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LTK/Roadhouse/Lethal Weapon 2-Kamen vs SF/SP -Newman

barryt007barryt007
edited September 2018 in Music Posts: 19,339
We go on about SF and SP Having the same score and it is awful,yet Michael Kamen did the above mentioned films in the same year,1989,but made more effort and had more thought.
The difference is Bond ,Kamen got away with it because it was only sporadically used throughout the brilliant Roadhouse and worked with a Bond tweak for LTK ,not Bond’s best score but not the worst.

Newman used the entire score ,throughout the whole of SP ,showing laziness and arrogance,which I think damaged the film massively in the eyes of real Bond fans ,who know the score is such an important element of a Bond film.

That’s my opinion x yours ?

Comments

  • Fire_and_Ice_ReturnsFire_and_Ice_Returns I am trying to get away from this mountan!
    Posts: 25,148
    I like Michael Kamen I remember when I first watched Licence to Kill at the cinema what struck me immediately was how elements of the music reminded me of Kamen's Lethal Weapon score. Now I enjoy both soundtracks, I listen to both quite often.

    Some parts of Newman's scores are OK though the majority of them fall flat for me.

    Skyfall is probably undermined by the Spectre score because of repetition.
  • barryt007barryt007
    Posts: 19,339
    Of course Lethal Weapon is the original as you say matey , and that theme carried on through the series x 1989 was a big year for Kamen and he won with 2/3 films overall that year x but LTK failing was obviously not down to him .
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    I've just taken the time to listen to Road House's score. I haven't seen the movie in full. But I was surprised by the similarities. Perhaps Kamen was in a rush? I am a Kamen fan though. I really enjoy his work. He left us way too soon. In regards to Licence to Kill. I think Kamen really delivered a great Bond score that incorporated a lot of Kamen-ism. His use of latin guitars and synth pizzicatos. Which he incorporated in his music for Die Hard the previous year. His use of the Bond theme is grand and exciting. A very memorable and awesome soundtrack.

    It's no secret I'm no lover of Newman's efforts around here. But I don't fully outright hate everything Newman did. He has a few nice tracks here and there. His biggest failings is action scoring. He's new to it so what he did didn't live up to my expectations on what Bond action music should sound like. It's a shame he didn't try to use the Bond theme in the action scenes more. I thought he used it decently in Skyfall but outside of the PTS in Spectre it was Bond blueballs from here on out. Don't get me started on that weak attempt to ape Barry during the London finale. If you're going to use it, then use it. Don't build up with a big brassy beat then go back to the endless Moors loop.

    Lastly, in regards to score similarity, Eric Serra's score for GoldenEye takes a lot of beats from his score for Leon.
  • Fire_and_Ice_ReturnsFire_and_Ice_Returns I am trying to get away from this mountan!
    Posts: 25,148
    Die Hard score is great though its James Horner's Resolution and Hyperspace theme from Aliens that I always remember most from that film during the awesome scene with Al

    It's been decades since I watched Roadhouse the soundtrack is vague, I should probably give the film a rewatch certainly for the score.
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 13,807
    I think the scores for Skyfall and Spectre work fine. That real Bond fan label doesn't help discussion.

  • DamianFalcoDamianFalco
    edited September 2018 Posts: 4
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    edited September 2018 Posts: 8,217
    Kamen's style was so very distinct that it was bound to overlap on itself when he was scoring films so similar. I think he knew this himself; his Die Hard scores cleverly used motifs from classical pieces so that we could differentiate them from one another, and from his more-jazzy-but-still-very-brassy-music for the Lethal Weapon films. Kamen's very unique style is very obvious in The Last Boy Scout, too. The fact that it accompanies Shane Black's screenplay is an added dose of "this feels like a Lethal Weapon flick."

    It's been a while since I've seen or heard Roadhouse, but I'm not surprised there's some similarities with LTK. I happen to like LTK a lot; there's a sheer epic weight to the music that conveys a large scale without it being overwritten / overcomposed, and the action stuff is really very enjoyable. Kamen was a good pick, though it didn't help with the Americanisms, admittedly.

    Composers overlapping themselves is natural when they've worked for so long. Even Williams is guilty of it. James Horner had his signature "danger motif" that popped up in 75% of his scores. David Arnold too, has often copied or rearranged his own previous material when it suits - motifs from Godzilla pop up in The World Is Not Enough, albeit briefly.

    It happens. Though, I do agree Newman didn't really make too much of an effort to distinguish the stuff that he used again in SP from its previous incarnation in SF. As time has gone on, however, Newman's music has fallen way down on the list of problems with SP.
  • SatoriousSatorious Brushing up on a little Danish
    Posts: 233
    I find Kamen's 80's-90's action scores to be extremely samey. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I dislike them, but they "overlap" as mentioned above. The same thing could be argued with John Barry scores. The thing I love about both is that you know "this is a Kamen score" or "this is a Barry score" almost immediately.
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