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Thread: When Sci-Fi movies try to portray "futuristic" music

  1. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Facelift View Post
    Just as bad, IMO, is sci-fi that depicts the future of present-day Earth civilizations. It seems the only music and literature these future civilizations care about are 19th and 20th century products. And Shakespeare. Star Trek, in particular, is a major offender here.

    It's certainly disheartening to know that nothing over the next 300+ years will be comparable to what we already have.
    Not to state the bleeding obvious, but SF novels and especially movies are trying to make money, and one way they like to do that is by making the viewer feel all warm and fuzzy about their own era and generation. Throwing in some piece of pop culture and pretending it's still remembered fondly in the 24th century is a sure way of getting a cheerful giggle from certain members of the audience.

  2. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by bob_32_116 View Post
    Not to state the bleeding obvious, but SF novels and especially movies are trying to make money, and one way they like to do that is by making the viewer feel all warm and fuzzy about their own era and generation. Throwing in some piece of pop culture and pretending it's still remembered fondly in the 24th century is a sure way of getting a cheerful giggle from certain members of the audience.
    Passing references to The Beatles or Shakespeare now are important aspects of sci-fi films generating revenue?

    Yeah, I'm not buying that.

    I'm assuming it's done simply because coming up with something else would be consdered too tedious. Anyway, I'd love it if some character explained how a painting or musical work "was an homage to [insert a fictional major artistic work from our future but their past here]," to be met with solemn nods and a brief dialog exchange about the thematic parallels.

  3. #28
    Member No Pride's Avatar
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    So what WILL music sound like in the future? If today's mainstream pop provides any clues, it'll be completely diatonic, always in 4/4 at about 120 bpm and the only real musical instrument that won't be programmed will be the human voice. It won't all be auto-tuned because singers will always want to prove that they don't need it (if actual singers will be of any value). That's my guess anyway.

  4. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Facelift View Post
    Passing references to The Beatles or Shakespeare now are important aspects of sci-fi films generating revenue?

    Yeah, I'm not buying that.
    I didn't say it was important, or that you had to "buy that". It's just an observation of mine. It's the same reason why so many films have seemingly superfluous panoramas of New York City or other large US cities. The US is where the big money is to be made from the box offices, and American audiences love to see something that's "theirs" popping up in a movie. Presumably that's why when they made The Never Ending Story part 2, they shifted the kid's home location from Germany to Washington DC. I still can't believe they did that.

  5. #30
    In the future all music will be really nasty porno music:




    Gawd I love Youtube.

  6. #31
    Oh No! Bass Solo! klothos's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by No Pride View Post
    So what WILL music sound like in the future? If today's mainstream pop provides any clues, it'll be completely diatonic, always in 4/4 at about 120 bpm and the only real musical instrument that won't be programmed will be the human voice. It won't all be auto-tuned because singers will always want to prove that they don't need it (if actual singers will be of any value). That's my guess anyway.
    Text-to-speech synthesizers (like current Web Screenreaders for Visually Impaired) should be so advanced that the need for vocalists probably wont exist....simply input your text, set the melody-line (or have the computer generate one for you) and - voila! - instant vocalist


    ....because Bohemian Rhapsody just doesn't have enough "Galileo!"s

  7. #32
    Not my favorite movie but Demolition Man had some funny bits. I liked how the equivalent of a future 'Top 40' were lounge versions of 'vintage' commercial jingles.

  8. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by Oreb View Post
    Not sure which Strauss you're objecting to: Richard? Well I think the use of the intro to 'Thus sprach Zarathustra' is absolutely inspired and fits in perfectly with the theme of the movie.

    Johann? Watch again - that space ship sequence is edited to precisely replicate a dance.

    Kubrick was too great an artist to waste time trying to guess the music of the future.
    It's also worth noting that Kubrick also used several pieces from 20th century composer Gyorgy Ligeti, though apparently without Ligeti's knowledge beforehand (apparently, his publisher signed off on the use of his music without consulting him, it's said Ligeti didn't find out until he saw the movie, rushing to the nearest pay phone after the showing). So Kubrick was using the absolute most modern music possible as well as some old favorites in that film.

    As far as him rejecting Wendy Carlos' score for A Clockwork Orange, I have the understanding that for some scenes, Kubrick got so used to the "temp track" that was using during editing that he felt nothing else fit those scenes, once the "finished" music was delivered. Wendy said one time this actually happens a lot in film making, that sometimes the director decides the scene only works with the music that he initially intended to discard once the final score was ready, and not just with Kubrick either. And I don't think Kubrick necessarily intended to use Wendy's music for the entire film score to begin with.

    And I agree that Kubrick never intended the music in either film to represent "the music of the future" (other than perhaps the electronic versions of Beethoven that Wendy did).

  9. #34
    Quote Originally Posted by Facelift View Post
    Just as bad, IMO, is sci-fi that depicts the future of present-day Earth civilizations. It seems the only music and literature these future civilizations care about are 19th and 20th century products. And Shakespeare. Star Trek, in particular, is a major offender here.

    It's certainly disheartening to know that nothing over the next 300+ years will be comparable to what we already have.
    There's more than one science fiction TV show that seemed to be posit the suggestion that rock music would be forgotten about after a century or two. On Babylon 5, they used big band music, and there were other references to 20th century Earth civilization, but no attempt to depict rock (or any other post mid-20th century music form) in any way, shape or form. I mean it's not just rock music, apparently in that universe, nobody remembers rap music, or any form of jazz from after about 1955 or whatever.

    There was one show, I forget what it was called but it was on the Fox network and not on for long, where rock music is described in one scene as "a late 20th century fad" or something like that. Thanks for nothing, chumps!

  10. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by bob_32_116 View Post
    Throwing in some piece of pop culture and pretending it's still remembered fondly in the 24th century is a sure way of getting a cheerful giggle from certain members of the audience.
    Outside the occasional baseball reference on Star Trek or Babylon 5, I don't remember too many pop culture references in sci-fi TV. Well, not American sci-fi TV.

    Doctor Who, on the other hand, has had it's share of pop culture moments over the years. Back in the 60's, there was one episode where a clip of The Beatles is seen, where it's suggested that centuries later, the Beatles would be regarded as pop culture. Skip ahead to the late 80's, and in Remembrance Of The Daleks, there's several songs heard, including more early Beatles (well, depending on which version of the show you have, there's some DVD editions where they replaced the Beatles tracks with other stuff for copyright reasons).

    More recently, The Doctor attempted to take Rose to see Ian Dury And The Blockheads circa 1979, and in one episode we heard songs from Soft Cell and Britney Spears. Further proof Doctor Who is the greatest TV show ever.

  11. #36
    Quote Originally Posted by klothos View Post
    Text-to-speech synthesizers (like current Web Screenreaders for Visually Impaired) should be so advanced that the need for vocalists probably wont exist....simply input your text, set the melody-line (or have the computer generate one for you) and - voila! - instant vocalist


    ....because Bohemian Rhapsody just doesn't have enough "Galileo!"s
    As a side note, do you know why HAL 9000 sings Bicycle Built For Two in 2001: A Space Odyssey? There's actually a real world reason, and that reason is that one of the very first speech synthesis demonstrations ever done, in the early 60's, was done using that song. Hence, Kubrick used it in the film, as sort of a continuity thread linking the HAL 9000 to the computers that already existed in the 1960's.

  12. #37
    Member Vic2012's Avatar
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    I like Klingon Opera and I like Vulcan Rock & Roll.

  13. #38
    The vanguard of singing synthesis seems Japanese "vocaloid" music. This song is immensely cool. I have a feeling a lot of people on this forum would enjoy the guitar and rhythm arrangements. My 14-year old daughter is crazy about this stuff. It's the first music I've heard in a long time that made me feel like we might be on the cusp of change.


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