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Agreed.
I'm glad they are.
My friends are all casual Bond fans and don't even know about the film.
Cary: So Hans, for this scene I want a sweeping love melody, much like WHATTIW from Majestys.
Hans: Hmmm, well why dont we just use it?
Cary: Sweet. Now thats sorted, lets knock off early and head to the pub.
😆😆😆
Yeah, it's a shame really because OHMSS is a top 5 Bond film and musically it's in the top 3 soundtracks. IIRC the SP trailer used a version of the OHMSS theme and I also believe outside of tge main Bond theme, the OHMSS is the most used Bond theme by other media outlets.
Shouldn't that be a spoiler tag. I didn't know OHMSS unill that now, thanks. :( No worries though. I best say clear for forum until after release.
Just one question for you guys, are any of you upset there's no actual bond theme in the action sequences? I really wanted Matera to use the bond theme like from the trailers.
NTTD has nice elements too. Matera is a beautifully evocative melodic piece.
Shouldn't that also be in a spoiler tag, then? ;)
Spectre and No Time to Die are basically a retelling of OHMSS.
Not to derail the discussion, but when Spectre came out I thought it was setting Bond 25 up to be a pseudo-remake of OHMSS, with Blofeld escaping jail, murdering Madeline, and Bond just totally unhinged out for revenge. I was really bummed when it seemed like Craig was leaving, then my concerns were barely abated when Danny Boyle came onboard and made it seem like he didn't want to continue from the prior storyline. Cary seems to be taking things in a way more interesting direction that I never predicted.
Later on I gave up on that theory. But now we have an actual Garden of Death alluded in the trailer and soundtrack…
I was full sure Madeline would be killed off in the PTS, leading Bond to retire. I was so shocked watching the first trailer when Madeline was such a prominent part of it. It was so exciting to the see that the movie wasn’t going to go the way I had predicted.
As a huge fan of Craig era, I totally agree — a lot of the seeds are in the Brosnan films, but they still tried to have more of the lighter elements.
No disrespect to Brosnan era, which has some really cool films in their own right. But like, "Skyfall" has a lot in common with elements of "GoldenEye" and "Die Another Day" — just more focused on the story rather than also trying to have the tropes too.
I don't think that's true: I'm pretty sure Broccoli and Wilson are always holding it up as an important film in the series in many interviews.
Yes I really hope Madeline doesn't die: even if they just break up forever it would be way more interesting than killing her just so that Bond can look sensitive and macho again.
Careful, it's a long read.
Matera, though. What a cheeseball, yeesh. Somebody here already pointed out that it is highly reminiscent of Arnold's over-the-top Venice music from CR and I'd have to agree. It's just boilerplate, sappy orchestra noise with little atmosphere and the weakest of the romantic cues in Craig's films. For all of the complaints some of us have lobbed against Arnold, he'd never have directly quoted "We Have All the Time in the World". He'd have used Madeleine's theme and given it the thematic support it needed to be it's own thing. I have to imagine either Bond or Madeleine utter the words to each other while this swoons, otherwise it's just a useless John Barry homage that contributes nothing. Would have much preferred a continuation and reinterpretation of Madeleine's theme as written by Newman.
The car chase music (Message From an Old Friend & Square Escape) — it's cool and energetic enough. It's quite hard to judge it without seeing how it works in the context of the action. We do start to see developed here some sort of dramatic "danger" theme that will continue many times throughout the score and is an almost note-for-note copy of one of Zimmer's dramatic "danger" themes from The Dark Knight Trilogy. Like really, he changed one note. This new theme runs at it's highest wattage during "I'll Be Right Back". I do enjoy that the section with the bridge encounter Message From an Old Friend we know from the released clip has been tracked with something else that sounds quite a bit like Blade Runner 2049. I think that sound works better.
No qualms about these cues, except that I'm pretty unimpressed with the over-use of Marr's guitar parts in the action music. Another thing Arnold eventually got right by QOS was the masterful guitar parts and the reverb/mic effects they come with in Bond lore. You feel them. They shake the ground. The sound dirty, sexy, and classic. Marr's stuff is under-mixed and pretty unimpressive. Couldn't anyone have played these parts? To be fair, this is something the vast majority of the Bond scores get wrong but it's particularly disappointing here given all the guitar hype.
Someone Was Here, Not What I Expected, What Have You Done, and Shouldn't We Get to Know Each Other First are all mysterious on what exactly they underscore to us and that's fine — there's a lot of pretty cool "Bond sound" moments in there that I like. Arnold-esque, for sure. There's a few flairs that land in Newman Town, as well. Some neat textures. Love how "Shouldn't We Get to Know Each Other First" finishes out. Feels like a bookend to Craig first wearing his new tuxedo into the Casino Royale.
Cuba Chase is probably the most "Arnold"... let's even say DAD edition Arnold... track of them all. I find it entertaining, big and brassy. Not sure I love the Cuban trumpet flair, but then I don't know what exactly it underscores. I hated the Cuban trumpet flair all over DAD's Cuba-set scenes, so perhaps I'm just reliving the eye-rolling. Possibly it covers the cuts the action where Paloma kicks ass, and then finally the wild Cuban trumpet with the Bond theme when they team against the baddies.
If it sounds like I'm a bit disappointed at this point, I somewhat was. It won't finish out all negative, though.
Back to MI6 is just about what everyone has been drooling for since we heard it on that first podcast, and in the somewhat more desirable quality we hear all of it's layers and feel it's fun. Marr's guitar just still doesn't have the effect, though. Think this scene is gonna drive the audience wild though.
Good to Have You Back is a disappointment. Quiet, poor orchestration, and dull. I'm sure it has something to do with Blofeld's scenes, but I just can't see this making me feel anything. At this moment, I wonder why it just had to be recalled when our modern day Blofeld could have been accompanied perhaps with Newman's motif for him in Spectre (see: "Silver Wraith", "End Credits"). Lovely To See You Again is a nice little piece, but kind of hard to rate given we don't even know where it really fits yet.
Home, though. F*** me. So far, I've got to say it's my favorite cue on the album at this moment. I love the clear establishing shot over Norway underscore, a sweeping, driven, epic version of the title song. And once we get to Eilish's lullaby version of the title song, and the brief orchestral swell. I'm in heaven. Perhaps I'm the one being lullabied. It's something Morricone totally would have done had he scored a romantic Bond film. I really love Zimmer & Mazzaro's renditions of the title theme in this score, way more than I imagined I would.
This is where I start to come around a little more on the score and consequently, where it becomes a little more textured and atmospheric.
Having said that, I generally find the choir schtick in these scores to be a bit tacky for a film like this. In Norway Chase, the choir kills me. I can't stand it. It's for a scene reintroducing the villain and supposedly covers a chase involving a bunch of jeeps. I don't see the need. It begins to get less on my nerves as the score moves towards the climax in Safin's lair, as I can imagine the visuals providing the audience with some sort of horror there.
Gearing Up is a cool track. Can't wait to see how it works with the sound design in the glider scene.
Poison Garden & The Factory of course correspond to on-screen action but I love the atmosphere here. These encapsulate something Arnold only came to find his skill with in QOS, but Newman & Zimmer can do in their sleep.
I'll Be Right Back is possibly my second favorite track here. It brings back and gives a lot of space to the "danger" theme I previously said is a fairly direct reinterpretation of one of Zimmer's Batman themes. It completely is, no more clear here than ever. But I kind of like it here, and certainly it kind of gets the blood pumping and probably works perfectly under the scene it scores. And then there's that beautiful, romantic NTTD title moment - the payoff from our blue-balled climax of Home. Love it.
Opening the Doors is a cool, nail-biting action piece. Looking forward to seeing the nuke be deactivated at "007" or whatever. ;)
Final Ascension... ah, yes. The track everyone is talking about the most. Here are some thoughts on it.
The mournful section is pretty, but also pretty distracting. Why, you ask? Because as I'm sure some are pointing out - Zimmer and his cohorts have used this line about a million times in films like "Thin Red Line" and even on TV with "The Queen" (which was the first thought I had). I'm sure on screen it will work. But while most of you criticize Thomas Newman for following orders given by editors and directors in love with temp tracks, at least he didn't play music from "Finding Nemo" or "K-PAX" when Bond & Madeleine nobbed on the train in Spectre, or "American Beauty" when Tanner said, "Careful, it's a trifle bit slippery".
For those assuming that it could be what the final seven minutes of the film sounds like, do be careful. Zimmer is quite a sucker for finishing his soundtrack albums with suites that are either completely new music independent of the film or reinterpretational suites of his main themes. Sure, this could be 7 minutes of Bond dying and everyone mourning him - or it could be 3 minutes of score and 4 minutes of drama for our listening experience. Don't count your Mathildes before they hatch.
As a listening experience though, it is pretty. Zimmer delivers on the over-the-top emotion here, sure to make grown men cry if it plays out the way many predict it will. It's not exactly "Time", but his Nolan scores probably can't be topped. The crescendo at the end is lovely, and makes it so that only one thing can close the album after being that exhausted — and that's our title song, No Time To Die. Beautiful placement. Sort of reminds me of when soundtracks, in the LP days, used to be designed around the score being a listening experience. This LP will be a must-have.
To sum up the most common complaints - the first half of the score drawing from what David Arnold did best (slick Bond action) but providing neutered-sounding guitar parts from Marr. Liked the bits that felt like Arnold, and I dare say I found them surprisingly refreshing even though I prefer Thomas Newman's sense of intelligence and atmosphere in his scores which is a thing Arnold's music has always struggled to have.
The fan-service s**t with the OHMSS quotes embarrasses me, frankly. I'm glad you all love it, but it's one of those legacy things that pops up every now and again that prevents the series from moving forward in the strides it deserves to — kind of like the over-use of the DB5 and it's mysterious gadgets. Will be interesting to see how it fits into the underscore.
Wish Zimmer would have adapted & reinterpreted Madeleine's theme from Spectre as well.
But otherwise, I sort of end up really liking the score by the end. I wonder what ideas Dan Romer may have had in the beginning?
I really liked Newman score for skyfall, it was atmospheric and used the bond theme sufficiently. His quieter moments in SP are where he shines the most.
the jarhead score is perfection
Yeah, though for me I think that's true of Spectre as a whole — it sounds stupid to say, but it does the simple "talking head" scenes so well. It's kind of a "duh" thing to say about an acclaimed theater director, but Mendes really knows how to make two people in a room talking quite engaging to watch!