled fans. Have you heard of a bloke on the internet called @Murdock? He'll hammer me if I don't do better this time round. And there's another guy called @TheWizardOfIce; he's an absolute c..
Babs: Tom, Tom I know. I'm sorry but Sam didn't tell me he had a put such a big chunk of money on a bonfire until today. At the end of the day no one cares about the fans. It's all about the money remember.
Newman: But there's only 2 days to go till the premiere? What can I do?
Babs: Look you'll just have to sort it. I've got my own problems. I've only just realised Sam shot the wrong script and we're stuck with that step brother crap we had all decided had to go.
Newman: Well I suppose I could just copy and paste half of SF's score instead?
Babs: Perfect. Get on with it. I've got to get on and call the poster guy and tell him to scrap his amazing classic hand drawn poster and just go with a publicity shot of Dan holding a gun instead. Sam's really dropped me in it here.
Newman: Yeah but cheer up you did get the world record remember.
Babs: True. Every cloud I suppose.
Newman: But Babs you do realise that copying my SF tracks lands you with the same payment problem? And my fee as a multi Oscar nominated composer is far higher than Monty 'only wrote one track of note on his career and even that was only a success thanks to Barry's polish' Norman? Babs? Oh she already rang off.
Very accurately put, @DarthDimi. I even would agree to GE being more grounded in reality, despite the PTS freefall defying the laws of physics.
I find Kamen´s compostions sometimes hard to understand, but he´s got a wonderfully fresh and natural orchestra sound, which compesates for a lot IMO. One massive problem I have with contemporary composers is that on every blockbuster these days the orchestra sounds artificial, because the producers try to give it more boom. I blame Hans Zimmer for introducing that idea, but we´ve gone far beyond just him being to blame. David Arnold, despite all his possible faults, seems the last composer who makes the orchestra sound somehow natural even on scores where he mixes orchestra and computer sounds.
The SF score has a lot of decent enough tracks, but a film score that´s not compiled from a number of pop songs should offer some coherence throughout, which SF´s score clearly doesn´t.
I thought it did, purely because it came from a different composer with a different vision. All of the one off's have been quite distinctive to my ears, including Kamen.
Haha, fantastic post there. I'm equally curious about the royalties system for the JB scores.
According to Wikipedia Norman pocketed £600k in royalties upto 1999, so hard to imagine that it was the cost that put them off using the Bond theme.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Norman
No way Norman would ever sell the James Bond theme. Not for a measly million. They're going to produce James Bond films forever—and James Bond films will always use the James Bond theme in whatever form—which means his family line will continue to receive royalties forever. Courtesy of John Barry's brilliance.
I don't need to hear it used over and over just to get a rise out of people. Less is more as far as I'm concerned. As others have noted, parts of the Bond theme show up in both QoS & SF in a number of instances. It's teased but not overused.
Newman showed with Los Muertos Vivos Estan that he could creatively tweak it well, like Barry did so many times, and like others (Martin, Hamlisch, Conti, Kamen etc. etc.) have done previously as well. That is how I'd like to see it used going forward. Sparingly and incorporated into an original melodic composition. Serra did it superbly with the Goldeneye Overture for example.