Scratching the Pikey's Back

Once in a while, my fellow bloggers get hit with this inexplicable craze to make Top Ten lists. I personally find it almost too trivial to entertain, but sometimes I have to contribute as well. It’s a weird sort of “challenge” that they come up with sometimes, as if it’s a real sport to follow up each other’s list with another one. Even the listening lists on my own blog are arbitrary and pointless, I’ll admit. But I’m about to treat you to a sample of what’s been bounding around on Facebook lately.

Except I’m not taking the bait. I’m reaching farther back… That’s right, instead of “answering the call” and making my list of Best Goldsmith Scores of each genre or whatever, I’m going way back to the pikey’s prompt that never took off.

Give a pikey his due.

He blogged about Ten Favorite Moments in film music, not just single cues. He narrowed it down with very specific (yet still very flexible) guidelines, and I’m finally blogging my input on the matter.

This is the original post.

Since most of you aren’t up to the task of reading an entire other blog post about this stupid crap, I’ll just cite the main part of his criteria:

That is to say, think of your favorite 5 to 30-ish seconds (maybe a minute) from various cues that just really do it for ya! These are little moments, perhaps contained within your favorite cues – perhaps not, that really get the old stick at attention. OK, so that’s not entirely accurate – these don’t have to all be ginormous boner-fied musical moments. But rather, they’re snippets that have had an extreme emotional resonance with you and stuck with you over all others. Any kind of excess emotional response will do, be it extreme joy, sadness or anything in between. This connection can stem from just simply extraordinary composition or a combination of that aural element and its perfect marriage to the scene from whence it came. It’s your call, although more than likely the music as it aids the film will be a deciding factor…

All right, pikey. I’m your huckleberry. I’ll even stay consistent with your formatting of the list.


Top Ten Memorable and Stirring Moments in Film Music
(in no particular order)


The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King — Howard Shore — from “The Fellowship Reunited” (6:30 to 7:03 on The Complete Recordings): “My friends… you bow to no one!” The pikey was right to put this on his list as well. After being crowned king of Gondor, Aragorn bows to the hobbits, leading all of the Free Peoples present to follow suit. The four hobbits look around in awe at the spectacle in their honor as the Shire theme sweeps in with tutti strings, a gesture that says, “All the battles we fought were nothing compared to the dedication and courage of your stout hearts, little hobbits. All of Middle-Earth owes you.” Absolutely perfect. Probably my favorite moment of all film music.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King — Howard Shore — from “The Mouth of Sauron” (7:38 to end of track on The Complete Recordings): Two selections from the same score?! I resisted doing this, but the fact is that it is one of my favorite moments, and that’s what you asked for. This moment is incredible, the climax of one of my favorite cues of music as well. Frodo collapses at the foot of Mount Doom, the weight of the Burden finally overwhelming him. Sam tries in vain to motivate him, to inspire him, but Frodo gives up. ”Then let us be rid of it. Once and for all. Come on, Mr. Frodo. I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you! Come on!” And a scarcely used melody appears in full force as Sam hoists Frodo up on his shoulders and begins the long climb. This went way beyond just provoking goosebumps—cheers erupted in the theater on opening night. This moment damn near elicited a standing ovation, I’m not kidding. Powerful. This music, for me, is actually too good to listen to except on rare occasions, strange as that may sound.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire — Patrick Doyle — from “Voldemort” (8:50 to end of track): Harry steps up to the plate. You can either die cowering in the corner or you can go out fighting. Inspired by Cedric’s death, Harry counters You-Know-Who’s killing curse with a standard disarm, and the result is both spectacular and unexpected (though not satisfactorily explained in the film adaptation of the novel): Harry’s long-dead parents appear from the wand, lending their strength, and they even speak to him. Unison octave strings wail Doyle’s main theme, which functions as a replacement for Williams’ do-re-mi-mi-re-do-ti-do-re-do-ti-la sentimental theme from the first two films. I always thought that if John Williams had stuck around to score the fourth film, that moment onscreen would have that theme. But this is, dare I say, at least as good. A wrenching, heroic, glorious, hopeful, bittersweet, emotional climax to the score.

Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi — John Williams — from “The Battle of Endor III” (5:02 to 5:36 on the Special Edition soundtrack): Luke lurks in the shadows, abstaining from fighting, determined to resist the Dark Side. Vader stalks him, calling taunts to him, and finally probes Luke’s feelings which betray him. You can practically see Vader’s malicious grin beneath his helmet as he says, “Sister… so, you have a twin sister!” When Vader threatens to lure Leia to the Dark Side instead, Luke snaps. That was the last refuge for a man who has lost almost everyone he’s ever cared about. Luke screams in defiance and hurls himself at Vader, swinging madly in a hate-fueled assault, the strength of which surprises and overwhelms Vader. The music picks up with a somber hymn to accompany the decisive battle for Luke’s soul. The whole movie needed more of this kind of thing, really.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring — Howard Shore — from “Gollum” (1:41 to end of track on The Complete Recordings): This moment is a sudden transition from the ominous dialogue music preceding it as Gandalf whispers to Frodo about Gollum amidst the mines of Moria. Gandalf scolds Frodo for being so quick to judge Gollum and wish him harm, and Frodo begins to despair, saying he wishes that the Ring had never come to him and that none of this had happened. The foreboding music takes a tender turn toward a subdued iteration of the Shire theme with the flute in its lower register as Gandalf offers gentle words of consolation to Frodo: “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the ring, in which case you also were meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.” Something about this… every time I hear the music, I feel what Frodo must be feeling in that moment.

The Time Machine — Klaus Badelt — from “The Master” (5:48 to 7:00 on OST): The Master, Jeremy Irons, uses his undefined power to show Professor Hartdegan an image of What Could Have Been, the loving home he always wanted with Emma before she was murdered on the night he proposed to her. He finds his notes on the time machine in a drawer, unfinished. His beloved wife calls to him, alive and well. The image is taken away from him just as easily as it was fabricated. It was not to be, and that’s that. Try to change it and she will just keep dying in different ways, because destiny is the universe’s safeguard to prevent a paradox from resulting in meddling with the space-time continuum. The imagery crossfades from dark and ominous to warm and tender, just as the music does. At first it’s a lone piano line, thin and sparse, just a heartachingly simple statement of Emma’s theme, then it picks up into a modified statement of “Bleeker Street” before slowing down again, getting lower, more foreboding, rumbling, and finally plopping your sorry ass right back into dark reality: the love of your life is dead and is never, ever coming back. The stark simplicity of this piano line gets me every time. So sweet, so human, yet so totally screwed by fate.

Independence Day — David Arnold — from “The Day We Fight Back” (2:32 on OST): The decisive battle is going horribly awry: everyone has run out of missiles, and their one golden window of opportunity is quickly closing on them. The President of the United States, in a fighter jet himself, desperately and incredulously screams, “Doesn’t anybody have any missiles left?” And the wayward misfit Russel Casse responds, “Sorry I’m late, Mr. President!” And the theme kicks in here. I must have seen this five or six times in theaters. This was really something. And this moment nearly launched me out of my seat every single time. LOVE IT. This moment might be tied with the culmination of “The President’s Speech,” but I’ll let it stand as is.

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back — John Williams — from “Rescue From Cloud City / Hyperspace” (3:20 to 3:50 on the Special Edition Soundtrack): Planted in the middle of one of my favorite sequences, the driving orchestra gives way to a smoother texture as Luke calms himself and calls out to Leia through the Force, his last hope of being rescued from where he is severely wounded and hanging upside-down from the weather vane beneath Cloud City. ”Leia… Hear me, Leia!” This is perhaps my favorite statement of The Force theme in all the films combined. Dusk on Bespin, the bantha poodoo having hit the proverbial fan, and we see a clear Force connection between brother and sister before we even know they are siblings. Reverent, somber, full of intent. Outstanding.

The Prince of Egypt — Hans Zimmer — from “Red Sea” (1:29 to 1:56 on OST): I was surprised and pleased to see this on the pikey’s list of honorable mentions, but I’m going to go ahead and put it on the actual list. When Moses faithfully places his staff in the water, the sea parts to the glorious blasting of the “miracle” theme, in a crescendo like none other. The octave leap starting the motif is so soft as to almost be indiscernibly non-thematic, but then the orchestra reveals the miracle in all its miracul..osity… and the theme is almost too excited with itself to be contained by meter. Several instruments just play scales to accompany it, and the chimes are sublime. This is a thrilling moment of film music, enough to make you (at least want to) believe in miracles.

Armageddon — Trevor Rabin / Harry Gregson-Williams — from “Detonation/Landing” (First 1:10 of track on two-disc Complete Score): I’m guessing it’s no coincidence that all forms of this magnificent theme were absent on the commercial release; my theory is that HG-W wrote this (as well as most of this collaborative score) but because Trevor Rabin was solely credited as composer on the album, only Rabin’s work was featured. The complete score has a ton of great stuff, presumably written by my man Harry Gregson-Williams. And this is the climax of the film, the nuclear detonation that saves the world. It’s hard to nail down my favorite moment from this score alone, but I think this is pretty much the most sensible choice.



There. I did it. I made my list. As you can see, not all of my picks are the obvious bombastic explosions of glory. Quite a few are subtle and unexpected.

This was too hard, pikey. This is why nobody ever took you up on it.

Anyway, the only way I can participate in these things is if I “cheat” and stretch the number of allowed pieces, so in this case my list of “honorable mentions” is much longer than the pikey’s (and that’s not the only thing of mine that’s longer than the pikey’s).

It’s interesting how, the more thought I put into it, the more examples come to mind from only Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings. Those movies are chock full of wonderful musical moments, but I try to keep the list diverse.



Honorable Mentions
(ones that were particularly difficult not to include on the list)


Con Air — Mark Mancina / Trevor Rabin — from “Battle in the Boneyard” (3:34 to 3:56 on OST): This was another one I was surprised to see on the pikey’s list of honorable mentions. The pikey, as it turns out, is a pretty smart guy. I’ll let his description suffice.

Crimson Tide — Hans Zimmer — from “1SQ” (16:18 to 16:51 on OST): The glorious climax of the movie, a balls-out roaring of the theme. Cheers erupt as an unspeakable amount of tension is released. Enough said.

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back — John Williams — from “Rescue From Cloud City / Hyperspace” (0:52 to 1:30 on the Special Edition Soundtrack): ”Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father…” – “He told me enough. He told me you killed him.” – “No. I am your father.” And Vader's theme drives the point home with that dark revelation, not like the Imperial march tempo but a much more ominous, slower statement, as though the theme itself has lost momentum from the shock of that line. It's far from the best iteration of Vader's theme, but every time I hear that part, the floor drops away and my blood runs cold. [taken from my comment on the pikey’s post]

Raiders of the Lost Ark — John Williams — from “The Map Room: Dawn”: Obviously. It’s just a matter of determining if it’s the moment or the whole piece, because it’s written so… fluidly.

Air Force One — Jerry Goldsmith — from “The Parachutes” (4:58 to end of track on OST): I don’t know why I love this part so much. It’s the transitional cityscape shot after the opening action sequence, so we don’t even have any emotional connection to the characters yet. Hell, the characters haven’t even been seen yet. But something about the whole sequence screams, “The real world is full of grave decisions and steep prices to pay.” It sounds mature. The orchestra is urgent, intense, and somehow very sophisticated. And this moment, after the opening military strike scene, punctuates the tone beautifully and gravely, and the counterpoint in the chimes is just perfect. I love it. I’m surprised that this moment made it to the list. But it’s true… every time I listen to this track, I have to rewind and hear the end again. I don’t know why, it’s just… striking.

Superman — John Williams — from “The Fortress of Solitude” (8:45 to end of track): The first time we see not Clark Kent but the Man of Steel. He’s standing there in all his Kryptonian glory, and the fanfare starts. Current cinematic trends would follow with an eye-popping CGI sequence of him flying around and doing dazzling superstunts for the next minute and a half, but here we just see him take flight and the scene ends. It’s just a taste of what is to come, but the endorphins flood the body when this moment occurs—“At long last, it’s Superman!”—signaling the end the first act of the film. You want more, oh you want so badly to see more, but you have to wait. This moment is fleeting, perhaps too brief, but awesome.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers — Howard Shore — from “The Tales That Really Matter” (0:42 to 1:28 on The Complete Recordings): After what amounts to a very draining epic with extraordinarily bleak odds of success, Sam’s inspiring speech to Frodo is put against meaningful imagery of the Free Peoples winning the battle of Helm’s Deep, offering a much-needed dose of hope. The music is a development of the ending to the previous film, “The Breaking of the Fellowship,” so the ear makes the connection that this is the bittersweet end of the film, and the effect is profound. The strings are much crisper, more piercing than the end of Fellowship. Very poignant. A gleaming moment in the trilogy.

Black Hawk Down — Hans Zimmer — from “Night Battle” (3:39 on the bootleg score, 1:58:35 in the film): Finally, finally things start to go in favor of the U.S. forces. In the climactic battle of the film, Eversman tosses the strobe so air support knows who to target without hitting their own troops. The strobe misses the roof, falls into debris, and the Little Birds can’t identify it. Hoot orders the men to cover Eversman while he runs out and retrieves the strobe. This music is heroic, victorious, and all about much-needed ass-kicking, but darkly so. This isn’t The Rock, after all—it’s a true story and real people died in the process. I did an exhaustive analysis of Black Hawk Down when I was in grad school, and I became intimately familiar with every moment in this score… and this is the most powerful.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace — John Williams — from “The Racer Roars To Life” (First :20 of track on the Ultimate Edition Soundtrack): [I’ll just copy what I commented on the pikey’s blog for this nomination] Anakin yells "It's working!" And the engine revs up, igniting hope that their crazy scheme just might work after all. To be fair, the reason I love that cue is less about the context of the scene in the film than the context of the TV spot for the film. They released a slew of "tone poems" with narrations by different characters for TV spots, and the "Destiny" spot had my favorite quote from Qui-Gon Jinn, which is still on my Facebook profile: "It will be a hard life. One without reward, without remorse, without regret. A path will be placed before you. The choice is yours alone. Do what you think you cannot do. It will be a hard life, but you will find out who you are."

Anyway, that fleeting yet overwhelming variation on Anakin's theme is set against the latter part of this voice-over, and totally got me stoked for the film. One of my other favorite cues, the Special Edition version of the final scene of Return of the Jedi, was a deliberate precursor to this theme, which made this moment all the more potent.



All right, pikey… you bastard.