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Congratulations, Tom Maguire, on a worthy topic for us Silver Agers (and I mean that both culturally and literally).
I can agree with all the given candidates so far, but I think one which has not yet been proposed is, in fact, the single score without which none of the others would have been written, and that is the original Star Wars.
And I think we must all admit that, science fiction story elements aside, the Star Wars score is very much compatible with an Arthurian narrative aesthetic, and must therefore be considered the seminal score in this batch of late-70's/early-80's sci-fi/fantasy scores, one of which is, in my mind, undoubtedly the best of all time.
Though I'll give it further thought which may change my mind, my initial gut instinct is to say that, though Star Wars is the best of this lot, if you exclude that score on sci-fi grounds, then it ends up as a tie between Dragonslayer and Krull.
I welcome any disputation of this assessment.
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Posted: |
Aug 22, 2015 - 4:17 PM
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By: |
bobbengan
(Member)
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It's tough to call out favorites in this genre. The 80's fantasy films in general gave us what I consider some of the high watermarks in film scoring EVER - Krull, The Dark Crystal, Conan the Barbarian - Film music frankly doesn't get much better than this.
Now that said, "sword & sorcery" is not a genre in which I would have placed Heavy Metal - Not obviously The Dark Crystal really for that matter. The former is a marvelous score of course regardless, with Taarna's theme being one of Bernstein's most magnificent creations of his entire career.
Willow fits comfortably in here too, as does William Kraft's Fire & Ice and Donaggio's Hercules, a score so damn good and robust that I almost don't believe Donaggio actually wrote it (sorry, I don't think Donaggio can score "action" to save his life).
I really would love to explore more Peplum scores, but my options are limited because I refuse to listen to mono recordings. I do like De Massi's "Maciste, L'eroe Piu' Grande del Mondo" a great deal but it's the only Peplum score I've encountered thus far with sound quality remotely approaching "listenable".
Robert Folk's Beastmaster 2 is a magnificent score with one of the most underrated main themes to ever grace the genre; Anyone who hasn't heard it must get it immediately (along with his fantastic, Krull-esque fantasy epic, Neverending Story 2... And Lawnmower Man 2... Noticing a trend here?)
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I really would love to explore more Peplum scores, but my options are limited because I refuse to listen to mono recordings. I do like De Massi's "Maciste, L'eroe Piu' Grande del Mondo" a great deal but it's the only Peplum score I've encountered thus far with sound quality remotely approaching "listenable".
Hi, bobbengan.
There aren't that many which survive in stereo, but here's a few:
Gino Marinuzzi Jr.'s MARTE, DIO DELLA GUERRA. (this is very much in the symphonic tradition and sounds not unlike Holst's "The Planets")
http://www1.screenarchives.com/title_detail.cfm/ID/20050/MARTE-DIO-DELLA-GUERRA-THE-SON-OF-HERCULES-VS-VENUS/
One of my faves (the URSUS by Carlo Savina which I mention in this thread) is in stereo.
IMO, another great peplum is GLI INVASORI (ERIK THE CONQUEROR) by Roberto Nicolosi which is in good-sounding stereo but is unfortunately on an out-of-print 2CD set.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81O-0BQNJgL._SL1404_.jpg
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