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That's what I thought, it was the only usage of it I could remember.
And it works very good there. One of only a few rare moments where the score stood out for me in SP. The train part is easily the best part of the film for me anyway.
And I'm sure that the NTTD instrumential will work fine and be touching.
Excellent.
Agreed. It's the biggest highlight of the film for me.
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=es-y1LDErOc&list=RDAMVMes-y1LDErOc
Steve Mazzaro.
Thank you
I've noticed this as well. My gut tells me that it's because the guitar riff (aka "dun-duh-duh-duh-DUH-dun-dun-dun...etc") is the portion written by Monty Norman and EON just doesn't want to spend a fraction of their massive budget on royalties. It's the same reason why we don't hear the entirety of the climatic "buh-BUh-BUH BUH!" either. At some point they seemed to have noticed that the note progression part (which was John Barry's contribution) was recognizable enough to audiences.
Which is sad state of affairs.
Yeah, I think it might be the somewhat sonic or liquid guitar style. Like Newman's Komodo Dragon from SF and the way Newman plays the Bond theme when Bond captures Silva on his island, although this particular track is sort of unreleased, as it's not on the album. And Newman's Breadcrumbs from SF, also have that liquid guitar style.
I don’t think that’s the case. Norman still gets credited for the theme. It doesn’t matter how much it’s used in a film because he’s still getting royalties off of it. The simple reason why the Bond theme isn’t as prominent in Craig’s films is because of how David Arnold decided to only use it minimally in CR and that determined the musical direction of Craig’s run. Composers learned they can get away with making a Bond score without using the theme as a crutch like Arnold famously did with TND.
Also, EON has paid more in royalties over use of source music in Craig’s era than any other, like how Silva’s arrival at Skyfall has the Animals song “Boom Boom” blaring, “always gotta make an entrance”. So the theory of using the Norman theme less so to not pay royalties doesn’t exactly hold up.
Using a guitar to play the vamp part of the theme is something I believe has only been heard in Skyfall before, when the helicopters appear at Silva's island.
Yes, I think it's arguable that Arnold used it perhaps a bit too much in TND. There's a sweet spot somewhere between that and QoS's use of it! :)
While I like the QOS score, it’s still a bit too minimalist with the Bond theme for me. I like the use in Oil Fields for example, but I really miss it in a track like Pursuit at Port-au-Prince. It’s a good track, but every time I see that boat chase I’m waiting for the theme to kick in. Yes, maybe Arnold overused it in TND, but I miss the Bond theme being used for a continuous time (in an action scene) like the bike chase in TND or the Thames boat chase in TWINE. Nowadays, the theme gets used to punctuate a single moment, rather than a whole scene. This worked for me in CR as thematically, we get snippets of the theme when Bond gets or earns his Bondian elements - after winning the DB5, putting on the dinner jacket - and then plays in full at that sublime final line of the film. Plus, the instrumental YNMN is a great theme used throughout.
By QOS, the guy has become the Bond we know, but the theme is once again used fleetingly. When Bond arrives in Haiti, we hear the Bond theme as transition music. It punctuates Bonds climbing through the hotel in the aforementioned Oil Fields. But it’s never clearly heard, or at least not clear enough to me.
Then we get to SF, and Newman takes a page out of QOS’s book to use the theme for punctuating a few seconds. When Bond grabs the train and climbs up, or when the helicopters arrive. Sure, it’s heroic, a power up moment, but it’s over before you know it. And whereas Arnold filled that void by using secondary themes (YNMN and Vesper in CR, Vesper and a theme that would later become No Good About Goodbye in QOS), Newman does not really do that. We get one reprise of Adele’s song, and I like the Tennyson bit, but a bit more Bond theme would’ve helped.
And then there’s SP. I was ecstatic when I saw the PTS: Bond leaping out of the window and the theme kicked in. Unfortunately, my goodwill for the score disappeared when I recognised the music during the helicopter fight. And while I like SF’s score better, I get the feeling Newman really tried to get more theme in. I adore the choir version of the Bond theme at the Vatican, I liked Madeleine’s piano theme, I think the instrumental WOTW was used well - though I would’ve liked more. But then Bond escapes the Morocco lair without any Bond theme, and in the finale we get two seconds of theme as Bond and Madeleine fall in the net, and 20 minutes of The Moors played on monotonous repeat. Nope, I’m not happy.
With Zimmer, I indeed fear that trend that started with CR will be kept - Bond theme only used to punctuate single moments, and not throughout an action scene. And I feel that’s really going to annoy me. In the leaked track, he keeps repeating this one part of the Bond theme - Newman did this as well, but never so egregious. And it annoys me as a listener and as a Bond fan - I keep expecting that it gets resolved, that we get the theme in full.
But maybe, just maybe, it’s Billie Eilish’s song that’ll work as a backbone, like YNMN before it. Will I bemoan the potential lack of Bond theme? Yes. But I’m not ready to fully condemn the score if Zimmer simply continues the musical trend of this reboot Bond. The rest of the score might be good.
I always think I would have liked to have heard a full version of YKMN playing for an action scene, maybe the airport chase, but he never really does it.
Up until the late 80s, the person who wrote the score for a Bond movie was also allowed to either write or at the very least, arrange, the music for the title song as well. Since then, however, this has rarely been the case.
So I get why composers like David Arnold and Thomas Newman aren't very eager to base a lot of their scores on pieces of music that they themselves had no hand in writing.
Pretty much. And John Barry was never going to score a film unless he had a hand in the title song. Supposedly that was one of the sticking points over TND, EON wasn't guaranteeing that he would get a crack at the song. And look what happened with Arnold and "Surrender" when they decided to go with a different artist's song.
Hans Zimmer is probably the most collaborative and prolific composer to score a Bond film since John Barry, so it makes sense that he would have more of a say regarding the song. After all, he was the one that actually selected Billie Eilish. She would have never gotten this gig if it wasn't for Zimmer.