What happened to all the cool Movie themes?

[clemso]

listening to the Indiana Jones movie theme music in countless tv ads made me wonder. What has happen to those big classic anthem like themes? Everyone remembers classics like Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Superman, but does anyone remember the theme tune to the last Hulk movie? How about the three Spider-man films? Iron man? Fantastic Four?

Has there even been a memorable theme tune of late. I just about remember LOTRs but thats it.

Clem

[Mikey]

Nowadays, it seems orchestral arrangements are a thing of the past for movie themes.

In today's world, most movie themes are crap that would be at home on WWE Raw.

Funny how these people never notice orchestral arrangements are timeless.

[mitchedwards]

Never thought about it, but your right I really cant think of any current movie themes. I guess times are changing.

[jessica]

Because great composers like Jerry Goldsmith are gone....

[SUP-Ronin]

I really liked the Bourne series soundtracks. Aside from a couple of Moby tunes it was all by John Powell, who has done the score for a ton of movies. I listen to that pretty often. Especially when I am beating up foreign cops, and running from my fellow assassins.

[toys2cool]

listening to the Indiana Jones movie theme music in countless tv ads made me wonder. What has happen to those big classic anthem like themes? Everyone remembers classics like Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Superman, but does anyone remember the theme tune to the last Hulk movie? How about the three Spider-man films? Iron man? Fantastic Four?

Has there even been a memorable theme tune of late. I just about remember LOTRs but thats it.

Clem

you're right man,I do love the LOTR ones with the Irish beats

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

I think music has become pretty disposable verall; so there isn't as much attention paid to it in films. They're more likely to throw in a popular tune than compose an actual score. Good marketing 'cos you also get the band name attached to the film.

And the song is almost always inappropriate. Noticed this when I saw T2: the big action scene song was "You Could Be Mine," a song about a dude trying to pick up.

Don C.

[Adam West]

One name John Williams.

He created the scores to Raiders, Star Wars, Jaws, Superman which were all named right in the very first post.

He also created the score to the Harry Potter movies which is the most recent and very memorable.

He is without a doubt the best of the best. Honorable mention goes to Danny Elfman...personally I was always a huge fan of Oingo Boingo and I know Tim Burton loves to use him. Many of his scores are very memorable as well....for example, if you just played the Theme Song to Beetle Juice, many people could name the movie. I can usually tell what scores he has composed without being able to associate it with a movie just because I am very familiar with his style.

[YoungOnce]

Not really a theme song but, I thought it was pretty cool when the "I am Iron Man" song started on the Iron Man trailer... super geek out moment!

[Dave Mc]

All the cool movie themes are hanging out with all the cool TV show themes on a deserted island somewhere. It's the same situation with TV shows as with movies. There are very few memorable TV show themes anymore. Where's the new "Rockford Files" theme?

[Brown Bear]

As a kid, I can still hear themes for Rocky, Superman, Indiana Jones, Star Wars....

But I couldn't hum the song from any of the new Spidey movies or Hulk or Iron Man.....or any other movie recently.

Excellant point.

[Earth 2 Chris]

The Spidey theme works pretty well, but it's not a stand-out. I think Elfman's theme from Burton's Batman was one of the last memorable themes.

Chris

[monkey tennis]

I still buy soundtracks...

Just bought Eagle Vs Shark...Love it.

But true there don't seem to be many big soundtracks...like the E.T.'s and Indy's

I did like the Catch Me if you Can soundtrack, but that was retro

[darklord1967]

It's John Williams, baby! He's number one!

Virtually all of the classic recognizable scores mentioned here are HIS! He has an inate, intellectual understanding of the emotional power behind recognizable melody in music (married to images). Very few composers work within those parameters like he does.

George Lucas has the same strong ability with the juxtaposition of images to tell a story or communicate an emotion. His strength does not lie in writing dialogue, directing actors, or illiciting strong performances from them. He is, instead, more of a broad visionary who is a master at visual storytelling.

The STAR WARS films work brilliantly as silent films. The soundtrack to those films (INDY too) are virtually an afterthought... designed almost like orchestrated pieces of music along with the dialogue and sound fx.

The next time you watch A NEW HOPE, listen carefully to the soundtrack, and you'll head some very rhythmic beats all throughout the film, in the way sound fx, dialogue, and music marry together. It's almost like a cartoon.

I don't mean actual drum beats. I mean emotional accents with sound:

EG: The musical humming and rhythmic swish, humm, and clash of lightsabers. The way laser blast sound fx are edited / orchestrated into a scene to compliment the rhythms of the music and / or dialogue. Alec Guinesses' almost "sing-songy" vocal rhythms when delivering dialogue.

It's (ironically) rather beautiful to listen to in a film that is capable of working as a silent visual film.

[Mikey]

I'm surprised not to hear anyone mention Jerry Goldsmith's "The Enterprise" theme ... used in the motion picture and later rehashed as the theme to TNG.

Wonderful song imo, (but I like the original slower version used in the movies better then the next gen version)