Could someone please explain the Hans Zimmer hatred on this site?

Yeah, but they pretty much use the exact same instruments in pretty much the same proportions.

I never even realized that Zimmer did so many movie scores to be able to think he was overused. I never knew he existed until Pirates Of The Caribbean.

So? They still sound differently. Even if they all use the same ratio of instruments, it doesn't mean that they are all clones of each other and it doesn't mean that they are not awesome. It isn't that unusual for composers to have a signature style, like John Williams' trumpet fanfare and Yuki Kajiura's "Psycho" Strings.

Wow, I never noticed that John Williams stuff was so similar before.

John Williams' work sounds significantly different. They might use the same instruments but Star Wars, Indy etc all have very distinct and unique melodies that separate them from each other.

Meanwhile, the only thing separating the Inception soundtrack and the Batman soundtracks (for me at least) is the BWONG!

Isn't the BWONG from the trailer music for Inception and thus not composed by Hans Zimmer at all?

Remember how Grievous' theme in Episode 3 was basically an angrier Harry Potter theme?

I don't really mind same tone being repeated if the said tone is good.

I'm a fan of John Williams, and listen to the Star Wars and Indiana Jones soundtracks all the time, but there is still some parts where I can't tell the difference (mostly involving Leia/Marion's themes). I think that there's a greater difference between the OT soundtracks and the PT than between the OT and Indy.

For Hans Zimmer I've only listened to Pirates, so I can't really say how similar his work is to his other movies.

I'd say if you compare TDK themes and Inception ones, the latter gives more techno punk vibe.

@Figment Jedi: Sorry, you're asking me to remember something from the prequels? No thanks.

I don't mind Hans Zimmer's self-plagiarism as much as his... well, plagiarism. But I don't like his self-plagiarism either, and I especially don't like the way he's spreading his sound to every movie so they can all sound the same. I'd much rather have loads of different styles of scores in loads of different styles of movies, but Zimmer and his cronies are homogenizing film scores, and that bothers me.

At least we've got some people who won't ever abide to Zimmer's style. Such as Bear McCreary (who learned from Elmer Bernstein), Ilan Eshkeri (who learned from Michael Kamen), Danny Elfman (who was inspired by Bernard Herrmann) and John Debney (who seems to have learned a lot from working with Alan Silvestri early in his career). William Ross (who has also worked with Silvestri a number of times along with John Williams) also has an anti-Zimmer sound. And there's still John Williams and Alan Silvestri, even if their output has declined in recent years.

Now we need Christopher Lennertz to do more action films so we can have the Basil Poledouris sound live on (he was a protege of Basil's).

edited 10th Sep '11 6:40:02 PM by Buscemi

Look for all that's wrong with Zimmer and others like him (James Newton Howard who ensured every Shyamalan film sounded exactly the same and helped with Dark Knight) as far as most tropers have it.

Firstly there's still: Danny Elfman (Every Tim Burton film and half of Sam Raimi's),Alan Menken (Most modern animated Disney films),Alexandre Desplat (King's Speech and Harry Potter 7),Randy Newman (The Pixar guy),Elliot Goldenthal (The Joel Schumacher Batman films),and James Horner (Look even if he is repetitive,he did devise the music for "Somewhere Out There" and "If We Hold on Together")

Whatever there are enough composers out there anyway,so I suppose one hack composer never hurt.

What with the forces of Danny Elfman,James Horner,Alexandre Desplat,Randy Newman, and Alan Menken that's enough awesomeness to reckon with. Oh and Bill Conti

Yes I know Horner sometimes sounds similar,but it's usually more of the "one part has a hook resembling an earlier" part kind of thing.I mean the score for Titanic is very much different from An American Tail and batteries not included is not at all like the 2010 Karate Kid or The Land Before Time

edited 15th Sep '11 5:00:47 PM by terlwyth

Oops I thought the former post didn't get through,my mistake but hey it drives home the point

Dude, there's no such thing as self-plagiarism. No matter how much you personally hate the guy.

And if it was a thing, then Alan Menken did it too. Somewhere That's Green / Part Of Your World

Well I barely know about this Zimmer guy, I only know him because of the soundtrack of Modern Warfare 2...

Its excellent, so I respect the guy who did it. So yeah...

Never seen any of his movies, thougt. I think...

You forgot to mention Michael Giacchino in there along with Randy, who composed almost as many productions as he did (possibly more, if you're counting his shorts).

Now there's a guy who needs some new material.

No, that's self-Jimmy Hart Version-ing.

Michael Giacchino? Seriously? Can you give me some examples? I could not tell that the guy who did The Incredibles was also responsible for Up and the new Star Trek just from how they sound.

edited 14th Sep '11 10:59:08 AM by OldManHoOh

There's only one track from Star Trek that sounded anything like Lost.

Totally the same songs.

And both of them are just like this.

The man clearly has no range at all.

Clearly my Sarcasm Mode wasn't obvious enough for you to grasp. I listed him because he's got pretty much the same amount of range as the rest of the composers terlwyth listed.

edited 15th Sep '11 8:20:56 PM by Mattonymy

I was being sarcastic too. I hate how if you don't pothole to Sarcasm Mode and ruin your sarcasm on this site, people will assume you're being sincere.