Create your Zimmer Batman playlist

[The Dark Knight]

Say you're putting together a BB/TDK best of CD.

How would you go about it?

Here's my attempt.

Vespertillo - The basis for everything to follow. Wing/cape flaps, swirling tension and the rising horn.
Like A Dog Chasing Cars - Takes the rising horn motif straight to the final product. Things gradually slow down and seque into the brooding:
Watch the World Burn - Lennon's "Dear Prudence" to McCartney's "Back in the USSR". Contrasts well as the mood is totally the opposite.
A Watchful Guardian - This plays immediately after in sequence of the film, therefore it flows well. We are first introduced to the end credits theme.
I'm Not a Hero - I like the opening two minutes.
Buyer Beware - Subtle horror movie music. Blends both the end credits theme and the opening part of "I'm Not a Hero".
Artibeus - Just noise to me, but takes the horror movie music to the next level.
Harvey Two Face - Decent track.
Barbastella - Covers the Wayne shooting. End with a combination of drumming and rising horn.
Aggressive Expansion - Follows on immediately from "Barbastella" with more drumming and rising horn. Moves onto broody music that escalates.
Nycteris - Has similar sounding music going on, eg. knives sliding, etc.
A Little Push - Thunderous and dark.
Tadarida - Emotional cues, with aspects of thunder as heard in "A Little Push".
Antrozous - I prefer this one to Molossus. Decent way to end things.

But remember, to quote Jack's surgeon in B89, "you see what I have to work with here.."

[Paul (ral)]

Good topic. A CD of this sort would probably be more coherant that an Elfman one (due to the vastly different orchestration).

I will have to think about it, but in the meantime I will be making your playlist up for the car!

[gordonblu]

The one problem with making a Zimmer Batman playlist is that everything starts to sound the same around halfway through (I speak from experience because I like making compilations and the Zimmer one was the hardest to compile and listen to without pulling my hair out).

Elfman's might not be coherent, but you much more variety. The only problem I have with an Elfman playlist is deciding what to exclude.

As for Dark Knight's playlist,his inclusion of more overt JNH cues do help overcome Zimmer monotony.  I probably would have included Macrotus from BB though.

I do like many things Zimmer has done (The Pirates trilogy, Gladiator, Sherlock Holmes), but i find his Batman scores to be among his weakest.

What does this add to the topic thread? Nothing, just making conversation.

[Paul (ral)]

What does this add to the topic thread? Nothing, just making conversation.

That's what it's all about! 

[gordonblu]

Off-topic but I just read that Zimmer is going to be scoring Snyder's Superman re-boot. I can hearit now; "Superman is such an iconic character that He doesn't need a theme. What we've done is apply a sound effect to invoke his flying. We also use only a half note, because he moves so quickly."

And all of the young and naive comic book movie fans who salivate whenever Zimmer's name is mentioned will totally reject John William's theme and say this crap is the "REAL" Superman music.

Jerry Goldsmith's misguided electronic whoosh in his otherwise great Supergirl score will still be better than this.

[Paul (ral)]

I just read that Zimmer is going to be scoring Snyder's Superman re-boot.

That is my fear.

[gordonblu]

Sorry, I should have said Zimmer is rumored to do Superman. In the article he was only talking about the score and whether or not it needs William's theme.

[The Dark Knight]

I can hearit now; "Superman is such an iconic character that He doesn't need a theme. What we've done is apply a sound effect to invoke his flying. We also use only a half note, because he moves so quickly."

Hilarious, and absolutely scarily plausible.

He says he wants to get characters down to their bare essentials, and have it as one or two notes. That may be his style, but I find it lazy. He does that with all of his music, and it more often than not feels too similiar to his previous work. Copy and paste with slight variation. "Dream within a Dream" is a disguised "Why So Serious?" And so on.

And apart from something like that, I can see generic music similar to "Harvey Two Face" playing for most of the time.

I think Superman needs a new theme, but I don't think Zimmer is the man for it.

[THE BAT-MAN]

Hans Zimmer is completely overrated.   

[The Dark Knight]

Hans Zimmer is completely overrated.   

Exactly. He didn't put any effort into the Molossus cue at all.

There is a massive difference between blatant copying and getting inspiration.