Honestly I think movies have gotten too realistic, to the point of surrealism. I miss the days when film carefully balanced immersion and that nagging "you're only a watcher in a dimly lit theater" feeling (and also wrote actual plots and stories). Everything is too graphic, too explosive, too predictable; it's just gaudy and full of lens flare. The music itself is always there to blindly tell us what to feel (if that), rather than act as a lens into character or provide anything remotely memorable.
I don't think I can remember a film score theme since Lord of the Rings, but I can recall most of the older film scores from the 40s through 90's from memory pretty well (particularly catchy is the theme from The High and the Mighty, which I find myself whistling at least once a week despite not seeing the film for a year or so).
Besides, I think we should be focusing on the larger travesty- using the Cor Anglais to play the "Celtic" music in the opening of the first piece in How to Train Your Dragon! No person in good conscience would ever use a French instrument commonly mistaken as English to play Irish music pretending to be "Viking" music.
Let's look at some of the cultural goings-on and useless commentary in "This Is Berk" for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNPIih4X7SA
0:00 - Maybe a little Elgar or something?
0:24 - Irish/"Celtic"... Is this LOTR I am watching by mistake?
1:00 - CHUGGA CHUGGA CELLOS TIME, BOYS! LET'S KICK OFF THIS STEREOTYPICAL HOLLYWOOD SCORE LIKE EVERY OTHER ONE!
1:11 - Irish "Epicness" (you see what I mean when I say "all epic music is either a Dance or a March" here, right?)
1:45 - Seems Russian or Balkans in character to me... off to the Gulag!
2:10 - ah, we're back to sweet ol' Ireland... catch the Uilleann Pipes?
2:20 - Back to Hollywood boys...
3:00 - Ireland, my sweet Ireland...
3:17 - Elgar would probably approve
3:28 - Now it's Pirate music*? English Sea Shanties it is...
3:40 - be very quiet, we're sneaking into an Elven fortress guarded by Nazis time-warped out of a 1940's WWII propaganda film...
4:00 - Magical Mysteriousness awaits!
*I should note that Sid Meiers Pirates! (2004) itself is set in 1620-1700, but the instrumentation and arrangements of the game was not available until the mid to late 19th century. The music at the time, as composed and performed in the New World along the Spanish Main, would have sounded more like-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPfwfxspyRA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKXORmI9q9s
(or like the English dances I linked the other day)
The reason "Pirates" are often associated with epic sea shanty-infused fanfare music is likely related the the Pirate films of the 30's, 40's, and 50's, such as Captain Blood and the famous Sea Hawk, both featuring scores by Korngold-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAMMgOtxISo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-RPzAbW7No
I don't think I can remember a film score theme since Lord of the Rings, but I can recall most of the older film scores from the 40s through 90's from memory pretty well (particularly catchy is the theme from The High and the Mighty, which I find myself whistling at least once a week despite not seeing the film for a year or so).
Besides, I think we should be focusing on the larger travesty- using the Cor Anglais to play the "Celtic" music in the opening of the first piece in How to Train Your Dragon! No person in good conscience would ever use a French instrument commonly mistaken as English to play Irish music pretending to be "Viking" music.
Let's look at some of the cultural goings-on and useless commentary in "This Is Berk" for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNPIih4X7SA
0:00 - Maybe a little Elgar or something?
0:24 - Irish/"Celtic"... Is this LOTR I am watching by mistake?
1:00 - CHUGGA CHUGGA CELLOS TIME, BOYS! LET'S KICK OFF THIS STEREOTYPICAL HOLLYWOOD SCORE LIKE EVERY OTHER ONE!
1:11 - Irish "Epicness" (you see what I mean when I say "all epic music is either a Dance or a March" here, right?)
1:45 - Seems Russian or Balkans in character to me... off to the Gulag!
2:10 - ah, we're back to sweet ol' Ireland... catch the Uilleann Pipes?
2:20 - Back to Hollywood boys...
3:00 - Ireland, my sweet Ireland...
3:17 - Elgar would probably approve
3:28 - Now it's Pirate music*? English Sea Shanties it is...
3:40 - be very quiet, we're sneaking into an Elven fortress guarded by Nazis time-warped out of a 1940's WWII propaganda film...
4:00 - Magical Mysteriousness awaits!
*I should note that Sid Meiers Pirates! (2004) itself is set in 1620-1700, but the instrumentation and arrangements of the game was not available until the mid to late 19th century. The music at the time, as composed and performed in the New World along the Spanish Main, would have sounded more like-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPfwfxspyRA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKXORmI9q9s
(or like the English dances I linked the other day)
The reason "Pirates" are often associated with epic sea shanty-infused fanfare music is likely related the the Pirate films of the 30's, 40's, and 50's, such as Captain Blood and the famous Sea Hawk, both featuring scores by Korngold-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAMMgOtxISo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-RPzAbW7No
Sample library developer, composer, and amateur organologist at Versilian Studios.