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If you could re-score B5...

R

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I completely, fanatically love B5. So much so that my wife was joking just this morning to her friends about how she's like to go more than a week without having a conversation involving Jumpgates. <G>

That said, if I had to pick something that was consistently the weakest part of the show, I'd say it was Christopher Franke's score. I never really liked it. I *do* think he did a good job with the more-or-less zero resources they had available, and I *do* like Tangerine Dream, so please don't think I'm dissing him, I'm not. Also, on occasion, he did do some really impressive stuff - the Season 5 theme is beautiful, the operatic piece he plays when the Narn are dying defending the station in season 3, etc - but for the most part, I just don't care for it.

Which brings up an interesting thought experiment: What style of music would you have prefered for the show? How would *you* have done the music differently if money were no object? If you could go back in time and get one or more composer to simply volunteer their services for the series, who would you choose? (Don't say "Beethoven," unless you're talking about "Louie Beethoven and the Butt-Naked Band," who play over at the Cleremont. It has to be someone who was actually alife at the time.) What pieces of music from the existing soundtrack would you want to preserve, and which would you like to get rid of?

So sound off about sound!
 
I can't imagine B5 with anybody but Franke's music. Perhaps in the first season the music was a touch overdone but in all of the rest it was fantastic. His scores absolutely made some of the non-verbal scenes.

Jan
 
Jan said:
I can't imagine B5 with anybody but Franke's music. Perhaps in the first season the music was a touch overdone but in all of the rest it was fantastic. His scores absolutely made some of the non-verbal scenes.

Jan
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I bet most people feel that way. I certainly do.
 
I was fine with Chen's music and especially liked the opening theme for Crusade. I think he would have improved in time, just as Christopher Franke did.

Jan
 
Can't be done.

I'm sure that if you'd replace Franke's stuff with someone elses and show the show to someone who hasn't seen it before it'd work, but for the fans? A bit like talking about replacing Star Wars' music with something else.

For me Franke's stuff is more like the ambience of the surroundings rather than music specifically. I had some trouble with it in the beginning because I didn't realise that it could be just the ambience. A lot of it is sound effects, long and short. Mood thematics.

I won't even consider whose stuff I'd replace Franke's with!

Jan said:
I was fine with Chen's music and especially liked the opening theme for Crusade. I think he would have improved in time, just as Christopher Franke did.

Jan
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Franke's stuff became a bit more music towards the end of the show. Big themes, even if they're still brief when comparing to other series.
 
Kara Baxter said:
ok kosh, i gotta ask...what does alien music sound like! :guffaw:
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alien (adj.): foreign, strange, exotic, unusual, bizarre, unfamiliar, weird, out of place, etc.. Gives one an uneasy, off-balance feeling, sense of foreboding. etc.

[Kosh musical notes] Impudent human. [/Kosh musical notes] :vorlon:
 
I agree about Franke on Season 1; his music was a bit heavy handed and a touch too electronic in places, but there were flashes of brilliance even back then. Music is one of my favorite elements from B5 - one I feel the later Star Trek shows didn't properly respect. And the Sky is Full of Stars, Confessions and Lamentations, The Long Twilight Struggle, Z'ha'Dum, Severed Dreams, even Thirdspace, and of course Sleeping in Light have some excellent music in them.
 
B5 was pretty much the first TV show whose music I could happily listen to over and over without the pictures. That, for me, says everything about how good Franke's music is, as music. The fact that it also fits the action on screen so well is just genius ... so often you get one or the other.
 
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GaribaldisHair said:
B5 was pretty much the first TV show whose music I could happily listen to over and over without the pictures. That, for me, says everything about how good Franke's music is, as music. The fact that it also fits the action on screen so well is just genius ... so often you get one or the other.
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I agree. Franke's music does blend in well with what we saw on the screen. Rarely did his music try to overwhelm what was going on in a particular episode. My favorite episodic cds are Sleeping in Light, Objects at Rest, Interludes and Examinations and the Coming of Shadows. I still listen to SIL, almost daily. It calms the soul.
 
To me C. Franke's music for B5 should be the music/sound for the Babylon Universe, but then again I am a Tangerine Dream fan.

None the less the soundtracks created by Franke should be in some degree incorporated into all Babylon Universe stories. There I said it again!

The soundtrack for the Crusade was okay, but it just didn't give the show presents. Franke's music gave Babylon 5 a distinct sound that pull you into each scene effortlessly. To me the soundtrack for Crusade was one of the reason the show failed. At times it was just to distracting, no matter how good the story was or the acting. The soundtrack often had me wondering if I was watching a show connected to B5.

The music for Crusade was okay, it just wasn't Babylon 5.

The soundtrack for Lost Tales and Rangers were good.

I've got the soundtracks on the way in the mail for Lost Tales and Legend of the Rangers. Looking forward to checking them out.

Is there any one who has all the soundtracks for all the series?
 
AMRA said:
The soundtrack for the Crusade was okay, but it just didn't give the show presents. Franke's music gave Babylon 5 a distinct sound that pull you into each scene effortlessly. To me the soundtrack for Crusade was one of the reason the show failed. At times it was just to distracting, no matter how good the story was or the acting.
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It was no more distracting to me than Franke's first season scores for B5, which also failed to hit the mark on a number of occasions, as he was getting to grips with what was required.

The soundtrack often had me wondering if I was watching a show connected to B5.

The music for Crusade was okay, it just wasn't Babylon 5.
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Which was essentially the effect that JMS was going for.
 
B5_Obsessed said:
I agree about Franke on Season 1; his music was a bit heavy handed and a touch too electronic in places, but there were flashes of brilliance even back then. Music is one of my favorite elements from B5 - one I feel the later Star Trek shows didn't properly respect. And the Sky is Full of Stars, Confessions and Lamentations, The Long Twilight Struggle, Z'ha'Dum, Severed Dreams, even Thirdspace, and of course Sleeping in Light have some excellent music in them.
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Not me, boy! I found the music bland and pointless and frequently annoying. I blame most of that on the strictures Franke was working under, but frankly (hah!) a lot of his stuff sounds like rejected Tangerine Dream cuts. Basically, the first piece of music from the show I liked was when the marines were breaching B5 in "Severed Dreams."

I did *really* like the season 5 opening theme, however.

I tend to think a show this heavily character-based needs a little leitmotif.
 
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