The best parts of the CD seem to be inspired of what I imagine was a classical temp track. In "The Battle" there is the oft mentioned Holstrian influence, in "Patricide" there's a very Mahler-like adagio string treatment that is very mournful and (at least on CD) effective, and during "The Might of Rome" there is what sounds to me like Wagner. The rest is pretty much formless, ambient, anti-score. This is the work of three different minds and it sounds like it.

I've read the comments of some who are dissatisfied with the score as saying that something more traditional or more aggressive and along the lines of Spartacus or Conan or 13th Warrior would have been tremendously more beneficial to the film. I'm curious as to what the concensus of those who've experienced the score with the film is.

(ok, I'm done-- go ahead and get mad)

I was just wondering "What if..." with regards to SPARTACUS and THE 13th WARRIOR for GLADIATOR. Particularly THE 13th WARRIOR--not to slight SPARTACUS. This is because given the flow and feel of the preview, it just seems like THE 13th WARRIOR or something along those lines would be amazing.

I must remove myself to a degree from this discussion as well since I haven't seen the film either (and don't really want to).

Well, gotta cut some slack to the composers.

The picture was surely temp-tracked with FREUD and PSYCHO II.

Having no direct idea what people are complaining about, but having an increasingly good idea based on what I've been reading, I'll reiterate a list of composers who'd have done something nobody could complain about: John Scott, Basil Poledouris, Christopher Young, the aforementioned Goldenthal, and the inevitable Goldsmith and Williams (though they've both done enough of that kind of thing recently.)

Mr. Ware echoes my disappointment with Ridley's recent output (again I haven't seen GLADIATOR yet, but can't fathom some of the pictures he's picked recently -- I was horrified to see his name on the posters for G.I. JANE ... does anyone know what ever happened to STARWATCHER? That was supposed to be an animated movie, produced by Scott, with a Vangelis score, and I guess it was just never made. Same thing seems to have happened with THE THIEF OF ALWAYS.)

Incidentally, speaking of 1492, Hans Zimmer's name actually appeared on the original advance ads ... I can only guess he was ditched when Vangelis became available. I'm sure it wasn't a rejected-score thing.

Some of the acting was fine, especially from a few of the old timers.
Richard Harris was wonderfully affecting, and Crowe is always solid.

I enjoyed some of the themes employed by Zimmer; however, I feel
that the problem with parts of the score was in its orchestration. I think
he can write great themes. I just wish he would orchestrate differently as
his last few scores seem, in terms of color and texture, interchangeable.
Aaron Copland, when talking about the purpose of music in movies said,
“Creating a more convincing atmosphere of time and place. Not all
Hollywood composers bother about this nicety. Too often their
scores are interchangeable; a thirteen century Gothic drama and a
hard-boiled modern battle of the sexes get similar treatment.”

I would reorchestrate Zimmer or pick John Scott or Jerry Goldsmith.

NP 13th Warrior

The cgi vistas look like screensavers with cartoon people walking around. The colloseum scenes don't suggest Leni Reifenstahl's Trumph of the Will or Olympiad as some reviews are pretending. Wishful reviewing. The performances are not bad but plateau quickly. Russell Crowe is fine up close but doesn't vault into that third dimension in which you believe totally in what he's about-- at a certain point he just starts repeating the pattern of swelling to the brim, then swallowing it, and then he goes away. He spends the last third of the picture mopy and inexpressive of anything other than "I'm depressed and want to die, but first I'll get my revenge, somehow......." Clint Eastwod did this same character in Outlaw Josey Wales and was flat out EVIL. Richard Harris comes out of it the best, as does Connie Nielson and Crowe at first. Oliver Reed hits with that swell bitter gusto but sort of lacks anything to do other than give the same speech over and over with the thin writing. I was shocked at how sloppy the staging of his scenes were, literally just giving a line then walking away from Crowe then turning meaningfully to make a point, then walking back to clinch the speech, every time. Dinner theater style. I could direct any one of us to the same effect, you'd just have to be as good an actor as Reed. Phoenix swallows his lines. Four people remarked how difficult it was tell what he was saying, though Harris, Crowe, etc, were crystal clear. Many younger actors do not project. It's not somethng I'm trying to make up, it's just a technical thing. He never has the opportunity to let his character rip into what the part would have demanded of a more resourceful actor. Too reserved, probably directed that way. His brother would have gone on a buffalo hunt for some of that Malcolm McDowell Caligula depravity. Where's the decadence of Rome? It's an R rated film, but the battles are as tame as The Phantom Menace (there's even a CGI stunt person cut in half). I wanted that damn tiger to take a bite out of someone leaving a gaping ribcage or something as Spielberg or Verhoeven or Milius or the 1970s Ridley Scott would have done, I mean jeez it's a Gladiator movie! The fights are mundane and chopped up into Michael Bay shaky cam shots. Oliver Reed was in Richard Lester's Three and Four Musketeers, with the sword fights staged by the great William Hobbs, who also staged fights for Robin and Marian, Excalibur, Willow, Shakespeare in Love, and Scott's The Duellists, always with tight precision and clear arcs to his choreography, really splendid in dramatic focus-- you're placed in the moment. Gladiator always cuts back from everything like someone was afraid to make a real film. The script plays like it was typed at by a staff of people. Some of the individual one on one scenes are well scripted even though nothing is unusual (once you are into this for twenty minutes or less you know exactly what will happen and how it will end). The political repartee is clever on a line by line basis but then gets squashed by something just crushingly banal and ordinary. I coudn't believe how unspecific many of the choices for individual shots were, anyone could have done this. Compare with the pristine beauty of EVERY shot in something as recent (3 films ago) as 1492 where Adrian Biddle executed some of the greatest visuals in decades with depth and artistry. Now we get flat Jerry Bruckheimer shots and grainy shaky cam and super obvious filtration. This is not the equal of Blade Runner or Alien, or even The Duellists. There is not the thematic focus to uphold the simple storyline. Maximus and Commodus should be of formidibly equal weight, both physically and psychologically as imposing antagonists on a fatal collison, but it isn't realised (except in the reviews!). It's just a simple storyline, but with some good things that aren't as good as everyone wants them to be.

I don't really care what my opinion is about the music. Some people I know said the music was distracting and trying to manufacture emotion where there was none, only because it was so basic it just sounded like 3 or 4 cues repeated over and over. I found the application of the material pretentious and weak. Outlining the obvious, what was already present. The Wagner riff for Commodus' vainglorious entry to Rome was silly. It just signalled the composer was trying to be clever but it was so obvious it had no effect other than to take you out of the movie. Commodus thinks of himself as a Wagnerian hero at a tragic moment? Some people will find this the height of intellectual sophistication. Let them. Poledouris subverted the notion of heroism postulated in Starship Troopers with a shifty tonal base that was diconcerting but played as if it was positive and upliftingly noble, then not only whipped up the emotional quality with power and guts, but also turned it into a Germanic militarist grand march suggesting jackboots and Nazis. It was his own design, specific for that picture and not some outre quotation of pre-extant material. Zimmer's Mars pastiche-- yes the bumpity bump silliness is there as well as the churning motif, again such an overused cliche it just makes you laugh. Some will find this stuff exhilarating. Many people are said to be all wet over Zimmer's signature action motif whereas others just find it simple-minded and boring. Ultimately it's up to you whether this stuff is ultra-revolutionary sophistication or just entertainment ( if you enjoy it who's going to argue with that?) or just more Pavlovian drool.
Ding.