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Bond isn’t Star Wars. It’s a series of largely standalone adventures offering different flavors of their era, whereas Star Wars is supposed to be a saga, which demands a more uniform approach to make each film feel like a piece of the puzzle. This is especially benefited by the fact that John Williams has overseen every episode of the series.
Whatever your feelings of Newman’s scores, he’s not being deviant in the way someone like Eric Serra was 25 years ago. In some respects, he’s even more conformative given that he used Arnold’s arrangement of the theme, which was already a modern recreation of the original 1962 theme. Personally I would have liked to see Newman give his own distinctive take on the theme instead, but beggars can’t be choosers.
I'd be very surprised if that was his choice. If he really cared about the franchise, why wouldn't he reuse Vesper's theme when her tape was found in SPECTRE instead of using Arnold's rearrangement of the JB theme?
Probably because he's not an obsessive fan like us when it comes to those kind of minute details? You might as well ask if Conti was too lazy or simply didn't care about the franchise to slip in a nod to "We Have All the Time in the World" when Bond visited Tracy's grave. You see where I'm going with that?
I get that us fans are passionate about these kinds of things, but it always annoys me seeing those types of accusations thrown at Newman with nothing to show. For a long time it was assumed that it was Newman's decision to recycle the music cues from SF for the SP soundtrack, and he got a lot of flack for it. Then it turned out the truth was that decision to reuse the SF sessions was all on Mendes and Lee Smith when they were compiling the workprint of the film.
Where things get tricky is if composers actually find some defining melodies, which are then discarded when the next composer comes along. I don´t want to make Arnold into something bigger than he is, but he had that quite intriguing melody in QoS, which could easily have been developed into some kind of recurring theme, but hasn´t been used since. The same could happen to any composer. And that would be a pity.
Btw, I think in the case of Star Wars a combination of magnificent prequels with a totally un-Williams-y score could have been very successful. Especially since so much time since ROTJ had passed, a new musical concept could have been introduced. Not that it would have been necessary. But it could have been feasible. Provided of course they had found an equally good composer ;-).
I do quite like the theme for Madeleine that Newman created in SP, but I'd imagine that it will fall victim to this very scenario.
Is STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN a lesser film for not continuing the theme that Jerry Goldsmith introduced in the first film? I'm sure there are some fans that believe so, but what James Horner brought was strong enough. I actually think the score by Leonard Rosenman for STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME was perfectly suitable for the tone of that film, but that score also gets a lot of flack for not carrying over themes/motifs of the previous films.
I guess you just can't please everyone.
Of the recycled cues in SP, I actually thought it worked for scenes like Dench M's brief video appearance reprising "Mother". Using the "Skyfall" theme to represent Bond's past creeping back into his life when he gets a first glimpse of Blofeld worked as well. Reprising "Someone Usually Dies" during the Nine Eyes vote? Eh, no. If I were Mendes I would have had Newman create a new motif for C, so that could have been used instead.
I'm not saying Newman is a bad composer, on the contrary The Shawshank score is one of my all time favourite's. And he didn't do anything very experimental either. But his scores where just bland and forgettable. He didn't incorporate the theme song in any of his cues (apart from once in SP and that was literally just the melody with the lyrics removed). He was simply a bad fit.
My wife, who is a non-Bond fan even said upon viewing Skyfall "Apart from the song, it doesn't sound much like a Bond film".
It doesn't have to be overly bombastic. David Arnold's score for QOS was arguably his best (one of the very few good things about that film) and it was a far more reserved effort with little brass. It still had the Bond-style sound, though.
Not that I am suggesting Arnold was perfect, he didn't have ten percent of John Barry's ability, but he at least got some of the series legacy into his motif's.
I really enjoyed listening to this score. I am hoping that Romer incorporates sounds from the locations Bond visits. I appreciate that about Newmans Skyfall Score, Barrys From Russia with Love and Barrys You Only Live Twice
End credits instrumental a la Crawl, End Crawl, maybe? Source music?
Assuming they tell the truth that is.
Something for the teaser trailer?
Nothing.
https://www.facebook.com/40ShillingsOnTheDrum/videos/1108326062695057/?app=fbl
It really is a poor effort. A really poor effort.
Exactly. There's no such thing as a "rejected song" per se. I mean, every demo sent to EON/MGM is returned unopened or maybe even throw to the Garbage. That's what Mike Sandoval, former MGM Music director, said once to 007 Magazine. That was the case of Pulp's Tomorrow Never Lies and all the other songs.
But you know, saying "rejected Bond song" gives you an extra popularity. ;)
I think a few qualify as rejected. The TND tracks where several groups were asked to provide a song, and all seemed to think they were the only ones who had been asked. Also, Radiohead seem to have been specifically asked. Dionne Warwick and Julie Rogers too.
From episode 14 of second season. I think it have opening credits theme in it a bit. Very dramatic scene from a very strange episode.
These tracks have me very optimistic
The best example I've heard from Romer, but still not overly thrilled. Still no hummable tune, just a lot of layered noise that most other generic composers knock out these days. Ten a penny.