The Sicario soundtrack is an unsung masterpiece. Not because of the music itself being enjoyable to listen to separate from the film, but because it elevates the film to the next level. Just watch this scene, listen to how the soundtrack subtlety elevates the tension.
Rogue One's soundtrack just tried to do a variation of William's space opera and it fell flat and hollow IMHO.
I watched Rogue One again, and unfortunately the plot holes that I was unsure of in the first watching are confirmed, with other plot holes showing up too.
I enjoyed watching it a second time, but I think that's it for me.
I also think I'm done with watching new Star Wars movies in the cinema too, or caring about them any more than any other movie. I thought Rogue One was going to be the break from the J.J. Abrams mold of movie making, and it would head somewhere more interesting. While the story was different than other Star Wars, there are still no new ingredients, and the constant references aren't enough to bide me over.
The new Star Wars movies aren't doing any work! There is no heavy lifting in terms of world building or ideas or creating new villains or situations or politics or anything. Say what you want about trade negotiations and midichlorians, at least there was an attempt at something different. The Force Awakes and Rogue One add nothing except more special effects and more fucking X-Wing battles.
I can't tell you how much more excited I am now about the new Marvel movies, like Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and future Captain Americas, than I am about episode 8 or whatever movie is slated for Christmas 2018.
Who knew I'd be into fun stories about fun characters having adventures together and going up against new bad guys, with different solutions to the problems than MORE FUCKING X-WING SPACE BATTLES.
The constant references were my biggest negative. There was at least one scene from the middle of Rogue One that was 100% unnecessary, and was just a shit scene at that (spoiler hint: lava castle). I'd say at least 80% of the little cameos and such were too jarring for me. There were a handful that I really liked.
The score was indeed crap.
The beginning was super jumpy. They tried their best to jump start the plot, and could have done a lot worse, but it was still hard to settle in.
Other than that I'd say it was a very enjoyable B+ action flick. If this is what the Star Wars/Disney sausage factory of annual releases looks like, I'm on board that train.
People seem to forget that it's a simple melody that really makes a score memorable. Williams was a master of that and it worked. For all the grief people ladle on Phantom Menace, the deployment of the droid army sticks with you musically.
They need to find a line between clever and ham-fisted in terms of their references.
The lava castle I didn't mind even those it felt like Vader was chilling out in Sauron's timeshare.
I liked it, but it more or less ended about the way I expected it to.
People seem to forget that it's a simple melody that really makes a score memorable.
No no no no no no. A melody has to have some complexity!!! There is a moment in Rogue One, where two people are jumping onto a tower, where the music is just strings playing two notes, over and over and over. It's painfully bad.
We did a 30 minute car-journey-home podcast about the movie. Skip to 19:20 to hear my impression:
People seem to forget that it's a simple melody that really makes a score memorable.
No no no no no no. A melody has to have some complexity!!! There is a moment in Rogue One, where two people are jumping onto a tower, where the music is just strings playing two notes, over and over and over. It's painfully bad.
By "Simple" I mean where you can summarize the music down to about 6-10 notes, which sticks in your head and play in a loop. The music in Rogue One, didn't have that at all. Williams was great at this: Star Wars, Empire, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, even Temple of Doom. I remember the instrumentals from the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy much more than Rogue One.
Hell, you could probably score the movie better using tracks from SWTOR.
The Imperial March is probably about 40 or 50 notes.
Those 40 or 50 notes aren't what gets stuck in your head unless you've memorized the melody. What gets stuck in your heart are those first nine notes, the last three of which are exactly the same as the middle three. And in fairness, most of the rest of that melody is variations on those first nine notes.
Another example: Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, which is hellishly complex for most of the piece. (As I understand, that's the definition of a toccata.) I get most of the melody stuck in my head because I've listened to it a lot, but most people can only remember the first ten notes, and that's what gets stuck in their head. The first eight notes from the chorus (is chorus the right word? I'm uncultured) of Waltz of the Flowers from the Nutcracker Suite? The first four notes of Beethoven's Ninth Fifth Symphony? The right notes from the chorus of Duel of the Fates from Phantom Menace? The first two bars from the chorus of that one Lazytown song? That's what gets stuck in your head, regardless of how long the melody actually takes to loop.
For the purposes of catchiness, it doesn't matter how long the song goes before repeating, what matters is whether there's a couple bars that are simple enough that you will remember it after hearing it once. Simplicity makes a song catchy but short-lived, complexity the opposite. The magic happens when someone combines both.
Who let Michael Giacchino near a Star Wars movie? Holy shit, can that guy ruin a movie soundtrack.
Apparently he had like 4 weeks or some limitation on when to do it but yes you can't compare John Williams to this guy.
Not sure why he's being hired for many of he big films in the past few years, they've sounded terrible. How you feel about his soundtrack in Rogue One probably has a similar sentiment to my reaction on his work in Jurassic World.
The Star Wars Prequels had way better sound tracks regardless of how shit they were as movies just because of John Williams.
They regularly pop in my work / concentration auto generated play list.
Believe me, I feel the same way about his Jurassic World soundtrack as this.
If he's making the movie music from scratch, it can be okay to forgettable. The problem is when he's taking themes from other people and incorporating his own ideas into it. Like Star Wars, Star Trek, Jurassic World and Mission Impossible.
After two dreadful Mission Impossible soundtracks with III and Ghost Protocol, the only reason I knew Giachino didn't do the music for Rogue Nation was because it was really, really good! The interplay of existing themes (mission impossible theme and existing opera music) was incredible, and the whole thing super effective.
This is why I say he can ruin a movie. Moments when I should either be loving the music, or it just being in the background, he can worm his way into my brain by fucking up existing music that was perfectly fine when written by someone else.
I much prefer the Force Awakens even if it is a remake of A New Hope over Rogue One.
First half of Rogue One is thoroughly boring, the relationship of the father and daughter is so saccharine. Jyn Erso is nowhere near as good as Rey, Finn, or Poe. Felicity Jones just has that same standoffish, twitchy performance except when she has to cry and considering you know she's going to die, she's really hard to get invested in. The second half is a pretty amazing action movie. The new refurbished look to all the Episode IV tech is still striking and appropriately modernized for the big scene. Loved what they did using the large starships more in battle. The constant references were annoying but I did like how they connected everything at the end so the situation felt a lot more dire. 6.5/10? 7/10?
I, for one, actually liked the soundtrack a lot. All you weird soundtrack elitists trying to signal how musically enlightened you are need to loosen up and remember how to enjoy things.
I enjoy all kinds of things at all kinds of levels. I can't help it if, during the movie, the soundtrack got so annoying it distracted me from the action. At the time I didn't know who composed the score!
I, for one, actually liked the soundtrack a lot. All you weird soundtrack elitists trying to signal how musically enlightened you are need to loosen up and remember how to enjoy things.
A good soundtrack can make movie moments memorable or utterly forgettable.
There's a reason people can remember the Indiana Jones, Superman, Jurassic Park themes and link them to moments in the films. Hell I'd say that the only reason I found the Bourne Identity to be personally memorable was that the soundtrack married itself to scenes so freaking well that in my memory these scenes are far more fleshed out than when re-watching the film.
I honestly can't say that for the films done by lesser composers.
I was not taken out of the moment by the lack of a compelling score. I am also very far from a musical elitist. But I was going to buy the soundtrack and listen on the drive home. I didn't because I was afraid it would put me to sleep. I can listen to Ep IV-VI soundtracks on loop for eternity.
I was surprised to see Darth Vader as comedic relief (albeit slight). Darth Vader pun master.
To be fair, the guy had that coming.
Saw the movie a second time. The music was forgettable, I realize they were trying to do something different, but Star Wars has a "house style" at this point, you deviate it at your own risk. However it didn't break the movie for me.
I recently got the Rogue One visual directory which is a really interesting read. When trying to recreate the old Star Wars look they went with "As they remembered, not as they were."
I was so happy I went to a big box book store to figure out what the fuck those pen things were in the officers clothing. 2nd time watching it on IMAX was a nice treat.
Favorite thing:
Sat next to this 7/8 y/o girl. She was watching Jeremy play the Pokemons before it started and was asking us about Pokemons. She was so cool
Then when Jedha blew up and you can see the explosions in outer space, the little girl goes to her father and says, "How is that possible? There is no oxygen in space!".
I, for one, actually liked the soundtrack a lot. All you weird soundtrack elitists trying to signal how musically enlightened you are need to loosen up and remember how to enjoy things.
The ability to articulate why you do or don't like something hardly makes you an elitist.
There was only one moment when I even noticed the score enough to think about it, and it was highly annoying for a few seconds. But that's about it as far as score. It's... whatever. Nothing that I remember really, no themes that I can recite time and time again.
Trying to hold the Rogue One score up to the original trilogy's score is almost unfair. Except that it is totally fair.
I, for one, actually liked the soundtrack a lot. All you weird soundtrack elitists trying to signal how musically enlightened you are need to loosen up and remember how to enjoy things.
The ability to articulate why you do or don't like something hardly makes you an elitist.
No one is being called an elitist for what they have the *ability* to say. Rather for what they *did* say.
The main argument I've heard so far seems to be that Rogue One's soundtrack is not memorable enough. To name a few specific issues with that claim, I would contend that:
(1) There are, in fact, memorable themes in this soundtrack. I re-listened to the album this morning and stand by that statement.
(2) There is tons of un-memorable music in the soundtrack for A New Hope, in addition to some killer memorable themes.
(3) "Memorable" is not always appropriate for every single track in a movie. Sometimes if the music is too noticeable it distracts from the story, visuals, or actors' performances. In addition to memorable themes, movies probably generally also need plenty of mood-appropriate but un-memorable music that doesn't upstage other things that are being highlighted in the moment.
(4) One think I enjoyed in particular was how Rogue One's soundtrack was able to call back to (presage?) themes from A New Hope's soundtrack without being overly heavy-handed with them. The music fit into the universe for me, and I bought it as authentic.
Some people have generally disparaged Giacchino on here as being a bad composer overall. I just straight-up disagree with that view (along with, apparently, a bunch of high-profile directors as well as the people giving out Emmy's, Grammy's, and whatever other crap he's won). The first time I heard (the unfortunately named) "Enterprising Young Men" I loved it (it's quite memorable), and I hum it all the time. If you don't like at least that piece from his repertoire then you just plain dislike good music for bad reasons, and I have very little more to say to you on the topic.
Fair enough, I read your earlier comment as "this must be objectively good because I like it." I agree with you on point 3; I've heard it's a truism among composers that the score failed if you remember any of it once you leave the theater. I haven't seen Rogue One yet so I can't say one way or the other, but between that and people's nostalgia for the old John Williams scores, which broke the hell out of that rule, it's probably not so much that the Rogue One soundtrack is bad, just that's it's not as good.
Of all the movies that Giacchino has worked on, the only one that I can recall any of the score is The Incredibles, which had a very deliberately brash, bombastic tone. It doesn't speak well for his work that I didn't even remember Cloverfield having any music in the first place, but I get the feeling that he's just very good at the "right" kind of score that never draws attention to itself since I don't recall any of those movies having a bad soundtrack; I'd have to sit down and rewatch them to be sure though. (I just checked, he had nothing to do with the one song I remember from Zootopia, "Try Everything," but he did write "Le Festin" from Ratatouille, so we at least know that he can write a good, memorable song.)
Edit: Okay, "Enterprising Young Men" is solid. Good call there.
Your first three numbered points are all about themes being memorable, and that's not an issue I have with Giacchino's music, nor any other composer's music. I don't think memorability is all that important.
Point 4, that you enjoyed how the score of Rogue One call backs the themes of other Star Wars movies, is entirely subjective. That's fine! Personally I didn't enjoy it, and I often found it heavy handed.
I also haven't said Giacchino is a bad composer overall, just in the cases where he works with other composers' themes.
So I guess you're not discussing anything with me and I'm not the elitist music snob you're talking about?
Hmm, this movie seems to be the closest thing to the old Expanded Universe (EU).
It also makes it closest to the prequels.
I had high expectations after The Force Awakens, maybe it was the reshoots or the shuffling to try and force out this movie in time, but all the small flaws add up to a movie that didn't deliver (especially when you look at the initial trailer for it):
When is the movie being advertised in the above teaser coming out? I would watch the shit out of that.
Comments
not even joking
It's just the Evangelion score slightly remixed, but whatev.
Rogue One's soundtrack just tried to do a variation of William's space opera and it fell flat and hollow IMHO.
I enjoyed watching it a second time, but I think that's it for me.
I also think I'm done with watching new Star Wars movies in the cinema too, or caring about them any more than any other movie. I thought Rogue One was going to be the break from the J.J. Abrams mold of movie making, and it would head somewhere more interesting. While the story was different than other Star Wars, there are still no new ingredients, and the constant references aren't enough to bide me over.
The new Star Wars movies aren't doing any work! There is no heavy lifting in terms of world building or ideas or creating new villains or situations or politics or anything. Say what you want about trade negotiations and midichlorians, at least there was an attempt at something different. The Force Awakes and Rogue One add nothing except more special effects and more fucking X-Wing battles.
I can't tell you how much more excited I am now about the new Marvel movies, like Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and future Captain Americas, than I am about episode 8 or whatever movie is slated for Christmas 2018.
Who knew I'd be into fun stories about fun characters having adventures together and going up against new bad guys, with different solutions to the problems than MORE FUCKING X-WING SPACE BATTLES.
The score was indeed crap.
The beginning was super jumpy. They tried their best to jump start the plot, and could have done a lot worse, but it was still hard to settle in.
Other than that I'd say it was a very enjoyable B+ action flick. If this is what the Star Wars/Disney sausage factory of annual releases looks like, I'm on board that train.
They need to find a line between clever and ham-fisted in terms of their references.
The lava castle I didn't mind even those it felt like Vader was chilling out in Sauron's timeshare.
I liked it, but it more or less ended about the way I expected it to.
We did a 30 minute car-journey-home podcast about the movie. Skip to 19:20 to hear my impression:
http://www.sfbrp.com/archives/1207
Hell, you could probably score the movie better using tracks from SWTOR.
Jyn and French Guy jump onto computer tower? Two notes! Two! Fucking TWO!
Another example: Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, which is hellishly complex for most of the piece. (As I understand, that's the definition of a toccata.) I get most of the melody stuck in my head because I've listened to it a lot, but most people can only remember the first ten notes, and that's what gets stuck in their head. The first eight notes from the chorus (is chorus the right word? I'm uncultured) of Waltz of the Flowers from the Nutcracker Suite? The first four notes of Beethoven's Ninth Fifth Symphony? The right notes from the chorus of Duel of the Fates from Phantom Menace? The first two bars from the chorus of that one Lazytown song? That's what gets stuck in your head, regardless of how long the melody actually takes to loop.
For the purposes of catchiness, it doesn't matter how long the song goes before repeating, what matters is whether there's a couple bars that are simple enough that you will remember it after hearing it once. Simplicity makes a song catchy but short-lived, complexity the opposite. The magic happens when someone combines both.
Not sure why he's being hired for many of he big films in the past few years, they've sounded terrible. How you feel about his soundtrack in Rogue One probably has a similar sentiment to my reaction on his work in Jurassic World.
The Star Wars Prequels had way better sound tracks regardless of how shit they were as movies just because of John Williams.
They regularly pop in my work / concentration auto generated play list.
If he's making the movie music from scratch, it can be okay to forgettable. The problem is when he's taking themes from other people and incorporating his own ideas into it. Like Star Wars, Star Trek, Jurassic World and Mission Impossible.
After two dreadful Mission Impossible soundtracks with III and Ghost Protocol, the only reason I knew Giachino didn't do the music for Rogue Nation was because it was really, really good! The interplay of existing themes (mission impossible theme and existing opera music) was incredible, and the whole thing super effective.
This is why I say he can ruin a movie. Moments when I should either be loving the music, or it just being in the background, he can worm his way into my brain by fucking up existing music that was perfectly fine when written by someone else.
First half of Rogue One is thoroughly boring, the relationship of the father and daughter is so saccharine. Jyn Erso is nowhere near as good as Rey, Finn, or Poe. Felicity Jones just has that same standoffish, twitchy performance except when she has to cry and considering you know she's going to die, she's really hard to get invested in. The second half is a pretty amazing action movie. The new refurbished look to all the Episode IV tech is still striking and appropriately modernized for the big scene. Loved what they did using the large starships more in battle. The constant references were annoying but I did like how they connected everything at the end so the situation felt a lot more dire. 6.5/10? 7/10?
Best character of the movie is Sassbot.
There's a reason people can remember the Indiana Jones, Superman, Jurassic Park themes and link them to moments in the films. Hell I'd say that the only reason I found the Bourne Identity to be personally memorable was that the soundtrack married itself to scenes so freaking well that in my memory these scenes are far more fleshed out than when re-watching the film.
I honestly can't say that for the films done by lesser composers.
Saw the movie a second time. The music was forgettable, I realize they were trying to do something different, but Star Wars has a "house style" at this point, you deviate it at your own risk. However it didn't break the movie for me.
I recently got the Rogue One visual directory which is a really interesting read. When trying to recreate the old Star Wars look they went with "As they remembered, not as they were."
Favorite thing:
Sat next to this 7/8 y/o girl. She was watching Jeremy play the Pokemons before it started and was asking us about Pokemons. She was so cool
Then when Jedha blew up and you can see the explosions in outer space, the little girl goes to her father and says, "How is that possible? There is no oxygen in space!".
I laughed and told her, "You are correct.".
Bless that brilliant child.
Trying to hold the Rogue One score up to the original trilogy's score is almost unfair. Except that it is totally fair.
The main argument I've heard so far seems to be that Rogue One's soundtrack is not memorable enough. To name a few specific issues with that claim, I would contend that:
(1) There are, in fact, memorable themes in this soundtrack. I re-listened to the album this morning and stand by that statement.
(2) There is tons of un-memorable music in the soundtrack for A New Hope, in addition to some killer memorable themes.
(3) "Memorable" is not always appropriate for every single track in a movie. Sometimes if the music is too noticeable it distracts from the story, visuals, or actors' performances. In addition to memorable themes, movies probably generally also need plenty of mood-appropriate but un-memorable music that doesn't upstage other things that are being highlighted in the moment.
(4) One think I enjoyed in particular was how Rogue One's soundtrack was able to call back to (presage?) themes from A New Hope's soundtrack without being overly heavy-handed with them. The music fit into the universe for me, and I bought it as authentic.
Some people have generally disparaged Giacchino on here as being a bad composer overall. I just straight-up disagree with that view (along with, apparently, a bunch of high-profile directors as well as the people giving out Emmy's, Grammy's, and whatever other crap he's won). The first time I heard (the unfortunately named) "Enterprising Young Men" I loved it (it's quite memorable), and I hum it all the time. If you don't like at least that piece from his repertoire then you just plain dislike good music for bad reasons, and I have very little more to say to you on the topic.
Of all the movies that Giacchino has worked on, the only one that I can recall any of the score is The Incredibles, which had a very deliberately brash, bombastic tone. It doesn't speak well for his work that I didn't even remember Cloverfield having any music in the first place, but I get the feeling that he's just very good at the "right" kind of score that never draws attention to itself since I don't recall any of those movies having a bad soundtrack; I'd have to sit down and rewatch them to be sure though. (I just checked, he had nothing to do with the one song I remember from Zootopia, "Try Everything," but he did write "Le Festin" from Ratatouille, so we at least know that he can write a good, memorable song.)
Edit: Okay, "Enterprising Young Men" is solid. Good call there.
Point 4, that you enjoyed how the score of Rogue One call backs the themes of other Star Wars movies, is entirely subjective. That's fine! Personally I didn't enjoy it, and I often found it heavy handed.
I also haven't said Giacchino is a bad composer overall, just in the cases where he works with other composers' themes.
So I guess you're not discussing anything with me and I'm not the elitist music snob you're talking about?
It also makes it closest to the prequels.
I had high expectations after The Force Awakens, maybe it was the reshoots or the shuffling to try and force out this movie in time, but all the small flaws add up to a movie that didn't deliver (especially when you look at the initial trailer for it):
When is the movie being advertised in the above teaser coming out? I would watch the shit out of that. ditto