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Originally posted by MarkA:
Just got back from seeing the movie. Great movie. I liked it better than the first one.

The best part of the score was the train sequence - outstanding. From what I understand this was written by Goldenthal (and it sounded a lot like his style -- including the occasional fluttering brass). I hope this makes it onto the score CD release.

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Goldenthal????

Huh????

Okay...besides John Debney, Christopher Young, Steve Bartek and Joe LoDuca, who else did additional music for this film???

Is Danny doing a Hans Zimmer and forming a conglomorate of composers to work on films?

(just kidding of course)

Seriously...Goldenthal too????

Anyway, my mistake.

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Originally posted by MarkA:
Ok I've been informed that it wasn't Goldenthal (this was posted somewhere else as well and that must have been in error). Chris Young wrote part of the music for the train sequence based on Elfman's music and Elfman wrote the rest.

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Stylistically Goldenthal and Elfman aren't too far apart these days... I remember thinking 'Final Confrontation' from Spiderman could have come from Goldenthal's pen.

Then there are the additional composer cues. Debney's L-train sequence actually features a nice statement of Elfman's theme, but Christopher Young's cue for Doc Ock's presentation is waaaay out of place. This is simply a mild reworking of his HELLRAISER theme.

At least a score album promises a more faithful presentation of Elfman's material.

I don't know what went down on SPIDER-MAN 2, but wanted to express my dissapointment with the state of the score as heard in the final picture. I suspect that last minute changes were the culprit (Elfman has never shown signs of laziness before), but I guess only those involved with production know for sure.

I attended an event during the LA Film Fest a few weeks back which Elfman and Thomas Newman were part of. During the conversation, Elfman expressed disgust at having to do subtle variations of temp track cues (as many composers do, of course) and seemed really dismayed that the current state of film scoring is such that not every note really counts all the time. He seemed abnormally frustrated with the process that day; no doubt he was still stinging from his SPIDER-MAN 2 experience!

My post perhaps was a bit unclear. I wasn't placing the blame on Danny Elfman for SPIDER-MAN 2. What I meant was that his efforts were compromised by the filmmakers -- that includes Sam Raimi, the guy who I consider my favorite director. I've been keeping my eyes and ears on the entire SPIDER-MAN 2 situation and I know for a fact that this wasn't because Danny Elfman was being lazy. All you have to do is look at previous Raimi pictures to know he usually farts around with the score (EVIL DEAD II, THE QUICK AND THE DEAD).

Basically the magic of discovery was squashed by the reuse of cues. At least for me it was.

[SPOILERS FOLLOW!!!!]

Nonetheless, yeah, the score was a bit of a disappointment, although I have to say, all of the tracked material from Spidey 1 actually fit the film really well- even moments where 2-3 cues were grafted together. I remember hearing the brassy stinger part of "Revenge" where Peter takes of running in the first one, now used when he loses his webbing and falls and thinking, "Wow, that actually fit really well!" I thought the use of the main titles when Peter is determined to get his powers back worked well too. That scene needed something marchlike- and the main titles worked. I wonder if the cue "He's Back" on the score album really IS going to be the tracked version of the MT or if it's going to be original material. The "Alone" music at the beginning was perfect, as it was a rhyme to its proper scene in Spidey 1 where Peter and Aunt May are talking about Uncle Ben. Was it just me or was some of the music from Spidey 1 actually stuff that was re-recorded? Some of it sounded like it.

The Debney cue at the beginning's nice, and Young's working the Doc Ock theme into his Hellraiser 2 titles music was fun. I wasn't much a fan of Young's train sequence cue, though. It was just a lot of loud horn trills. I assume the part that's Elfman is the section before Doc Ock starts throwing people and an awesome quote of the Spidey theme is heard.

The bright spot of this sequel score is the great emotional pulls in the film due to Danny's music- and I'm sure those were the scenes Sam wanted Elfman to really nail, rather than all the action. The phone call scene and the "Appreciation" scene have the most touching music Elfman has written for the Spiderman films. Yeah, I was surprised at how moved I was by the latter (and how everyone around me was crying and quite moved too).

I'm hoping that the score album is going to clear up the mystery as to what happened with this film, and if music was tossed in favor of Spidey 1 stuff, I hope we get to hear some of the unused material. In the meantime, I think I'm gonna have to see this film a few dozen more times.

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Originally posted by johnmullin:
Yeah, I was wondering if some of the enviromentally friendly cues from the first film were rerecorded for the second as well. I heard a number of choppy edits in the music (suggesting that at least some of it was tracked), but in other places the tempos seemed a little different and the cues were a little more stretched out. I forget when it happened, but there was one point in the movie where the music cut between three cues from the first score and it was tremendously awkward.

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Well, yeah- awkward to us, but not awkward to 98% of the people who watch this film. I know exactly what you're talking about- one section seemed to move from like the M.T. to "Revenge" to "Parade Attack" (can't remember what exactly was played) within the span of like 15 sec. And while I was slightly disappointed hearing it, looking at it objectively I thought it worked, also given Elfman's jagged and disjointed compositional style- the seams between the cues weren't horribly apparent. I mean, the edits, to me, didn't seem NEARLY as bad as the axe that was taken to John Williams Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones scores (especially AOTC).

That's not the case with SPIDER-MAN 2 at all. We hear the same cue ("Getting Through" from the first score) over and over again and there are never any subtle changes in the music to suggest that a composer watched it, thought about it, and decided to make some kind of musical commentary on the scene. For me, that's the most important thing that a film score does. Again, as you pointed out, Joe Public is not likely to notice and even if he did, he probably wouldn't care much, but for people who really care about this sort of thing, it _is_ important and certainly _does_ matter.

Elfman, like many composers, is very good at ruminating through his music. When Peter Parker is angry and wants revenge, the music does too. It's intangible, but I stand by my opinion that cues like that cannot simply be dropped into a scene where Spider-Man is swinging through the city and play with the same resonance. And getting back to "Getting Through..." why was it tracked into the scene where Aunt May makes that big speech while packing up? The theme that's heard there has always been associated with the love story between Peter and Mary Jane, and it makes no sense to play it at that moment.

It's a cute and comical "Spider-Man 2"-themed stop-motion animated Lego short film funded by Sony. It has original music by Jason Graves that is very good (and it does a fine job referencing Elfman's style for the films, as well as adding some comic touches...fans of Elfman's score should find it very enjoyable). Jason Graves also has a webpage, which has some terrific work on it to sample:
www.jasongraves.com

The score was quite good as well, I'll have to check out that site.