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I can't believe it's been 10 years since the whole fallout of the rejection of Gabriel Yared's original score in Wolfgang Petersen's Troy. Then we have the most bizarre incident where the most well known James Horner critic is defending James Horner for speaking his mind in the most notable film composer interview ever (in terms of sheer candor).
Have your opinions on either score changed since then?
I admire works by both composers but it was professionally not in good taste of Horner to speak ill of Yareds score. When I interviewed Yared after the whole Troy debacle he was never anything but polite about Horner replacing him. I still have the interview on tape and he urged me to listen to Horners score at that time.
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I haven't seen the film or heard either score but saw the Horner CD in a thrift store today for $2 and moved on. Mistake?
I think so. It's basically 80 minutes of Britten and Vaughan Williams but I think it's glorious. I've listened to it probably literally a hundred times more than the Yared score which everyone loves so much.
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I've never heard the Yared score, but I've always enjoyed Horner's. His music works great in the film and plays even better on its own (even with the references from Stargate, et al.). I find it a rather evocative and atmospheric score. It plays toward the pathos, the heroics, and the realism of the story, rather than any fantastical or more traditionally Hollywood elements, which makes perfect sense since the gods were done away with. Of the longer battle tracks, "Achilles Leads the Myrmidons" is probably my favorite.
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I haven't seen the film or heard either score but saw the Horner CD in a thrift store today for $2 and moved on. Mistake?
It's basically 80 minutes of Britten and Vaughan Williams....
What, as well as the Shostakovich theme used as Achilles' motif throughout ....?
It's got its good moments, like the post-Hector laments and the city fanfares, but it's very derivative.
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Horner's score was, and still is, nails on a chalkboard to my ears. Even if Troy had been a stronger film, the score still would have ruined it for me.
Yared's, on the other hand, is magnificent. It is, without a doubt, one of my favorite epic film scores. I remember listening to it, and being dumbfounded that anybody would think of replacing it with Horner's grating music (and I say this as one who has traditionally been a big Horner fan).
In any case, I've listened to (and enjoyed) Yared's score far more times than I've seen the actual film (which I probably haven't watched since the DC came out in '07).
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Thankfully I wisely spared myself from watching the movie. It looked like crap.
I have, however, come to watch some scenes from it on Youtube where a score fan re-inserted Yared's score.
There's no comparrison. Yared provided an epico choral masterpiece, Horner churned out a derivitive paycheck. And thanks to clips on Youtube, there was no longer any consideration of what may have been, but rather a confirmation of what was: Yared's score elevated the scenes and made the crapsandwich more than it was, even adding some excitment. Horner's score was boring, lacked any drive or energy and felt wrong. That's when I comaprred the same scenes (where available) scored by both.
The proof is in the pudding. Take this scene with Yared's score put back in (though some of Jamie's score bleeds threw):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2BxJoWgoyo
And now Horner's score:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6sn1m3VMmk
Yared adds an epic, almost heroic fairy tale-like qaulity to it. Horner's score is quite, absent where iit could have uplifted like Gabriels did, and actually slowed it down and made it arduous, almost lethargic. And no one try to hand me the "late game replacement" score excuse; 12 days for "Wolfen", "Something Wicked This Way Comes", "The Journey of Natty Gann" show otherwise. Though he's not exacfly been the same composer since the '80's ended.
In the end, Yared's score to me is considered one of the greatest fil mscores ever written, and a deeply personal favorite (I've probably sent two or three e-mails to him just thanking and praising it), and is several rungs about Horner's effort.
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Wolfgang Petersen's done worse - but he's done much, much better. And what is it with him and throwing out scores? (And why couldn't he have done it with Poseidon?)
What? It's only three confirmed kills out of 30 projects (As director, according to IMDb).
As an addendum to my post above, I read somewhere (perhaps it was here at FSM) that reportedly -- and I can't confirm this -- that it was one bad review that from a test audience that did Yared in.
I said to a film compsoer once, I think over the phone, that what the fuck does the audience care? Let's say they are test viewing a new film like a new Harry Potter film, and let's say one of more don't like the score. So what? Unless it's Godawful and deserves to go (maybe some electronic dubstep with twelve drummers), who cares? It's not like any of those people WON'T go and see the new Harry Potter film anyway. If they actually asked them AGAIN, and this time with: "Would you not see the movie it if kept the score?", that not a single person would say "Yes". They'd see it anyway. And confuse "songs" with "score".
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