HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN WILLIAMS

Today one of the greatest composers of film scores and also absolute music for the classical concert hall solemnises his EIGTIETH BIRTHDAY. Happy Birthday dear Mr. John Williams we need more composers of your class.

John Williams = God

Happy Birthday!

Happy 80th Birthday!

Hans zimmer and Bear Mccreary are better though

HAPPY (2 day late) BIRTHMAS!!!!

His best movie scores are from his earlier collaborations with Spielberg, in my opinion. Actually, I think all of his best music comes from working with Spielberg. My favorites are from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, and Saving Private Ryan.

Some call him a late-romantic composer but even his film scores go far beyond that.
In my opinion he does perfectly blend different composition-styles. He can compose orchestral music in
classical, romantic and also very modern style and combine different elements very elegantly.
Take for instance Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. When Indy and Short round first venture
into the catacombs of the palace the music is almost serial (very modern style) and certainly artistic.
I always pity the Hans Zimmer mishmash in comparison to John Williams film-music!

Zimmer makes better music, that is, music that one can listen to in any situation really.

But Williams is far superior when it comes to making recognizable tunes that stick forever.

Jaws, Star Wars, Indiana Jones...I mean, the tune for those movies everyone knows, even people who haven't seen them!

Originally Posted by Biggles

Zimmer makes better music, that is, music that one can listen to in any situation really.

But Williams is far superior when it comes to making recognizable tunes that stick forever.

Jaws, Star Wars, Indiana Jones...I mean, the tune for those movies everyone knows, even people who haven't seen them!

I don't know about that (the first statement). I'd say Williams is by far a better composer, musically. As Taraphir said, he can write music of all sorts of styles. Zimmer usually doesn't excite me musically though I'll admit he can write some catchy stuff, though most of his music comes from action movies and that doesn't really leave much room for creative composition.

Originally Posted by Taraphir

Some call him a late-romantic composer but even his film scores go far beyond that.
In my opinion he does perfectly blend different composition-styles. He can compose orchestral music in
classical, romantic and also very modern style and combine different elements very elegantly.
Take for instance Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. When Indy and Short round first venture
into the catacombs of the palace the music is almost serial (very modern style) and certainly artistic.
I always pity the Hans Zimmer mishmash in comparison to John Williams film-music!

You're very right. Williams isn't one of my favorite composers but there is no doubt he is one of the most prolific and well-known. More than any other movie composer his music will be known by the most. I think the reason why people like Zimmer so much is because he composes for a lot of action movies and makes very "driving" music. So, it's a bit catchy and gets people pumped up. Anyway, I don't want this to be a Williams vs Zimmer thread.

Check out The Thin Red Line. Great score by Zimmer

Happy birthday John.

Sorry for being a bit late, but I didn't want to miss this thread...
It's fair to say that it's impossible to measure what this man did for music, movies and for the audience in general during the decades, and his work will definitely remain the benchmark as far as movie scores concerned. Long live John Williams!

He's no Gustav Holst...

In no particular order: Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Ennio Morricone, Quincy Jones, and Robert "The RZA" Diggs make the best music scores.

Just like Harrison Ford can make any otherwise stupid movie good. So can they. Think about it... Look at every movie he's been in and try to imagine anyone else portraying that character. It would suck.

Originally Posted by Col. Tartleton

He's no Gustav Holst...

In no particular order: Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Ennio Morricone, Quincy Jones, and Robert "The RZA" Diggs make the best music scores.

Just like Harrison Ford can make any otherwise stupid movie good. So can they. Think about it... Look at every movie he's been in and try to imagine anyone else portraying that character. It would suck.

I´m certain John Williams inserted a very intelligent hommage to Gusrav Holst into the first Star Wars Score.Just listen to the music when the Millenium Falcon is flying into the landing bay of the Death Star. there is a brilliantly done and very sophisticated reference to Holst´s planets in the score for a few seconds.

Originally Posted by Taraphir

I´m certain John Williams inserted a very intelligent hommage to Gusrav Holst into the first Star Wars Score.Just listen to the music when the Millenium Falcon is flying into the landing bay of the Death Star. there is a brilliantly done and very sophisticated reference to Holst´s planets in the score for a few seconds.

Actually as a matter of fact Lucas was originally intending on using The Planets as the score for Star Wars since that was his "Concept Album" for the series while he was writing it.(Similar to how Kubrick used Beethoven and other classical composers for 2001: A Space Odyssey) Then, (supposedly,) he heard Williams work on Jaws and Lost In Space(the TV series obviously) and asked him to score the Star Wars films. Refering him to The Planets as a base to start from.

So that's why you hear so many homages to Holst in Star Wars.

I remember watching the interview with John and Steven on the Raiders of the Lost Ark DVD. John made two different versions of the Raiders theme. After listening to them both several times, Steven liked both of them so much he couldn't make up his mind so he told John to combine the two together.



The 2nd song starts at 0:36 and they mix harmoniously. John's music was epic before people thought of movie scores as epic. (Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia notwithstanding)

And sadly these days we are thrown to death with the word epic.