Giacchino has some VERY big shoes to fill here. I like Jerry Goldsmith's scores the most, followed by James Horner. I think Horner seems to have degenerated into an uninspired mainstream genericness since the 80s. But his TWOK, TSFS, and
Krull were brilliant. I also love Rosenman's theme for TVH, but the cues in the incidental music became tiresome to me and kept making me feel as if I were watching the animated
Lord of the Rings he composed, because it basically sounds identical. I hope Giacchino can break out of his own Lost/Fringe mold with his Trek score; not that I don't like his TV music, but that won't pass muster for a big screen Trek.
As for Cliff Eidelman, I think the TUC score is overrated. I'm always blown away by his moody, menacing opening theme, but I find the music filling the movie---esp. for action sequences---to be very tedious after prolonged exposure, and his "anthem" at the end of TUC is second only in awfulness to Dennis McCarthy's
Generations theme. I'll give some faint praise to McCarthy's
Generations opening, and he was far above average by television music standards, but in the end I think he failed to meet movie quality standards, which is emblematic of Generations in general, and his score ultimately reinforced the perception that we were watching an episode with ILM special effects in it.
Hopefully Giacchino will make a better transition. He did Speed Racer, not sure what other movies he's scored but all I've heard is Lost and Fringe. Anyone have an opinion on his existing movie scores?
Are we talking about the background music once you enter into the Flash interface?
If that is, indeed, what we're discussing, then I don't get what all the commotion is about. It sounds like bad video game music.
If we're discussing something else, please steer me in the right direction...
Yes, that's the music in question. Based on what the poster above states, you might consider postponing judgment until you've heard it in the context of the scene from the movie in which it's played. I remember people having the same impression (bad video game music) of Goldsmith's opening "Romulan" theme from Nemesis.
I don't really play video games (not since Atari 2600) so I'm not familiar with that "genre" of music, and maybe Goldsmith wasn't either. But he was always willing to experiment with synthesized sounds and I guess it's not as experimental in the 2000s as it was in the 70s and 80s. I thought the opening to Nemesis was in good taste and that those synthesized elements distinguished it from his previous Trek scores.
I consider Goldsmith the best score composer to ever live, and I respected his work, esp. all his Star Trek, most esp. TMP and Insurrection. Even he had some stinkers though (ever seen
Leviathan?). It seems to me that the hopelessly cheesy Babylon 5 score, for instance, would be a more apt example of video game music than this sample from Giacchino.
Is it the bongos that strike you as video-gamish? Because the whole thing sounds very orchestral to me; it's just subdued and understated.
It has some nice elements. I wonder what part of the movie it comes from? It has a Spock theme quality from TWOK. It also has a quality of Cliff Eidelman's score from TUC.
I could've sworn I heard a couple cues from Batman Begins and/or The Dark Knight in there.
Funny enough, I remember some friends in '91 accusing Eidelman of ripping-off Danny Elfman's '89 Batman. I hear similarities but in such an instance I don't think it's fair to assert musical plagiarism. Even Beethoven got his inspiration from hearing random tunes and melodies on the street, which he'd then develope to create something unique.
