Much of what made John Williams' writing so interesting a few short decades ago was the ease with which he incorporated and integrated his themes and setpiece melodies into a fluid whole. Rather than sounding jumpy, frentic, and breathless like many of cues do now, his writing was buoyant. It could be furiously intense, but it took the time to breathe, and his action cues managed to maintain an almost balletic grace even amid all the blaring brass and thundering timpani. It helped that his pieces tended to be powered by strong themes and even melodies seemingly made up on the spot for the particular scene.

None of that thematic virtuosity or melodic spontaneity is in evidence with KOTCS. The action writing careens from one stock action lick to another without the seamless melodic throughline that is the hallmark of Golden Age Williams. Even in 'The Jungle Chase', where a number of themes get their most rousing renditions, it seems that Williams is trying to cram as many notes into each measure, each line, each phrase as possible. Sometimes less is more, and John Williams seems to have forgotten that.

And for sure...it's wicked fun!

Totally frakin' throwback! I love it!

--Brian

quote:

---

Originally posted by PeterK:
Hasn't ruined it for me! My interest remains the same. One man's opinion is just that.

---

Agreed 100%!

But, I will agree with the original poster that JW has done little to impress me in the last five years tied to fresh material (save for a few cues from ROTS.) I retain high hopes for Crystal Skull though.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Quill:
The sound clips I have heard do not inspire...

---

Are ya serious? You're basing an opinion on sound clips?

If you never saw the film nor heard the entire score do you really think you'd be "inspired" by randomly selected 30 second chunks of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK?

But of course, I don't need to remind people of that.

--Brian

I've listened to Kingdom of the Crystal Skull several times now, and I like it. I didn't like Irina's theme at first; it felt slow and plodding, un-affecting. But, I thought about it, and if her character plays out the way I think it will, her theme works perfectly as underscore to her lust for and obsession with finding the lost city. The action cues are fine; I personally prefer Last Crusade... much of the action in Crystal Skull feels like Star Wars Ep. 1-3 rehash. I feel like a Republic Commando is going to bust through a window and start firing his blaster at any moment.

I do really, really like the inversions John is doing on Indy's theme, and how it dances around the melody, particularly toward the end of the Finale cue. I however can't stand the Jungle Chase track. It woulda been awesome, but it ruins itself at 1:54 with a horribly disruptive brass edit that's really louder than it should be. Takes me out of the piece entirely. It almost makes it intolerable.

Anyway, can't wait to hear it in the film and associate it with what I'm hoping will be an exciting, refreshing trip down nostalgia lane. I'm not looking for "the new Indiana Jones" -- I'm looking for the Indy that kicked ass in the first three films. I was hoping Williams would tap into that as well. Composers evolve, and that's fine - I think he probably did the best job he could. This score doesn't trump Raiders or Last Crusade, and I dare say I might even prefer Temple of Doom over it. But, we'll see. The film could (and hopefully will) alter my impressions.

The interesting:
- 'Adventures of Mutt' as Korngold homage. Not sure if I absolutely like the piece - I suspect it's hitting too much action to play entirely to my satisfaction without seeing the film.
- The final twist on the Indy theme in the End Credits is nice.

The 'scores-points-because-it's-a-homage':
- Good to hear the Ark theme and a Nazi motif in quick succession. Are former Nazis working on the Ark in Area 51 in postwar America?

The 'temp-track-rides-again':
- 'City of Gold' - you can tell it's Spielberg and not Lucas driving this bit of temp track trickery. Had it been Lucas, instead of writing a new cue that lifted heavily from an old one, the old cue from WAR OF THE WORLDS would have just been tracked in, and when it no longer fit the picture, and ugly music edit would have led to something else tracked in.

The Bad:
- Some people may have been excited to hear large swaths of the ROTS soundtrack album devoted to quotations of previous works in the STAR WARS series. I found it annoying to hear Leia's theme, the Throne Room, and a particular rendition of Vader's theme lifted. Here I find the opening suite feels the same - that suite has been recorded many times, and will be heard again in the end credits (which should have drawn on the 'Call of the Crystal' instead of Marion's theme).

And why is it bad form for someone to post a honest assessment of a score? Has the ground that Williams trods on truly become that hallowed?

quote:

---

Has the ground that Williams trods on truly become that hallowed?

---

I am very interested to hear Williams' score for KOTCS. 30-second sound clips don't do it justice. I'm expecting a return to the glory days when Speilberg was more daring and willing to tell pure story, rather than the more self-conscious director he has become in the last few years (that is not to say he makes bad movies, though). Hopefully, Williams, too, will recapture the classic Indy sound and pure joy of storytelling that was so inherent in a Williams'-scored Speilberg movie.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Camillu:
http://www.variety.com/VE1117937176.html

Todd McCarthy at Variety gives Williams a (positive) mention at the end of his review

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by nuts_score:
I'm just hoping it's better than The Last Crusade . . . so far it seems so.

---

Not if you read IGN Movies... ::sigh::

quote:

---

After more than a year of hoping and praying that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull would do right by fans of the archaeological franchise, the film's first screening in Cannes confirms the worst. There's a brilliant Indy film buried somewhere within, but Star Wars syndrome has struck and Steven Spielberg and George Lucas just couldn't resist dipping into their box of computer-generated magic.

---

I'm still excited about the movie. But seriously, the golden age is over. The time where Spielberg, Lucas, Zemeckis, or Cameron can put out a film and it be instantly hailed as a classic... those times are through. Instead, we get rants from brilliant director Uwe Boll, who's delusional enough to think he's some sort of Roman Polanski:

quote:

---

To all of you writing now about me and the fact that POSTAL is not getting screens.

its okay ..its fun kicking a guy nonstop who is on the ground

you are all not getting it that i'm the guy who made it against the big hollywood system and you are all only busy to destroy me and finish me up
and then you YOU WON WHAT ? the attention of the studios, michael bay .. ?????
if you damage me you feel closer to Hollywood ? what is your game plan?

you want only movies like JUMPER , SPEED RACER , WHAT HAPPENDS IN VEGAS ...? then keep going and your dreams will be fullfilled. POSTAL makes some very important points ..but you dont wanna see that .... : that Bush used the SEPTEMBER 11 to start a war against a country what had nothing to do with Bin Laden etc.... but this all doesnt matter because you are all busy to THINK that INDIANA JONES or NARNIA are important movies ... but in real they are empty shells of an industry what wants to make money and what wants to keep you looking "escape movies" with nothing in it. in between they are putting some CONTROVERSIAL movies to show that they can do also IMPORTANT movies ...but also this movies are not really critical....they only supporting the system and not showing the big picture. and POSTAL shows the BIG PICTURE ...it nails the absurd situation with all the stupid religions, races and nations we are living in. POSTAL is not accepting bullshit politics. POSTAL has not the opinion that Bush made mistakes - POSTAL has the opinion that it is a scandal that BUSH is not in jail. What happened in America in the last 7 years is the biggest joke since Columbus stepped on that land.

but instead of seeing the courage i had in doing that movie against everybody who tried to stop me - you are sitting on your desks and you are working on stories about me ....and my image as the worst director on earth...and you fullfill what your editor wants from you in regards of uwe boll ...or you fullfill what you think makes you a cooler guy in the internet ...and you are not getting it that you are only interested in movies like IRON MAN or HULK or KUNG FU PANDA or the MUMMY 3 because the studios spending 60 mio. $ in advertising to make you interested in NON INTERESTING movies. how many times you wanna keep going in movies only because the TRAILER was so cool and the CGI was so great ?

thanks for reading this

Uwe Boll

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by BackToTheFutureFan:
This will be a quick post. I loved the score, great stuff in it. I see it to have the same success as The Phantom Menace score, meaning it will really grow on people. But I love it. I don't know if this has been mentioned before but did anyone notice that the three note crystal skull motif is the ark theme...but just reversed?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by BackToTheFutureFan:
Also, did anyone notice at about 0:46 through "The Departure" we get the same rendition of the Raiders March we got when Indy picks up his whip for the first time in the lion car of the train in The Last Crusade? This kind of scares me. Shia? Damn, I hope not.

---

So tempted to say a lot of things, but I don't want to spoil it. A lot of you already have an inkling of where Steven and George are gonna take it. How they take it there is a little different than what I expected, which made it better for me. Thank God they didn't turn Indiana Jones into Daniel Jackson. I don't think I could have handled that.

Also, regarding the score... DAMMIT. THEY DID IT AGAIN. So much great music, even thematic references to The Holy Grail theme from Last Crusade. And the Jungle Chase. Arghhhh! The album version is totally edited and trimmed down to a mere whisper of what it actually is. Sucks monkey balls. I'd love to have an expanded version of this score; there's a ton of great material that simply didn't make it onto the disc. That said, I enjoy the score a lot more now than I did having not seen it *surprise, I know*.

Anyway, the movie is out and the polls are running! What did you think? I'm gonna give it the weekend and then all bets are off; if you haven't seen it by Monday, just don't read any of my posts, as I'll be no-holds-barred about spoilers.

Off you go!

Jeron

Indiana Jones and the Kingom of the Crystal Skull was a mixture of both nostalgic fun and frustration for me. Spielberg has made a valiant attempt to re-visit the 80's style of the earlier films while imbuing it with more modern qualities. Overall though, for me, the film wasn't totally successful even if it did deliver most of what you would expect from the Franchise. Apparently, Spielberg spent years and years developing and re-writing the screenplay until he was happy with it but I find this hard to believe as the story doesn't seem that complex at all and follows the same basic narrative structure of "Raiders of the Lost Ark". There have been some complaints though, that the "exposition" is way to long and drags in places so maybe Spielberg did try a bit too hard trying to set up the motivation for the action of the second half of the movie.
Harrison Ford is pretty good but if I'm honest, he is looking a bit too old to play the part now. I think it may have been a good idea if they had dyed some of the grey out of his hair in an attempt to make him look 10 years younger and more convincing in the role. Ford still makes a pretty valiant attempt at re-treading his most famous role though and certainly throws himself (literally) into the part.
The film has interesting, of not entirely original premise, plenty of fun and action along the way and the film sticks quite close to the formula of the originals..e.g plenty of live stunts and minimal CGI. There was an element of the film feeling a bit forced and tired at times with a lot of the action seemingly thrown in just for the hell of it and at times I felt myself asking "how many moments of peril can a person survive?".

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull *** out of *****