> You have very sensible opinions, and it feels like this all comes down a
> simple matter of taste.

Thank you. It just might.

> If I want "real" music I'll turn to Mahler or
> Stravinsky or Bruckner. Williams is easy listened in terms of melodies and
> harmonies, Media Ventures is easy listened in terms of rhythm and energy.
> I do still prefer Williams style, but that doesn't exclude the other.

This is probably where we disagree most. You can see if the tables were turned I could just as easily say "if I wanted pulsing rhythmic action music, I'd turn to Media Ventures scores." Star Wars is actually one of the few places I'd turn in film music to hear classical-inspired, Star Wars-ian music. I've heard everything by Mahler, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, etc. and believe film music is the one place where their tradition is continued, case in point, Star Wars.

There's plenty of room for Media Ventures-styled music in summer blockbusters like Transformers and Pirate of the Caribbean. Of course it seems The Clone Wars is neither going to be a blockbuster or a good Star Wars film for that matter, so meh.

> Perhaps Williams doesn't rip off composers, but in terms of the classical
> world he's hardly original. His whole sound owes a lot to composers like
> Beethoven, Bruckner and Mahler.

It depends on what you mean by "original." No, he doesn't turn to the avant-garde all that often and like most film composers he sounds very tonal because of it, but I don't see what's so Viennese about his music other than the trademark marches or fanfares. I've heard people say that his action music is like Shostakovich, his melodies are like Hanson, and his orchestration is like Korngold's, but similarly you can trace EVERY composer's style to several sources. Beethoven was like Haydn. Bruckner was like Wagner. Mahler was like Beethoven and Wagner and Bruckner and Rimsky-Korsakov and Schubert etc. etc.

> But Kiner hasn't done any "simple quoting" in this movie. That's
> what he hasn't done, there's very few of the original themes in Clone
> Wars. And again this is a matter of taste, but the arrengement of the Star
> Wars theme I would say sounds fresh.

The reason it's so simple is because it's so short as if to say "here's your Star Wars theme, now enough of that." Doyle and whatshisface did that with Williams's Harry Potter theme and to me those short instances of arrangement were the best parts of their respective soundtracks. I'm all about continuity, so to me it just needs more.