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LoMN and WoS Soundtracks are coming!


Pohaturon

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Some of you may have notices, but Nathan Furst just posted about the soundtracks for Legends of Metru Nui and Web of Shadows on his Facebook page.

 

For the link-averse, this is what he said:

 

"An update regarding future #Bioniclesoundtracks is coming soon! #LOMN #WOS"

 

Of course that 'update' could be that they're never coming, but I highly doubt that would be the case. It was great seeing the fantastic music of MoL getting a proper release recently, and based on that many of us hoped the other two films would get the same treatment.

 

:kakama:

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:kakama: Stone rocks :kakama:

Model Designer at The LEGO Group. Former contributor at New Elementary. My MOCs can be found on Flickr and Instagram

:smilepohatunu: :smilehuki:

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I seriously doubt he'd get our hopes up like this just to reveal that they're never coming out. Worst case scenario, the update will say that they're still being worked on and it'll be a while. But since it's already been several months since the MoL soundtrack, I'm inclined to think we'll be getting them sooner than later.

Here's hoping the update will consist of an estimated pre-order/release date and a track list! :D

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Joffrey

IAmGroot

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Furst said earlier that parts of LoMN and WoS were forever gone in a hard drive crash. Not all cues, but some. He seemed receptive to the idea of combining whatever he had of the two films into one release.

 

I notice though that the anniversaries for the two films are fast approaching (mid-October)...  :fear:

Edited by TheSkeletonMan939

 

 

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Looking forward to the Bionicle 2 soundtrack. That movie was amazing for a low-budget film.

It might be nostalgia talking, but that movie was amazing, period.

 

:kakama:

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:kakama: Stone rocks :kakama:

Model Designer at The LEGO Group. Former contributor at New Elementary. My MOCs can be found on Flickr and Instagram

:smilepohatunu: :smilehuki:

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Isn't this front page-worthy?

I emailed them last night but those slackers are biding their time!

Tough to keep up with news when most of the news staff is at a convention. I'm sure they'll get to it after this weekend.

Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

Aanchir's and Meiko's brother

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One LoMN soundtrack mystery for me is all the music in the DVD menus. Almost none of it is used in the film itself. Were they demo tracks? Were they unused? Were they even written by Furst at all? I need to know!!  :drool:

I might be mistaken since it has been ages since I last had exposure to the DVD menu, but I believe those tracks are cut together from the music under the credits, some of which is unused in the movie itself.

 

:kakama:

:kakama: Stone rocks :kakama:

Model Designer at The LEGO Group. Former contributor at New Elementary. My MOCs can be found on Flickr and Instagram

:smilepohatunu: :smilehuki:

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Nah... aside from the new cue at the beginning (LoMN theme + main Bionicle theme) it's all stuff recycled from earlier in the film.

 

The music I'm talking about is this and this, for instance (for some reason BioMedia Project only has these tracks streaming in potato quality).

Edited by TheSkeletonMan939

 

 

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It's crazy how in so many of Hollywood's big budget productions it's getting increasingly harder and harder to find a score that stands out in emotional terms... but a kiddie DVD movie from ten years ago, scored by a guy who no one knew then, hits so many great notes (pun intended) and really becomes a player in the film. Music in film today seem to always feel so inconsequential to the picture.

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The wonderful theme I would love to hear in a longer complete track is the opening DVD menu theme from LoMN, as tasted here:

The tune just brings a tear to my eye, all that nostalgia. 

I actually managed to reconstruct that theme a while back using segments from the "Metru Nui Explorer" part of the DVD, and combined it with one of the cues from Furst's archived website to create a fuller theme.

 

It's obviously not the same as whatever official version of the theme Furst created (which is hopefully among those tracks recovered from the drive crash), but for what it's worth, here it is:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9TRpNev9e8

 

Enjoy.

Edited by Tyrion Archer
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Joffrey

IAmGroot

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The wonderful theme I would love to hear in a longer complete track is the opening DVD menu theme from LoMN, as tasted here:

The tune just brings a tear to my eye, all that nostalgia. 

I actually managed to reconstruct that theme a while back using segments from the "Metru Nui Explorer" part of the DVD, and combined it with one of the cues from Furst's archived website to create a fuller theme.

 

It's obviously not the same as whatever official version of the theme Furst created (which is hopefully among those tracks recovered from the drive crash), but for what it's worth, here it is:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9TRpNev9e8

 

Enjoy.

 

That's actually incredibly impressive

 

:kakama:

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:kakama: Stone rocks :kakama:

Model Designer at The LEGO Group. Former contributor at New Elementary. My MOCs can be found on Flickr and Instagram

:smilepohatunu: :smilehuki:

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The wonderful theme I would love to hear in a longer complete track is the opening DVD menu theme from LoMN, as tasted here:

The tune just brings a tear to my eye, all that nostalgia. 

I actually managed to reconstruct that theme a while back using segments from the "Metru Nui Explorer" part of the DVD, and combined it with one of the cues from Furst's archived website to create a fuller theme.

 

It's obviously not the same as whatever official version of the theme Furst created (which is hopefully among those tracks recovered from the drive crash), but for what it's worth, here it is:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9TRpNev9e8

 

Enjoy.

 

You've done an outstanding job, sounds great! Thanks all the same :)

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It's crazy how in so many of Hollywood's big budget productions it's getting increasingly harder and harder to find a score that stands out in emotional terms.

 

Part of the reason for this is that many modern day scores are increasingly based on existing compositions. This is due to the exponential growth of the use of temp music in the film-making progress. Every Frame a Painting on youtube covers this in more detail in their video "The Marvel Symphonic Universe," but the basic gist is that composers are told to make music that sounds like the temp tracks the directors have put in their early cuts of the films - tracks that are ripped wholesale from other movies. Everyone copies everyone else, thus the current trend of Hollywood soundtracks blending together into an indistinguishable blob. I even heard a rumor that John friggin' Williams was supposedly told to do this with his The Force Awakens soundtrack, which is probably why it ended up being thoroughly mediocre compared to his work on the previous six installments.

 

Being that the Bionicle movies were low-budget direct to dvd efforts with little directorial prestige behind them, it seems Nathan Furst was free to compose the most fantastic, emotional soundtracks he could imagine. Crazy, indeed.

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I have slept for so long. My dreams have been dark ones. But now I am awakened. Now the scattered elements of my being are rejoined. Now I am whole. And the Darkness can not stand before me.

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It's crazy how in so many of Hollywood's big budget productions it's getting increasingly harder and harder to find a score that stands out in emotional terms.

 

Part of the reason for this is that many modern day scores are increasingly based on existing compositions. This is due to the exponential growth of the use of temp music in the film-making progress. Every Frame a Painting on youtube covers this in more detail in their video "The Marvel Symphonic Universe," but the basic gist is that composers are told to make music that sounds like the temp tracks the directors have put in their early cuts of the films - tracks that are ripped wholesale from other movies. Everyone copies everyone else, thus the current trend of Hollywood soundtracks blending together into an indistinguishable blob. I even heard a rumor that John friggin' Williams was supposedly told to do this with his The Force Awakens soundtrack, which is probably why it ended up being thoroughly mediocre compared to his work on the previous six installments.

 

Being that the Bionicle movies were low-budget direct to dvd efforts with little directorial prestige behind them, it seems Nathan Furst was free to compose the most fantastic, emotional soundtracks he could imagine. Crazy, indeed.

 

No soundtrack, as far as I'm concerned, has ever gotten near to how special the Bionicle movie OSTs are. It's not just nostalgia speaking either, there is just something unique and... deep(?) about them.  

Do game productions also rely on temps? It just seems to me that there is more musical creativity flowing in the video game industry. I could name several iconic game soundtracks, even if we restrict it to more recent games, while I could only name maybe three iconic movie soundtracks I really like. 

 

:kakama:

:kakama: Stone rocks :kakama:

Model Designer at The LEGO Group. Former contributor at New Elementary. My MOCs can be found on Flickr and Instagram

:smilepohatunu: :smilehuki:

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I even heard a rumor that John friggin' Williams was supposedly told to do this with his The Force Awakens soundtrack, which is probably why it ended up being thoroughly mediocre compared to his work on the previous six installments.

 

I read about this too, and it explains a lot. :( Shame. You don't hire John Williams to write filler music.

Edited by Planetperson
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Part of the reason for this is that many modern day scores are increasingly based on existing compositions. This is due to the exponential growth of the use of temp music in the film-making progress. Every Frame a Painting on youtube covers this in more detail in their video "The Marvel Symphonic Universe," but the basic gist is that composers are told to make music that sounds like the temp tracks the directors have put in their early cuts of the films - tracks that are ripped wholesale from other movies. Everyone copies everyone else, thus the current trend of Hollywood soundtracks blending together into an indistinguishable blob. I even heard a rumor that John friggin' Williams was supposedly told to do this with his The Force Awakens soundtrack, which is probably why it ended up being thoroughly mediocre compared to his work on the previous six installments.

 

Being that the Bionicle movies were low-budget direct to dvd efforts with little directorial prestige behind them, it seems Nathan Furst was free to compose the most fantastic, emotional soundtracks he could imagine. Crazy, indeed.

 

Oh I'm well aware of temp tracks, and they aren't a "modern Hollywood" thing at all. Temp tracks have been around for decades, driving composers mad, though as far as the recent ones go it can be fun to figure out which little musical moments came from which films. Sometimes composers are happy to rely on the temp, sometimes others are horrified, some like it when their previous work is included in the temp, others don't.... incidentally the MCU has a much deeper musical problem than just "grrr, darn those temp tracks!"

 

For Mask of Light, Furst never even read the script. He just got some concept art, and maybe a blurb about the story, and then he wrote some tunes he thought were appropriate. He managed to write stuff that clicked and got the job.

 

The horrible "blob" you're hearing in today's film scores (and thank God you are) I would guess is primarily the indirect result of Hans Zimmer's popularity around the turn of the century. He had some great little ditties from Driving Miss DaisyRain ManThe Fan, etc. that caught people's attention. Then Chris Nolan started hiring him for everything. Now I haven't seen every Nolan/Zimmer movie, but it sounds to me like Chris Nolan has a really, really specific idea of music, where it's this sort of nebulous, shapeless thing that daren't have more than one "identity". Every cue in Inception sounds the same. Every cue in Interstellar sounds the same. Then other producers get all giddy about this synth instrument design stuff Zimmer does and start actively asking their own composers to change their style... which ironically is never what Zimmer ever wanted to do. He never wanted to popularize a sound. His thing is that he always wants to try something new. It's why he dropped out of PotC 5, why he decided to leave Justice League to Junkie XL, why he's enjoying his tour so much. But the damage is done. Now sound design that is absolutely offensive to the ear is being hailed as something actually worth wasting time on and is being nominated for awards, just because it takes the "digital instrument design" idea and dials it to 11 (funnily enough, the emotional power of a single orchestral piece in that film - by another composer - was deemed to have "diluted" the integrity of the film's main "score" and was not eligible for Academy Awards - hmmmmm).

 

On the other side, it seems like there aren't very many outstanding orchestral composers in Hollywood at all if you don't count John Williams, who of course at this stage of his life only does projects that are very close to him (either Star Wars or Speilberg). For every great Giacchino you get (which is usually derivative of something else) you get him writing a bunch of really boring stuff like Star Trek or Spider-Man. Brian Tyler just doesn't seem to have the pull to be able to do what he wants to in a movie (he can write some awesome stuff if he wants to though -  look no further than Lego Universe or the Iron Man 3 end titles). Henry Jackman just doesn't really write anything that amounts to anything emotionally evocative, at least for me (Winter Soldier was great though - what happened to that Jackman and where did he go?)

 

Marco Beltrami in orchestral mode is brilliant (not to say his other, more experimental stuff isn't), as is Silvestri, but it's so easy to feel like they stand alone. Joe Kraemer's work for the latest Mission: Impossible movie was a huge bucket of fun but that's the only score of his I've heard. And John Powell is wonderful, needless to say. (To bring this back to Furst, what's the last thing of note that he did? Need for Speed? Eh... that really wasn't too great imo).

 

There's good music still being written for film - it's just not in many/any of the blockbusters. Animated fare gets great scores because it's supposed to be expressive - not reclusive, moody, and indiscrete like all the producers want their big-budget action movie to sound. It's not a "temp track" problem exclusively, it's a problem with how producers think about music in film. Henry Jackman told a story that perfectly captures the sentiment in Hollywood today: on X-Men: First Class he wrote a theme for Magneto (which, by the way, was temped from Ottman's X2) and it had a John Barry-ish quality to it. Director Matt Vaughn said, "hold on, hold on, take away the trumpets... take away that... now that... yeah, that's what I like! That should be Magneto's theme!" Poor Jackman could only state the obvious incredulously: "Theme??? That's just the bass line!"

 

All this is doing is reminding me that we lost Michael Kamen and Shirley Walker too soon...

 

I'm so glad this thread is getting as many responses as it is though. I freakin' love music of the movies and love talking about it with others.

Edited by TheSkeletonMan939
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Interesting to see that others share similar strong feelings towards contemporary films score compositions. I could never put my finger on why I couldn't feel quite as engaged in more recent films as I had with some older ones, precisely because of the lack of strength being conveyed in the films musical arrangement. Theme tunes for specific characters are missing, general themes of locations and narrative points are dull and uninspired. All the music sounds more or less the same and doesn't inspire a deep sense of unique personality or character for the overall story being told. My God, how far we have fallen.
Back to Bionicle's music, yeah it just resonates so deeply with the world it's part of that it's hard not to feel part of it and swept along with the juicy themes for characters and adventure.
I've never spent the time to investigate what kids watch now, but is there any magic left for them too or has it all dried up?

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I even heard a rumor that John friggin' Williams was supposedly told to do this with his The Force Awakens soundtrack, which is probably why it ended up being thoroughly mediocre compared to his work on the previous six installments.

 

Forgot to comment on this last night: Williams had a temp on the very first Star Wars movie. You can hear bits of Holst's famous Planets and Korngold's King's Row in the very first cue, and other classical pieces bleed into the final composed score as well. Yes, it's true... some of your favorite parts of the original film's music came from the template of other music! That doesn't suddenly make him a hack or a rip-off. He has a temp on The Last Jedi too, though that one has a lot of SW music in it.

 

Anyone who's been paying attention to Williams's evolution knows that The Force Awakens is still patently Williams, but not quite the same guy from 30, 20, or even 10 years ago. He's constantly trying to improve the sophistication of his writing. I'm in the same camp as you though; TFA didn't have as many hummable or riveting melodies as the original trilogy. That doesn't make it a "thoroughly mediocre" score by any measure, though. You want to hear something thoroughly mediocre? Try Giacchino's Rogue One. I know he had like three weeks to write it, but it's a Williams pastiche that usually fails spectacularly whenever it tries to directly adapt anything Williams wrote.

 

Producers like the temp. If it has music that's worked with audiences before in the past then that makes them comfortable. A recent incident with a film that didn't have a temp was Ghost in the Shell. Rupert Sanders's spotting session involved both the music team and the SFX team - he wanted them to gel, he didn't want them to be thought of as separate entities. And so composer Clint Mansell designed the music to work in that sense. Several disappointing screen tests later, producers are aghast - "what went wrong? Why don't people like this? I know - it needs some Kenji Kawai music! Quick - hire Lorne Balfe to make some quick Kenji Kawai-ish music for the movie." Balfe ended up replacing more than half of Mansell's cues. Now, that didn't help the movie at all, but you get the idea of how producers think about music in film. The difference is that Lucas's temp on the original Star Wars was indicative of his dream to make the film reminiscent of the old Hollywood of the late '30s and the '40s, with its very sophisticated musical writing. Today the temp is more like... "I want this scene to sound like this cool part from this other movie I saw. Exactly like it."

Edited by TheSkeletonMan939
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