Intrada Soundtrack Forum

I'm enjoying everyone's contributions here. My passion for conclusive final cues in any score, be they soft or loud - no matter who writes them - is pretty well known. You folks have offered some geat descriptions of your choices, too.

Over the years there have been plenty of great endings to choose from... though it's a lost musical art these days.

I was playing SpaceCamp (1986) a lot this weekend and reminded myself that the finale to the score (the last track called "Home Again" that wraps the album) deserves a spot in my top.. what, five?... ten?... well, some choice number anyway. It's incredibly powerful. By the way, the end title music (that opens side two of the LP and is simply called "SpaceCamp") also has a terrific (albeit this time quiet) finish. Anyway, two great John Williams endings for the price of one. Or something like that.
--Doug

A lot of my favorites have already been listed, so I won't restate, but here are a few additional endings that I think are great:

CONAN THE BARBARIAN - and I'm talking about the finale of the film, not the end credits pastiche. A bit derivative of Stravinsky's The Firebird, but a powerful ending nonetheless.

CHATO'S LAND - A very unconventional ending, one that makes more sense if you are watching the film. I love how Fielding just ends the score on a percussive hit just as the film cuts to black - a grimmer, more hopeless statement in film music would be difficult to find.

THE LOST WEEKEND - After that heart-breaking statement of the love theme, Rozsa returns to the "city" music that opens the film, as the camera does a reverse of the opening and exits the apartment window to gaze on the NY skyline. It's a moment that never fails to give me a lump in the throat.

ALIEN - After so much unnerving modernism, Goldsmith ends with impressionistic beauty - a feeling that the menace, finally, is over and a great relief of tension for the audience. I'm talking about his unused end credits music, of course.

I ran across this great YouTube because someone linked to it on the FSM board. I'm posting it here because if you skip ahead to 2:47 in the video, Michael Giacchino directly addresses the subject of this thread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdlZg0hw01c

Yavar

WHITE FANG
Basil P. wrote a glorious cue for the re-union of Jack and WF.
The end credits sounds like a c & p but it's still a agreat encapsulation of the themes (and the only legit way to get ANY music from the film)

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujMSjXiRpOI

WHITE FANG
Basil P. wrote a glorious cue for the re-union of Jack and WF.
The end credits sounds like a c & p but it's still a a great encapsulation of the themes (and the only legit way to get ANY music from the film)

_________________
Film Score Monthly Articles & reviews http://filmscoremonthly.com/daily/articles.cfm?bauthor=22

http://www.cinemaretro.com/index.php?/archives/4189-THE-BEST-SOUNDTRACKS-OF-THE-DECADE.html


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujMSjXiRpOI

Well kudos on the interview because I thought it was a very good one. I especially like part 3.

Yavar

As already noted, John Williams is one of the masters of this. Earlier in the thread, I mentioned his "Epilogue" for the end credits of WAR OF THE WORLDS. He wrote another fine epilogue cue for THE FURY. It's magnificent, but it was recorded well after the score tracks were laid down, and is album-only. However, his final end credits contemplation of main theme for DRACULA actually does play in the film, and it's a real doozy. It perfectly sums up the sound world of the score, and takes it to a more regal, elegiac place. I think it's a great example of the ending music commenting on all that has been heard before.

Another example, same composer, same year even, is the terrific arrangement of the love theme for SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE that played over the final credits. You had to stay long enough to hear the entire main theme reprise, because those credits lasted forever. I saw the movie in the theater four or five times back then, and I always stuck it out through those endless credits in order to hear the love theme concert piece play out on big theater speakers. They beat the heck out of my little record player at the time.

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Randy Wilson
Dallas, TX

There are so many great endings (not much in the past 10 years, I agree) that is difficult to choose 5:

1) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: The way the End Credits moves from the Indiana Jones theme to the Slave Children theme and then perfectly merges with Short Round's theme and the love theme is one of my all time favourites

2) Alien 3: Not the end credits mix, but the Adagio is simply gorgeous and that ending in that lonely trumpet line for the empty sleep pod is great

3) Hostel 2: One of the few recent films for which the composer really developed an elaborated end credits (the Suite cue, 1st in the CD, but partially replaced in the film for a song)

4) Gremlins: The Gremlin Rag is a music that stays in your head.

5) The Fury: Not the end credits (that is great also) but that fantastic music for the "explosive" finale of the film.

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST

CHIEF picks up the sink, throws it thru the window , and escapes into the forest.
Music by Jack Nitzche

it does not get any better than this!

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujMSjXiRpOI

David Shire's RETURN TO OZ -- where the themes for Dorothy and Ozma combine in counterpoint under the final scene, followed by that amazing march! One of my favorite scores, and one of my favorite score endings.

EDIT: Whoops! I see Conrad beat me to it. Good taste, Conrad!

Allow me to instead mention the finale for Part I of Prokofiev's IVAN THE TERRIBLE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnBIs5cxMG8

(Of course, the final scenes of Part II are even greater for their inclusion of the chilling cathedral sequence ... but that's technically not the last cue in the film.)

Spider-Man 2 -- That scene where the camera pans around Peter Parker, with Mary Jane in the doorway. Then that beautiful woodwind motif for Mary Jane kicks in, progressing to the build-up of Elfman's main theme as Spider-Man zips around the city and through the helicopters. That was the first scene that came to my mind, just a beautifully-scored end scene. Elfman seems to have a knack for doing these incredible end scene cues... like with Batman, Edward Scissorhands and Alice in Wonderland too.

Something Wicked This Way Comes - "End Titles" is just sublime. As you put it, the main theme played by harmonica is 'simply divine'!

Daybreakers - I was hugely impressed with the score in the film. Then had to stay in my seat for the end credit music ("Daybreak" on the OST), a nice culmination of motifs from the score incorporated in a nice suite.

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