Zero Mars.

My point exactly.

Daredevil is by far my favorite Marvel super hero, so I'm cautiously optimistic about that. I could care less about the rest, to be honest.

I do like the basic idea, though. Beyond a few obvious exceptions, I think that the majority super heros just simply don't work well for one-off movies or trilogies or whatnot. They were born of a serial form and work best that way.

I don't think anyone ever goes, "Man, I feel like listening to the Dark Knight Rises score." I think it's by far the weakest of the trilogy (both the film and the score).

Action music is pretty boring nowadays, yes. Actually, the action-y parts of Zimmer's scores are my least favorite (besides Inception--he kept it fresh through the whole thing). His music is generally far more interesting during expository scenes, or during the final "wrap-up" scene (TDK trilogy and The Da Vinci Code come to mind).

I personally tend to like action scenes without music. Deathly Hallows Pt. 1, Children of Men, and LOTR are all good examples of that. Nothing throws you into the action, and really makes you feel it, like dropping out the score.

Sure--I'll agree with you that the best film scores tend to stand alone well. But is that because the music itself stands alone, or because your memory of the film--and its seamless integration with the film (which is a large part of what makes it great)--is inexorably tied to it? I for one love the Jurassic Park score and listen to it by itself all the time. But I honestly can't say that I can actually separate it from my experience with the film itself.

Also, does putting it on in the background mean that it stands up by itself? What about active listening? I understand that most people don't generally put on music and just listen, but just about any music can stand up by itself if you aren't really listening to it.

*cracks knuckles*

Ok. I hate to hijack this thread with the first reply to it, but this is one of those oft-repeating topics that I feel the need to clear up.

My credibility: If you don't already know, I'm a composer living in LA. I have lots of friends that work at Remote Control (Hans' production company), and I've talked to all of them at great lengths about the nature of Zimmer's work and business. Long story short, there are a lot of things said about him that are correct, and many that are dead wrong. I spend a lot of time analyzing and dissecting scores--his included.

I should also note that I will only be addressing what TechNoir has addressed, and not some of the other claims one commonly hears about him (such as "he doesn't actually write his music.")

Lastly, this is not about if you subjectively like his music. Arguing that is pointless. What TechNoir is basically trying to defend in his argument is that Hans Zimmer's music is devoid of artistic intent, and I believe that he couldn't be more wrong.

So.

This is one of those sentiments that you hear a lot. And for good reason. He is absolutely repetitive, and he definitely aurally assaults you (in some--not all--of his scores. And honestly, I think he'd be happy to hear that you think so!)

But his music is absolutely not lacking intelligence or subtlety. Quite the contrary.

What most people don't realize about HZ is that he is a minimalist. His goal is to reduce his themes and sonic palette to the simplest form possible. Why? He believes that this is more dramatically effective, and also helps create a sonic palette that is instantly recognizable. One could compare the music of Hans Zimmer to the aesthetic of the Matrix, in the sense that the Matrix excluded and limited its self to a small set of aesthetic ideals. When you see an overly green color palette, you instantly think Matrix. Same with trench coats and sunglasses.

Did a sonic palette remotely resembling Inception even exist before that movie?

[Side note: Most people will read that rhetorical question and go, "But it's just one long BRWAH!" Disregarding the fact that that's just wrong, and proves nothing except that they've never actually paid attention to the score, the BRWAH that is so commonly associated with it isn't even present in the score itself. Nor was it written by Hans Zimmer. It's a track called Mind Heist, written by Zach Hemsey and used exclusively in the Inception trailers. If you hate the BRWAH, blame Hemsey, not Zimmer.]

If you want to hear all this from his own words, go to the vi-control.net forum and look up posts by the username rctec. That's Hans. He posts there quite frequently.

All this shows is a fundamental lack of understanding in regard to the point of film music. By that I mean no offense, but it's hard to take anything else away.

The point isn't that we write interesting or complex or cool music. The points isn't even that we write music that's nice to listen to apart from the movie. If we do, that's an added bonus, but it's by no means essential.

The point is that we write music that supports the drama.

Again, Hans is a minimalist. And beyond that, he is a fantastic dramatist. Why do you think he's hired so much? Sure, his name is great and it draws a bit of prestige to the film, but even though I suppose one could consider him to be a household name…how many households really know Hans Zimmer? Not many.

He gets hired because he supports the drama better than just about anyone. How he specifically pursues that--what particular aesthetic he adopts for his music--is besides the point when he supports the drama as well as he does. I believe that I used this example in the mega 4-hour-long "The World of Film Scores" episode, but it's worth repeating again:

Hans is a great dramatist in the sense that he approaches his scores with a heavily chiseled concept. Case in point: Batman Begins. The 2-note melody is a tiny little nugget that is, a) instantly recognizable as Bruce Wayne/Batman's theme, b) represents the duality of his existence, c) "feels like a perpetually unanswered question," as Zimmer put it in an interview, and d) [this is the most important one] is able to be developed like crazy. Seriously. That 2-note melody is everywhere.

Notice that up until Bruce self-actualizes as Batman, the 2-note melody never resolves (for the musical folk here: in the key of D minor, the two notes would be D and F all over a static D minor chord). The first 20 seconds or so of this video show what I'm talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a3L242qYWo

But when he finally masters his fears, the bass resolves--the melody itself self actualizes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL_DDvgE0nU

(For the second note, F, the D minor chord resolves down to a Bb major).

But in The Dark Knight, the Joker turns his "little plan on its head." And with that…so too turns the melody onto its head (The Bb major chord turns to a 1st inversion Bb minor…fun fact, that same progression of Im to VIm is the same as the Imperial March). I'm having trouble finding a scene on YouTube--most of the scenes up are of Joker scenes that use the sliding cello note (another absolutely brilliant idea, btw)--but it's all over the movie.

This whole time you might be thinking that "It's just two notes!" Thing is, it didn't start that way. As I said, he comes to these concepts by whittling away at much more complex ones (apparently, it took him forever to whittle his Man of Steel theme to something he was satisfied with--coming from the John Williams approach made him start with an idea that was a bit overly complex). He isn't the first to do this. There is a very long line of minimalist composers--John Cage, Philip Glass, Steve Reich. They're all coming at music from a direction of "less is more." Often, the path of getting to "less" means starting at "more" and really working your way down. Many find that more meaningful and more beautiful than, say, a bombastic John Williams space battle. Steve Vai shredding vs BB King making one note sing sort of thing.

Which brings me to my next point:

I completely, completely agree. As much as I respect HZ's conceptualization and intent, it has definitely affected the industry in a pretty bad way. One reason is that most people hear the ostinato or the two-note melody and think, "Oh, that's simple! I'll just do that!" Instead of arriving at something minimal through the inherently artistic process of mindful simplification, they begin with something simple and arrive at something watered-down. And because it's simple--and yes, easy to grasp, which is not a bad thing in and of itself--it's copied and re-copied until all we hear are the aural equivalents of a dead horse.

Not that that hasn't happened before. The 90s had awful re-hashes of John Williams and Thomas Newman everywhere. I think it's safe to say that film scoring is no exception to the "90% of everything is crap" rule.

And not that this is the other composers' faults (that is, that they have to copy it--it shouldn't be a terrible, watered-down version of it. That's inexcusable). A director wants Hans Zimmer but can't afford Hans Zimmer. What am I gonna do--not eat? He wants Hans Zimmer and Joe Composer has to deliver so that he can survive. Such is the way of this business.

Now, I should note that Hans Zimmer isn't nearly my favorite composer. It sounds like you generally favor the more "involved" scores--the older John Williams sound. So do I. But I respect the shit out of Zimmer, because he single-handedly ushered in a new sound, and did it by thinking hard about it. You may not like the music, but you can't say that it's devoid of intelligence or subtlety.

Ok I'm done now.

Shut the fuck up you douchenozzle.

Alone With Our Genitals. That's gold.

I raise a logical counter-argument:

I completely agree with Mr. "Regarding Clark" above--or, I would, if we were dealing with an older Superman. But we're dealing with a brand-spanking-new Superman. In MoS, we've seen Superman being Superman for a grand total of 2 hours. In movie time, maybe a week.

Every argument against the movie I hear is based out of what Superman "is" or what Superman "should be." First off all, stop that. If you're upset about what Superman "should" be, then you should have walked out of the theater the moment Jor-El was in the movie for more than 3 minutes at the beginning.

The point of this movie was to bring humanity and grounding back to the character whilst exploring what a character with his powers can really do, and I feel that (disregarding some bad lines here and there, and some overly-rushed dramatic points) the filmmakers did a pretty good job at that.

Consider this whole "death and destruction, buildings falling everywhere" thing. All Clark knows is that he's suddenly finding himself with a very odd identity crises and that he must choose between his native species and his adopted one. Meanwhile, his native species is trying to kill said adopted species.

As the video above so clearly states, Superman tries to save everyone. That's a character trait that's there from the beginning, and the movie illustrates that through some of his flashbacks (the oil rig, the school bus). He doesn't want to kill--and he certainly doesn't want to kill members of his own race. What we're seeing during the body of the movie's action is a man who is way in over his head and is experiencing a situation of such extreme magnitude and gravity that he literally has no idea what to do beyond trying to stop the Kryptonians from directly killing humans. Any that die in secondary ways (i.e. buildings falling) are simply unreachable for him.

Also remember that this is his first time really fighting anyone. Ever. And they're as powerful as him.

Like I said: if we were dealing with an older, veteran Superman, then this would all be inexcusable (except maybe if the villain were Doomsday). But this is his first time, and I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of character growth in the sequel due to his grief. He let thousands die--and he will never let that happen again.

I'm game.

No, we're talking about the future, not the present.