https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4seDVfgwOg
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I was going to post that. Thanks!
I'm not gonna watch that without having seen the movie.
It doesn't actually discuss the movie, the video is about ensemble blocking in movies in a general sense, and merely uses a handful of shots from that particular movie to make his points.
I love these guys. I want to have a children of their geniuses.
Spider-Man, Spider-man...
I had no idea about Temp Music. Eyeopening.
Huh. Oh yeah. That's new. It was always just Tony before.
X-Men the Animated Series had a good theme.
Avengers has a good theme.
Ive seen Avengers at least three times and I couldnt hum a theme with a gun to my head. Ive hated all 4 of the Harry Potter movies ive watched and I could hum that because the score was good and notable.
The Marvel movies... NO idea what the themes are. Guardians of the Galaxy gets a nod for a soundtrack at least.
Johnny Williams and Danny Elfman and Howard Shore come from the school of creating a full melody for a theme, from developing and intertwining those themes. A lot of film scorers now seem more interested in minimalist evocation of tone and insistent, often percussive momentum generation. Hans Zimmer has a veritable warehouse of such artists called Remote Control, and I sorta blame him for perpetuating this style. Hell, even his best scores are distinguished more by instrumental choice than anything (e.g. the repetitive chants of TDKR, the pipe organs of Interstellar).
See, I'm aware that The Avengers technically has a "theme", but I'll be damned if I can recall it off the top of my head. And that's partly thanks to the fact that Marvel has made absolutely no effort at all to ingrain their movies' themes into the popular culture even beyond the movies. For instance, if you watch a trailer for any upcoming Star Wars movie, they're filled with all the classic Star Wars tunes. Or hell, even the trailer for Fantastic Beasts they made a point to emphasize the iconic Harry Potter theme in it. However, when you watch a trailer or ad for a Marvel movie, they don't play any sort of recognizable theme from the movies, it's usually something generic that just happens to match the images on the screen (much as they discussed in the video), something more akin to "Inception music", or if they do make a special point to emphasize the music, it's something more thematically relevant to the movie, like the Pinocchio song in Age of Ultron. The difference is, where most franchises with theme music would typically end their trailers on a note to splice in a recognizable theme from the movies, to keep the viewer humming and keep their franchise in mind, Marvel just doesn't do this for some reason.
I suppose the question should be asked, do you feel the score should be noticeable or background/unnoticeable? I would understand both arguments. How strong should this element be in cinema?
I'm not sure there's a clear cut answer, and it's probably situational. I've seen movies where I felt the score was overbearing and distracting (12 Years A Slave), but then I've also seen plenty more where very noticeable music can largely amplify and compliment a movie (Interstellar). Then, of course, there's movies where it's certainly there, but it's not the focal point and sorta disappears into the background, as this video gave us plenty of examples of, which I guess can be fine, too. It really all depends on how its executed I think, what type of movie we're talking about, and what the movie's striving to achieve in the moment.