Quick, hum the theme from the new Spiderman movies! Now do Batman’s new theme! Daredevil! Incredible Hulk! X-men!
Whatever happened to the old Superman theme or the brilliant Batman theme that turned out to be the only lasting great thing to come out of that movie?
Hey I’m still wondering what happened to “Hulk SMASH!!”
Spider-Man: Can do. However, Elfman went a little soft on the orchestration side and, coupled with sound mixing, the theme went unnoticed. Also, the way the theme is structured, its counterpart, Parker’s theme, actually sounds more heroic. Elfman went for a more “all over the place” approach and employed a bazillion leitmotifs instead of your usual statements of the hero theme.
Batman Begins: Hans Zimmer is a turd. Read here and here to view Zimmer’s dumb reasons for not giving Batman a theme.
Hulk: He doesn’t have one because the movie’s focus is on the character of Bruce Banner as a tormented scientist in search of his father. :rolleyes: That’s what Ang Lee would have you believe, anyway. Since this was the approach, Elfman gave the movie some rythmic punch from the strings, and a descending woodwind motif. Basically, it’s a poor man’s Spider-Man score.
Daredevil: Graeme Revell is another turd. While there’s some who claim he has done great work in the past, others question whether it was ghost-written or not. To be safe, just know Graeme Revell is not one to be trusted with heavy thematic material the likes of Superman or Batman, though he is capable of presenting a perfectly good score, he’s not very reliable. He’s a guy of extremes.
X-Men: The story goes likes this, Michael Kamen wrote a great score for the film which was rejected by the studio. He was forced to rewrite it and follow the musical demands of the studio, giving us the uneasy listening experience that was that first score. For the second movie, John Ottman was now available and was given the freedom to do as he pleased. That ended up meaning he would rip off Mancini’s Lifeforce march and contoct a rather sterile score fo the rest of the film. Disappointing, to say the least.
Heh, I must say I wasn’t expecting a reply that informative. Thanks!
After listening to the Batman Begins soundtrack I think Zimmer just cribbed Gladiator and rerecorded it. Anyway, I agree with you on his turdishness!
:eek:
Ok, I ain’t saying, I’m just saying.
Well it’s relative. I mean, whether they sucked or not they’re superhero movies that got A list budgets.
Fairnuff. 
I think that because Danny Elfman and John Williams cast such long shadows over superhero scores, it’s become hard to do anything that doesn’t seem in thrall to them. That, and there has to be an angst-rock soundtrack tie in to play over the closing credits, and the emphasis recently seems to have been on pushing those over the OST’s.
He’s already done that once for Pirates of the Carribean, though that was because Alan Silvestri was fired at the very last minute.
I thought that one was done by Klaus Bedelt?
…and about 19 other “composers” from Media Ventures that use The Rock, Broken Arrow, and other scores done by Zimmer and MV. Jerry Bruckheimer is as responsible for the disgrace of summer movies as for the disgrace in film music.