Putting Zimmer anywhere near the same league as Williams is grotesque.
Zimmer writes a medley, then has an army of underpaid and under-credited orchestrators write 95% of the film. He couldn’t orchestrate his way out of a paper bag.
His primary skill is pushing the “every instrument on every note” button on his Project Sam VI and then adding an additional 6 french horns, 6 trombones, and probably a pipe organ.
Can you recall a single melody from Oppenheimer? It’s all just environmental boom and brass shit, with strings that might as well be synth. Can you recall a melody from Inception? Nope, just BWAAAAH.
There’s a reason all of his legitimately musical scores in the last 25 years are co-written with another composer. Batman films, The Rock, Gladiator, etc. He musically peaked as a solo composer with Backdraft, imo.
Williams, on the other hand, employees orchestrators solely because he is required by union rules to have an orchestrator. His short-scores (the blueprints that orchestrators work from) are UNBELIEVABLY detailed.
Williams went to Juilliard. Zimmer took two weeks of piano lessons and was in a band.
And no one, NO ONE, has written the number of iconic melodies and scores that Williams has. Star Wars wouldn’t be Star Wars without that score… Mark Hammil has said that John Williams is more responsible for the success of Start Wars than anyone other than George Lucas.
Jurassic Park wouldn’t be JP without his score.
ET. Superman. Indiana Jones. Harry Potter. You can hear the music to these films in your head right now.
Or, you can listen to Hans Zimmer in your head now too: BWAAAAH.
I’ll leave you with one thought: A few months ago, my Uber driver was a former orchestrator for Zimmer at RC. He hated it and quit. Re-read those two sentences.
Also to add some more defense for Zimmer, the BWAAAAH is actually the main theme slowed down a ton. Zimmer does a lot of expiramental shit in big budget films and I respect it. Besides, neither composer has shit on Bear Mccreary and his unstoppable hurdy gurdies and kazoos!
Point taken on mistaking Oppenheimer’s patently generic score for a Zimmer work. I actually enjoy Nolan films, otherwise I wouldn’t go to see them.
Klaus Badelt (who wrote the completely - IMO - non-piratical theme to PotC… seriously, could have been in the Rock and it would have made no difference) and Steve Jablonsky both came out of RC, and both write music that is indiscernible from the atmospheric, non-specific stuff that Zimmer has been making for 25 years. Everyone Zimmer has influenced sounds like they compose by smearing a varnish of LOUD around the film.
I grew up listening to HZ, he has reached incredible heights at times. But right now he owns a music factory that is 99% operated by other people, and puts his name in as composer of primarily others’ work. Yeah, it’s the contract they signed, but I don’t think it makes him a great composer.
I haven’t followed either’s career particularly closely but I like a lot of stuff from both artists. The Imperial March from Star Wars and the dancing scene from MI:2 “Nyah” are some of my favorite songs from movies.
I don’t know much about Zimmer from beyond his Wikipedia page but I did find this quote (from Wikipedia) regarding his stance on crediting the other musicians who help with the collaborative nature of modern production.
Originally I had this idea that it should be possible to create some kind of community around this kind of work, and I think by muddying the titles – not having “you are the composer, you are the arranger, you are the orchestrator” – it just sort of helped us to work more collaboratively. It wasn’t that important to me that I had “score by Hans Zimmer” and took sole credit on these things. It’s like Gladiator: I gave Lisa Gerrard the co-credit because, even though she didn’t write the main theme, her presence and contributions were very influential. She was more than just a soloist, and this is why I have such a problem with specific credits.
Does he say one thing and act another way behind the scenes?
Putting Zimmer anywhere near the same league as Williams is grotesque.
Zimmer writes a medley, then has an army of underpaid and under-credited orchestrators write 95% of the film. He couldn’t orchestrate his way out of a paper bag.
His primary skill is pushing the “every instrument on every note” button on his Project Sam VI and then adding an additional 6 french horns, 6 trombones, and probably a pipe organ.
Can you recall a single melody from Oppenheimer? It’s all just environmental boom and brass shit, with strings that might as well be synth. Can you recall a melody from Inception? Nope, just BWAAAAH.
There’s a reason all of his legitimately musical scores in the last 25 years are co-written with another composer. Batman films, The Rock, Gladiator, etc. He musically peaked as a solo composer with Backdraft, imo.
Williams, on the other hand, employees orchestrators solely because he is required by union rules to have an orchestrator. His short-scores (the blueprints that orchestrators work from) are UNBELIEVABLY detailed.
Williams went to Juilliard. Zimmer took two weeks of piano lessons and was in a band.
And no one, NO ONE, has written the number of iconic melodies and scores that Williams has. Star Wars wouldn’t be Star Wars without that score… Mark Hammil has said that John Williams is more responsible for the success of Start Wars than anyone other than George Lucas.
Jurassic Park wouldn’t be JP without his score.
ET. Superman. Indiana Jones. Harry Potter. You can hear the music to these films in your head right now.
Or, you can listen to Hans Zimmer in your head now too: BWAAAAH.
I’ll leave you with one thought: A few months ago, my Uber driver was a former orchestrator for Zimmer at RC. He hated it and quit. Re-read those two sentences.
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No, the music for PotC was composed by Klaus Badelt. Hans Zimmer did score movies 2-4 though, but used a lot of themes that were already established.
Not arguing for or against either wqy, as I’m a fan of both, but I wanted to add that the themes for the Kraken and Davy Jones are lit
There’s no arguing that, totally agree!
Also to add some more defense for Zimmer, the BWAAAAH is actually the main theme slowed down a ton. Zimmer does a lot of expiramental shit in big budget films and I respect it. Besides, neither composer has shit on Bear Mccreary and his unstoppable hurdy gurdies and kazoos!
Point taken on mistaking Oppenheimer’s patently generic score for a Zimmer work. I actually enjoy Nolan films, otherwise I wouldn’t go to see them.
Klaus Badelt (who wrote the completely - IMO - non-piratical theme to PotC… seriously, could have been in the Rock and it would have made no difference) and Steve Jablonsky both came out of RC, and both write music that is indiscernible from the atmospheric, non-specific stuff that Zimmer has been making for 25 years. Everyone Zimmer has influenced sounds like they compose by smearing a varnish of LOUD around the film.
I grew up listening to HZ, he has reached incredible heights at times. But right now he owns a music factory that is 99% operated by other people, and puts his name in as composer of primarily others’ work. Yeah, it’s the contract they signed, but I don’t think it makes him a great composer.
Zimmer did not make Oppenheimer score, Ludwig Goransson did.
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This is bait
A lot of elitism and gatekeeping here and not much else.
I think the point is that you’re allowed to like a thing as long as you’re not blindly so.
I love Sword Art Online.
I’m also very aware that Sword Art Online is a complete dumpster fire.
I would agree with you except:
Yeah I’m not gonna defend that one, that’s on OP
Lol I agree with you.
I haven’t followed either’s career particularly closely but I like a lot of stuff from both artists. The Imperial March from Star Wars and the dancing scene from MI:2 “Nyah” are some of my favorite songs from movies.
I don’t know much about Zimmer from beyond his Wikipedia page but I did find this quote (from Wikipedia) regarding his stance on crediting the other musicians who help with the collaborative nature of modern production.
Does he say one thing and act another way behind the scenes?
You have a point, but Zimmer does have some bangers like Discombobulate or the Cornfield Chase
John Williams at work
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