Some great parts in Ronin(the last 30 seconds),Red warrior(navajo chorus with the asian theme)...
EXTRANGE TRACK
The way of sword is extrange track because seems like two track bad pasted.And at the end is a copy and paste(like Horner) of the last minuts of the journey to the line.

More chorus,more passion,more orchestra,more old zimmer point of view....and this score wil be great.
In conclusion..other disapointing zimmer score.
Zimmer do you remember beyond rangoon?Black rain?peacemaker?prince of egypt?

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Originally posted by zimmerito:
NP:I'm start to think that zimmer without harry gregson williams,nick glennie smith,bob daspit and others is bad composer.(Oh my good...He was(or is) my favourite composer but..)

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quote:

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Originally posted by zimmerito:
I heard full score.
Please post when heard full soundtrack.
I'm very dissapointed with this new score.
.
..
...
..
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I'm start to think that zimmer without harry gregson williams,nick glennie smith,bob daspit and others is bad composer.(Oh my good...He was(or is) my favourite composer but..)

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Well, I haven't heard this score, so I'll pass judgement when I do. But in general, I disagree with your last statement. And your statement bothers me, and I'll tell you why.

*long paragraphs ahead*

I've been with Hans since his Rain Man days and I've noticed all the changes about Hans as a composer. The only constant is his pop sensibility. His approach to scoring films remain the same but his overall sound palett has matured. His music evolved with the time and the sound you hear now, along with the movies which it accompanies, didn't exist 20 years ago when Hans got into the Hollywood scene. Nick Glennie Smith and Harry Gregson-Williams tagged along on the ride. And while Nick Glennie Smith remained in musical arrested development (check out any of his post-The Rock and you'll notice the same style repeated without any clear creativity), Harry moved on to forge a distinct path. john Powell worked with Hans but you'll always notice the dissimilar sound that he carry with himself. They didn't define the good music that we've come to associate with Hans and MV, but hey, they helped propagated it to the mass audience.
I remember when people would complain about Hans, MV, and the "bad" music that came as the result. But most of these comment were focused upon the more pop-efforts, like The Rock and whatelse. Yet one full listen at all the variety of project that Hans was really involved in and you'll noticed how small that "bad" music really is... most, if not all, were written by Hans. For me, Nick Glennie Smith were the BANE of the MV establishment - Lather Rinse Repeat -
Hans grew up. His writing style changed, not due to changes in his staff but with his sensibilities. His point of view changed. I love his Thin Red Line score. It's the pinnacle of the kind of music Hans' been hinting at since Backdraft and House of The Spirits. But you don't seem to like Thin Red Line very much. His style changed considerable after that score came out. There's a conscious effort to tone down the ballistic approach to scoring and a focus on trying to underscore the feeling of each scenes.
From reading the story and following the development of The Last Samurai, I notice that this movie isn't a typical Hollywood movie. Granted, it has battle sequences, but the overall, it's has shades of the classic Japanese Samurai films with slow parts and meditative preponderance. Sounds like something Hans'd be perfect for, IMO.
I love Beyond Rangoon and Black Rain and Peacemaker and Prince of Egypt and Drop Zone. But I'm also at a point where scores like Black Hawk Down and Matchstick Men and Gladiator and Everlasting Piece, fits my attitude more, a more apparent diverse individual who grew up and out of the wild youth of old.
I'd dread that day when Nick Glennie Smith go back to MV and restate his Rock sound...

I think that if you love his pre-Thin Red Line days, then its best to not go further with Hans and start looking for more Nick Glennie Smith album.....

But that's just talking about "action" film... Perhaps if we were talking about comedy and dramas, you and I might share the same opinion...

That was the longest post ever, on my part.

He's trying to grow up and become a symphonist, but he just cannot do it as convincingly as the actual symphonic composers. Which is where Nick Glennie-Smith is superior: he knows what he's capable of, and he knows what he can't do: so he sticks with what he can do.

When Zimmer attempts to write a more symphonic score, he needs a boatload of orchestrators and arrangers, hence his 'mature' music sounds artificial and frankly I find it a hell of a lot more annoying than any of his worst pop efforts. I mean, just take MI2 from his recent output. Zimmer was so obviously in his element there: no orchestra, just pop music, and he made it work much better than his lame attempts at writing symphonic music which sounds like orchestrated keyboard banging. Might as well orchestrate Brad Fiedel and the end product won't be much different.

If Hans Zimmer wants to grow up some more, the first thing he should do is quit screwing around with the sound of an orchestra to make it sound like synth. Nothing says "Oh I want to grow up, but I'm still the same child so I'll just put on a facade" as writing for an orchestra and making it sound like synth. It makes his recent efforts even more artificial. The second thing would be to find a good orchestrator instead of his usual entourage of 80+ arrangers and orchestrators. When Fiachra Trench or Shirley Walker almost single-handedly orchestrated Zimmer's scores, the results were much more coherent.

Zimmer hasn't grown up, he's simply screwed up his style but is stuck in a rut and can't evolve any further along the symphonic path he seems to be desperately trying to walk. He's now lost between trying to become a respected composer from the symphonic tradition, and an innovator of electronic scores. And as is often the case, that middle position doesn't work: he's no longer innovative on the electronics side, and symphonically he cannot compete with the great symphonic composers & scores out there.

Guess no one told him the old expression... "Be Yourself"<HR size=1></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's very interesting, Dinko. I know what you're saying about how Hans' trying hard to tread the middle ground but I dont' necessarily think that he is stuck in the musical development rut. Truth be told, I don't like the fact that he still like to record his orchestra and make it sound like synth. But perhaps there's a method to all the madness. There was a quote by Zimmer in the liner notes of the Broken Arrow soundtrack where he stated that "The more electronic I go, the more human an action score becomes to me". Taking this into account, I would say that he's trying to control the sound of the orchestra BEYOND the first record. I don't know, but it is a bit annoying. Though I think it's something that seems to exist within the realm of the action bits and pieces of the movies that he scores. Scores like Black Hawk Down doesn't have the synthetics of the Hans of old but rather of a new age dramatist who like to revel in diverse way of scoring movies. So the complaint about the sound of synth is moot. He does have a good orchestrator in Bruce Fowler, who has been with Hans since the good ole day of Joe and The Chicago Showgirl and Backdraft. And his it's the same people who arranged Tears of The Sun who also arranged Black Hawk Down. It's quite interesting how they each mangage to sound different from each other. I think your complaint about the "incoherency" in his work has alot to do with the people he signs on to do additional work. Different quality of compositional prowess would contradict each other.
And when I was talking about growing up, I was not referring to his style, but rather his approach to scoring films. His style has remain somewhat consistent to me. I hear the same low dark string in Hannibal that I heard in The House of the Spirits and K2. Stylistically identical, yet sonically different. Sound is key.
When the Peacemaker came out, I noticed a shift in the kind of action music he was now writing, It wasn't The Rock. It was robust and layered and steeped in post-industrial orchestral sensibility than The Rock would ever be. It's the same style of writing that I heard in Gladiator, and none of which sounds like the best of orchestrated Brad Fiedel.
There's no reason why he should sound like John Williams (an example of the actual symphonic composer). What Hans's doing is filling out a niche to himself. A sound not quite like the norm that's out there. And M:I2 represent a bit of that too. That score has no basis in being identified as having the elements of the Hans of old. It's of course most reminiscent of Point Of No Return in the pop/rock mode but that dueling timpanis cue mixed with vocals wasn't quite something you'd expect from Hans. But combined together, they are a small minority in the 100 score that he has written.
In the end, he is being himself. Exploring different way of scoring a film. Not quite limiting and set in one method of scoring a scene. He isn't the leading innovator of the Synth/Orchestra combo anymore but that's was always expected. But I disagree that he's trying to compete with the masters of old. The movies that he score requires a certain flair that I don't think someone like Chris Young or John Williams would fill quite nicely. (IMO, Chris Young's score to the faux-Armageddon film , The Core, was thumb down) Imagine a James Newton Howard score to Black Hawk Down....... Wouldn't be as effective as the product is now.
With Hans, I'm more in the view of finding out how he's gonna work in the elements that he has established and grow from there. He's not a symphonic composer, just one who can write in many styles and one of them happen to be of the orchestral mode. Different expectations perhaps?

I guess I broke my "NO MORE" now.

I was thinking with Master And Commander, how when I first heard Christopher Gordon was involved that I wanted to hear some big orchestral themes like On The Beach (and something like Children of Dune, after viewing the trailer) ... But then, when I saw the film, I was blown away by the score, and how it didn't have anything I expected. At this moment, it's my favourite of the year. The creative approach used in scoring that film went beyond anything I could think up.

With The Last Samurai, from the clips I've heard, it sounds to me like Hans' best in some time—maybe since The Thin Red Line. The part that doesn't really grab me though, and maybe it does for others, is the Gladiator-sounding theme, probably for Tom Cruise, which sounds tired; but then again, didn't Hans say his theme was "typical"?

S.

And i must say that i hoped a lot with that score as the last compositions of Hans made me think that he was not so prolific and enthousiast like 5 years ago.

Now, The Last Samurai is really worth the buy if you want to hear the new Hans Zimmer, more mature in the references he makes to his last scores. Yes, there is a lot of references. The Main theme is as heroïc as the Maximus one. play not so often in the score but with different orchestrations and variations, Higher or softer. Some can hear the Ranggon pieces, the Tears of the sun stuff. Yes that's true but i can say that there is a je-ne-sais-quoi that give the atmospher much more interesting than that kind of repetition. The asian atmosphere there. Taiko loud and very interesting. Asian stuff look like what it have to. No more no less.

Like some said, yes it is calm, very calm. I must say that it is in the vein of The Thin Red Line but much more listenable if it can be said. I explain that. It is much more possible to get to grip with the soft sound of that one than in the very minimalist Thin Red Line.

If some expect to hear big sound, there is some in different passage, synthetics ones played quickly, a bit like the Escape piece in Gladiator. Same texture.

There is a great feeling listening to that score, like if i was discovering again the Zimmer i was searching for, the one that make more than his job. The one that can be appreciated now for his maturity and his choices.

Don't get me wrong, it's certainly decent and I'll listen to it a few times more in the future. But he's definitely treading on Horner territory like I've never known Zimmer to do before -- and by that I mean, as others have mentioned, pieces that are clearly reworked versions of GLADIATOR or even BLACK RAIN themes.

There's some nice percussion, some lovely melodic passages, but as is rare for me, I noticed some depressingly generic writing, including I think it's track three (or maybe it's two's) build up to some sort of war/attack sequence music. Very, very plain, heard-it-all-before music.

Zimmer's one of those composers where even his "worst" is usually more listen-to-able than others' mediocre stuff, but this is definitely a C-plus/B-minus at best effort from a man who I've come to expect more of.

Mills

NP: ALIAS

Underwhelmed.

Like Peter Kelly first stated, it is very slow moving with not many action tracks like Gladiator. But given the movie, it's expected. And I'm sure that the album's focusing only on the deep spiritual side of the movie and trying to underplay the war story.

Regardless. I like it. The music is good. It's calm soothing music. It's music that you know that Hans Zimmer can write. There's a few moment of deja vu, but that's forgivable since that's almost the norm when you listen to any composer's cd.
Beside some interesting Gladiator leftover like parts of "Spectres in the Fog", and some Black Rain style moments, there's some genuine passage of beauty to behold. Track 1 is a killer. The first half of Track 2 is awesome. In fact, I enjoy almost all the slower parts. Hans Zimmer is Oscar caliber in all the slower parts. You can tell that he excels at crafting intimate, thoughtful ambience that really envelopes the listener. This was why Thin Red Line is one of the best Hans Zimmer score. But in this case, that style was applied to an also appropriate setting where it also shines.
Theme wise, the Western theme is forgettable (perhaps that is the point of it in this movie), while the Japanese theme is noble and grand. They're contrasting in how they flow independently of eachother. The second part of the Japan theme (heard in Idyll's End) could have been expanded more, but that's nitpicking (IMO). I haven't had one moment where Beyond Rangoon is suggested in my mind. And I didn't notice any themes from Black Rain being reworked or whatnot. Perhaps someone can point it out to me where they heard it.

In the end. This score is something that went beyond the normal Horner approach. Instead of copying passages and pasted them next to each other, I hear an incorporation of styles. This isn't a score where, you need to hear really original music. No mistake. For the purpose of exploring the soundscape of Japan and its spiritual side, complete with lingering philosophical musings and meditative moments. This score is perfect to a T. Everything else is just gravy.

But alas, I still can't get past the way his scores sound. I'm not talking about the style here...I'm talking about the manipulation of the orchestra's tone that Dinko brought up back when this thread was hot. This works fine for his typical action scores, and since I don't really like his typical action scores I'm not personally bothered by it there. But it gets very annoying in this score. THE LAST SAMURAI sounds like it's supposed to be very lush, with a great "1,000 violins" sound to it, but you'll never know listening to it. The synthetic manipulation and the over-mastering ("let's-put-every-instrument-in-the-orchestra-at-the-same-super-loud-volume") often turn it all into a big, blaring blur that intrudes on the natural beauty of the music.

Great score, but a shame about the recording. I can understand how and why people like many of Hans Zimmer's scores even when I think they're trash, but I can't begin to understand what possible appeal there is in this kind of sound.

btw HadrianD I completly agree with you. Good stuff.

The end titles (if I remember correctly) would have been perfect.

Oh well...all in all...a good listen.

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Originally posted by sean:
Quill, your memory is incorrect. Everything in the end credits is on CD. Which theme do you mean, anyway? All the themes got a workout on CD the way they played out on film, and nothing left off the album was significant enough to warrant wanting more music (meaning there were no bigger performances of the main themes, or smaller, for that matter), except, of course, the "Final Charge" (but, that's at iTunes). Like, I think the only big stuff missing is that ninja attack cue, but that's basically uninteresting percussion with taikos (no themes), and a "Spectres in the Fog" kinda piece—the latter of that piece being on the album: "To Know My Enemy"—when Cruise and the samurai recue Katsumoto. The end titles are a mixture of "Idyll's End" and "A Way of Life" and maybe, "A Hard Teacher".

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I suppose it is more of a certain presentation of the main theme I am looking for. Obviously my top track is Red Warrior and the powerful presentation of the theme.

Early in the credits I remember (or not!) the theme presented again in this form, but I do not believe it is on the score release.

Oh well...after work today I will need to give it yet another thorough listen.

I love Hans Zimmer's music and he's my favourite composer, but I really don't want him to win an Oscar for The Last Samurai. There are some awesome moments in the score, but it's just not original enough, or for that matter, inspired enough, to warrent winning an Oscar (the best never win, anyway). I think when you have a favourite composer it's important to be able to be critical of their work, no matter how good it might be, even if you can't stop listening to it (ex. I really like Pirates of the Caribbean, but there's no way in hell I'm going to say that's it's an original work—like, it just stinks to high heaven of Zimmer's past scores—there was this site a while back for James Horner that miticulously listed [with track times] all of the times that he copied basically note for note music for one score or another; maybe someone should do that for Pirates :P )

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Originally posted by zimmerito:
I'm not the kind of guy that is obsesioned with the meaning of the music but..
The asian theme has 2 parts.Why is used more the first half than the second part?
thanks

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I heard the full theme two times in the movie (and two times on CD) Both of them involved Algren and the Samurai. Once as the Samurai escorted Algren back into Tokyo. The second time is when Algren rides, as the Red Samurai, into war along with all the other Samurais. You might infer that both scene shown them as being revered and noble and courageous, and it aslo support the idea that Algren is THE LAST Samurai to completes this band of warriors. IMHO.

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Originally posted by zimmerito:

Anyone has the telephone number of Geoff zanelli?lol

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Originally posted by sean:
Hadrian, why would I burn Pirates of the Caribbean? I love that score.

NP: Zimmeraction (my mix) *****/*****

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Originally posted by zimmerito:
Well...
I download the program,i paid 99 cent...
for 1 minut and 30 seconds to new stuff?¿?¿?¿
A way of sword + dorie the hero...And I paid for it..I'm a foolish.
Well,"samurai the hero" is amazing theme.
Bye bye

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When I first got The Last Samurai, I liked a couple of cues and short excerpts from others.

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Originally posted by Dinko:
It's really strange how some scores grow on you.

When I first got The Last Samurai, I liked a couple of cues and short excerpts from others.

Then as time went by, I kept coming back to the score. Began liking more of it.
Now I really like this CD. How the score works in the movie, I neither know nor care. But on CD, it's both a relaxing listen, and an exciting heroic score. What felt like boring underscore, now appears perfectly "hummable".

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