movie music

[EricNoah]

My two favorite soundtracks are the original Star Wars soundtrack and the Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack.

On FotR, one of my favorite "moments" is the Enya song as Aragorn and Arwen stand on that little bridge in Rivendell. The sweetness and sorrow in the music perfectly match the bittersweet moment of Arwen denying her elven immortality and Aragorn's realization of what she has given up for their love.

Another FotR music moment that gets me is in Khazad Dum, when Gandalf sheds "a bit more light" and reveals the grandeur of the dwarven halls. The music swells at just the right spot and then there's this little brass echo -- it reminds me both of the glory of the dwarves and the fact that their time is over and we will never see the like again. It sounds silly but I have to fight back tears at that moment almost every time I hear it.

Star Wars has fewer "moments" like this for me, but there are whole pieces, like the Battle of Yavin piece, where the music just *tells* the story so clearly that I can almost see it happening in my head. That's good stuff.

Anyone else have some favorites?

 

[Morrus]

What's the name of the "main theme" in LotR - the one that pops up repeatedly and is also interwoven into many of the other tracks? The bit that goes "duh duh duh..."... no, that won't work.

There's also a single piece of Star Wars mucisc that I just love. Again, I couldn't tell you what it is, but the most memorable instance of it is in ANH when Luke is standing in the desert on Tatooine looking out at the two suns. I think it pops up at poignant "Luke/Jedi" moments.

 

[Viking Bastard]

My favourite soundtrack of all time is Vangelis's 'Blade Runner'
track. It allows me to 'feel' maybe not the movie itself, but the
world it's set in, Philip K Dick's and Ridley Scott's grim future.

The same goes for all of John Carpenter's soundtracks, even the
ones for his sucky films.

Howard Shore, Danny Elfman and John Williams all give me that
feeling that Eric talked about above.

 

[Dr Midnight]

Danny Elfman irks me. I never (with few exceptions) hear anything in his music that stands above your average composer, and the whole choir "ah-ahhh-AHHHHH-ahhhh" thing he pulls out for every soundtrack just grates on me. The exceptions are the Tales From the Crypt theme, which is damned good, and... uh... some other movie from recent years. I can't remember which.

The FOTR score, as mentioned, is great. My tear-swelling love moment comes in Hobbiton, where the girl yells "Gandalf! Gandalf!" At this point, I'm soaking in the beauty, and greatly thankful that the movie was made the way it was.

Conan the Barbarian- pretty much the entire thing. I bought it in high school and spent the week inside my headphones, away from wherever I really was. I especially like THEOLOGY/CIVILIZATION, which is just about the two new friends adventuring through the world. I like that a great deal.

Now, don't laugh at me, but THE PRINCE OF EGYPT gets me every time. There's music about the slaves at the beginning and end, and near the end of the music it swells immensely and desperate voices sing "Deliver us!" I tear up every time. It's just gorgeous... to me. I haven't met anyone else who cares for the movie. Also in there, when the slaves are fleeing Egypt, everyone starts to sing a happy Hebrew ditty, and it's also a beautiful weeper for me as I can't help but sniffle along.

Oh my god, I just realized my chest is hitching just thinking about "Deliver us". Damn. Time to stop reading the lyrics. I really have to get around to buying that movie on DVD...

As for non-orchestral music goodness, I always get weepy in SHE'S HAVING A BABY, during the delivery. The music there is some song about "I know you have a little life in you yet" and it still kinda pokes me in the soft, squishy places.

 

[Crothian]

There's an Enya song in LA Story that I really like because of the scene it;'s in. It's near the weather changes Steve Martin's life for the second time. I don't want to say to much to spoil the movie for others.

 

[WayneLigon]

Prince of Egypt has some very good music; one of the best soundtrack investments I ever made.

The theme from Star Wars that Morrus is talking about is 'Luke's Theme'; I remember reading an interview with Williams (?) where he said that he developed it based on all the 'bold, brassy, masculine' qualities he saw in Luke; thus trumpets and horns, because they also signal triumph and grandeur to most of us.

Another good RPG soundtrack, esp to set a mood: The two disc Les Miserbles soundtrack, from the original cast. The opening on the chain gang for hopelessness, Javiers first solo for use by a LN cleric of a god of extreme law, etc.
The Lyrics

 

[Viking Bastard]

'Prince of Egypt' is a very good movie. One of the best biblical movies out there.

I don't think I've ever really noticed the music that much as a seperate identity.

 

[RangerWickett]

First off, gotta agree with Luke's theme, and the opening to the Prince of Egypt (Deliver Us). I'm actually not too terribly hot on LotR music, though maybe it's just taking me a little while to accept that, just like the movie, the music is consciously trying to be huge and epic. Also, after listening to interviews with the composer and the director and such on the extended four DVDs, I see what they were going for, and yeah, it was nicely done.

However, the first four times I saw Fellowship, I cried at the beauty of the friendship between Sam and Frodo. For a while, I actually had a friendship like that, but unlike the Lord of the Rings, I didn't have an adventure to keep us close, so my friend ended up leaving entirely.

Um . . . dang, sure is a good deal of opening up of emotions here, isn't there?

Well, other pieces. . . . Pretty much anything with Latin is cool, and I must say I love the music from Hunchback of Notre Dame (all of the non-song pieces are great, and a few of the songs are cool too). As someone on the boards put it, Latin is the coolest-sounding language ever. For similar reasons, the Duel of Fates of course rocks, though I'm pretty sure it's all just nonsense chorals.

I actually once made a soundtrack for my D&D game. Not to use in the game, mind you, but rather something I could give to my friends to remind them of the game. Each PC got a theme, as did the villain, and there were songs for major plot points or locations. The villain got a piece from Stargate, either "Ra, the Sun God" or "Kasuf Returns." I guess my villain just seemed Egyptian.

Also, though not many of my friends agree with me, I really do like the closing music to the special edition Return of the Jedi. It just really says, "The adventure is over, we saved the Effin' universe from evil, and the world is at peace again, at least for a while." Then again, if there's a better musical piece for a lich than the Emperor's theme in Jedi, I can't think of it.

 

[WayneLigon]

Duel of the Fates translation

I went looking for a Latin translation and it turns out that, surprise, the lyrics in Duel of the Fates are not Latin at all, but Sanskrit.

So what were they singing in "Duel of the Fates" ?
It's a line from a Celtic poem, Cad Goddeu ("Battle of the Trees"), originally translated by Robert Graves, and literally transcribed into Sanskrit. The line goes, "Under the tongue root a fight most dread, and another raging, behind, in the head."

Disclaimer: quick search via Google; might not be worth the paper it's printed on

 

[John Crichton]

Gotta agree with the FotR and Star Wars ones.

My personal favorite right now is the "Rohan Theme" from The Two Towers. It pops up in a bunch of the tracks and has that kinda off-kilter fiddle thing going on. Good stuff.

2 more of my all-time favs are the Superman Theme and the main Indiana Jones theme. The Superman Theme is just as unmistakable as the Star Wars music, IMO.