"Composer Mychael Danna has been dropped from scoring The Hulk. The scheduled sessions in April will no longer take place. Super Hero specialist Danny Elfman is now scheduled to replace and score the picture."

--Brian

The funny thing is that Ryan didn't break the news here. I did notice he's seeing "green" on his "Music for a Darkened People" page now.

The project of his I'm excited about is "Big Fish."

Dylan

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Originally posted by ESB:
The Hulk needs a composer who can write a strong memorable hero theme.....

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Why does The Hulk need a composer who can write a 'strong memorable hero theme'? Maybe you're only concerned about how good and memorable the music is going to be on the album.......well, that's fine, but for the other 99.9999% of society who enjoy the complete filmic experience (ie appreciating the score within the movie) the most important thing will be how the music succeeds in enhancing the overall movie.....the strength and originality of the main theme is a factor, but only one of a dozen equally important factors.

In any case, I find your contention that Elfman isn't good at writing memorable themes faintly absurd, especially when you tout a composer as hackneyed, unoriginal and wholly played-out as Goldsmith as a preference.

As far as I am concerned, Elfman, Zimmer, Williams, Newton Howard , Horner or whoever would likely do an admirable job of scoring this movie........all except Goldsmith that is. All we'd probably get from him is yet another variant on the US Marshals theme with perhaps a few inappropriate and poorly integrated electronic grunts thrown in by his orchestrator.

Goldsmith these days represents everything that is dull, bland and ordinary about film music; in fact one could say he is a veritable dodo of film music.......don't get me wrong, whilst producers continue to hire him, long may he flourish.....all I hope is that Goldsmith isn't hired to score any of the movies I might decide to watch.

And yes, I think a famous character like The Hulk needs a strong theme. If there is any type of film that needs a memorable theme it is these kind of films. Most A-listed composers can write some good action music, but a much smaller group can also accompany it with strong themes.

As to Goldsmith's music, well, actually I am a great admirer of many of his scores (as heard in the movies) from the '60s, '70s and '80s, however, since BASIC INSTINCT, the vast majority of Goldsmith's scores have been totally devoid of inspiration. Yes, there have been one or two exceptions, such as his delightful FIERCE CREATURES and entertaining work on THE MUMMY and THE 13TH WARRIOR, but beyond that all Goldsmith seems to have done is recycle the worst elements of earlier scores. I mean, how many times have we heard the exceedingly dull and simplistic (not to say grating) main theme to US MARSHALS crop up in other Goldsmith scores.

Most of Goldsmith's recent scores have a samey sound too........so apart from the fact that he hasn't written a decent original theme (apart from one or two exceptions) since BASIC INSTINCT, everything else about his '90s scores is tired, listless and lacklustre, from the uninventive and bland orchestration, to the ponderous and obvious rhythmic and thematic development.......to say nothing on his over-reliance on gooey 'marmalade music' and crude and obnoxious acoustic percussion and brass ostinato action music.

NP Just pondering the possibility that D2 has returned.

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Originally posted by joan hue:
ESB, I totally agree with you. I'm tired of movies about heros that LACK memorable heroic themes, motifs, leimotifs even, and melodies.

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All the more reason not to wish for Goldsmith's involvement.

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Originally posted by joan hue:
NP Just pondering the possibility that D2 has returned.

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But, like you Lancer, I would LOVE to see someone like Poledouris score this picture... Boy would that be sweet.

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Originally posted by joan hue:
Bingo! I knew it.

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That's ironic, considering Goldsmith's most recent super hero score (THE SHADOW) was a shameless (and inferior) rip-off of Elfman's magnificent BATMAN....

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That's ironic, considering Goldsmith's most recent super hero score (THE SHADOW) was a shameless (and inferior) rip-off of Elfman's magnificent BATMAN....

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One might say there is a passing similarity between the central themes of both films, but that is where the similarity ends. There is no resemblance between either score apart from that.

Your statement is fallacious, having no grounding in fact; just pure Goldsmith bashing propoganda.

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Originally posted by Lancelot:
But how many statements around here have any grounding, in fact, beyond Composer- Bashing Propaganda?

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Mine does.

Here's a test that no Daniel2 can avoid...

Tell me about Goldsmith's Forever Young.

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Originally posted by Splash:
That's ironic, considering Goldsmith's most recent super hero score (THE SHADOW) was a shameless (and inferior) rip-off of Elfman's magnificent BATMAN....

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Pffft. Try it this way.
"That's ironic, considering Elfman's most popular super hero score (BATMAN) was a shameless (and inferior) rip-off of Herrmann's magnificent Journey to the Center of the Earth."

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Originally posted by jonathan_little:
I'm glad Joan noticed that somebody around here is sounding awfully Daniel2-ish...

Here's a test that no Daniel2 can avoid...

Tell me about Goldsmith's Forever Young.

[Message edited by jonathan_little on 03-30-2003]

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Ha, ha......how could I resist?

FOREVER YOUNG (US 1992) movie **1/2 score ** album *1/2

FOREVER YOUNG provides us with an excellent example of a single Goldsmith score that displays both his finest film composing attributes, and his worst. This score serves as a hybrid between Goldsmith's previously innovative, broad-minded and thorough compositional technique and approach to film scoring, and his subsequently often simplistic and unimaginative film music output characterized by spartan and 'skeletal' orchestration, weak thematic material, derivative and bland musical devices, and a banal, featureless and characterless quality to each separate score.

For all its faults, at least Goldsmith's work on MR BASEBALL was different, at least for him. He applied all of the qualities of CMS to his MR BASEBALL score – his music, at least as he intended it, was appropriate – it was romantic, fun, jazzy – only the main theme itself and the poor quality of the movie itself undid all of Goldsmith's well-intentioned efforts. With FOREVER YOUNG however, Goldsmith, for the first time, embarked on creating a score that was not wholly appropriate – though the initial wartime sequences were beautifully and appropriately scored, the final two-thirds of the movie, set in present day, was very conservatively scored by Goldsmith – though perhaps that was partly due to the nature of (or the fault of) the movie itself.

As soon as Gibson emerges from his deep-frozen cocoon, Goldsmith's previously excellent score falls apart completely, as does the movie to a somewhat lesser extent. Instead of bringing his musical score into the 1990s, Goldsmith either refrains from composing for some scenes altogether, or when he does write some music he merely continues to score in virtually the same mode as he did for the initial heavily romantic wartime sequences. As I say, the movie itself tends to falter when we reach the present day. Instead of stepping up a gear, the drama becomes rather confined and lacklustre – the magic of the opening twenty minutes is lost. The present-day scenes were crying out for a far more contemporary sound from Goldsmith, not only to contrast with the 1940s segments, but also simply to instil some life into the proceedings.

The movie begins excitingly enough with Gibson test-piloting – and Goldsmith's music is appropriately urgent and action-orientated. However, though this opening segment of action music is pretty good, it does bear an alarming similarity to Goldsmith's TOTAL RECALL action music – not a bad thing in itself, but the action music in FOREVER YOUNG does not compare well with the Verhoeven movie, being just a weaker, slower, and less interestingly orchestrated version of TOTAL RECALL – indeed, virtually all of Goldsmith's subsequent 90s action music has been based on TOTAL RECALL, but to an increasingly simplistic and ponderous degree, at least until 1999's THE MUMMY that had Goldsmith tread some newer action territory.

That said, the opening action cue to FOREVER YOUNG is of some interest – it's like an interim piece, the 'link' between Goldsmith's sophisticated early 90s style, and his basic and simplistic mid to late 90s mode of composing. This opening cue begins well, albeit rather too heavily acoustic (the throbbing electronics are far too little) and a little threadbare in orchestration, but after a few brass and string flourishes descends in noisy, repetitive, ponderous, cumbersome and monotonous bombast – something that was to characterize much of Goldsmith's subsequent action music up to 1999.

The opening twenty minute segment of the movie is charming and brimming with character, emotion and period feel. There are some delightfully bucolic scenes, and some great aircraft shots, and Goldsmith's music is sweeping and beautiful – at least FOREVER YOUNG's romantic main theme is very good and very appropriate to the movie's agenda. Indeed, the album opens with a rather too syrupy version of this main theme for light orchestra and saxophone and comes across as being little better than standard elevator music. This is a shame, because there are some nice ideas in there and the thematic development is interesting , conveying a strong sense of romance and tragedy – of course, this album piece was not arranged by Goldsmith himself.

All of the most interesting music that Goldsmith wrote for FOREVER YOUNG seems to be crammed into this opening segment. There's some very nice stuff just prior to Gibson's deep-freeze – very much in the mould of BASIC INSTINCT with its elegiac and descending string figures.

"That's ironic, considering one of Herrmann's most celebrated scores (Journey to the Center of the Earth) was a shameless (and inferior) pastiche of various elements of Wagner's masterful 'Siegfried'."

And at least there's a gap of thirty years between Herrmann's 'Journey' and Elfman's 'Batman' - Goldsmith waited just a few years before cobbling together his inferior Batmanesque homage. The effect of that was that when many cinemagoers heard Goldsmith's 'Shadow' theme, their first reaction was, "It's Batman!". Furthermore, Goldsmith's theme really is a pale shadow of Elfman's wonderful work on Batman. So I see Elfman's Batman score as being a superb and influential piece of film music partly inspired by other pieces of music and film scores, including Herrmann's 'Journey'. Elfman added his own inspiration to the influences of other composers when writing Batman.......Goldsmith merely regurgitated an anaemic and lacklustre version Elfman's ideas.

And let's not forget Goldsmith's blatant copying of Herrmann's 'Vertigo' for 'Star Trek:TMP', whilst remembering how Herrmann directly lifted the swirling repeated string motif from Richard Strauss's operatic masterpiece, 'The Woman without a Shadow'.

Needless to say Richard Strauss was himself influenced by Wagner (and many other composers), and Wagner was influenced by Berlioz and Weber (and many other composers)........but in each case the composer added his own genius to the influences of those composers who preceded him to create something new, original and groundbreaking. To some extent Elfman did this with Batman, but Herrmann and especially Goldsmith have often been far too obvious in their borrowings to be truly regarded as great composers of original music (even in Herrmann's non-film music work). Brilliant movie composers they may have been once, but that does not make their music worthy of stand-alone accreditation.