Most of the time we look to reviews for an unbiased and somewhat impartial review. I fully acknowledge that complete elimination of bias and preference is impossible and we as writers and readers take that duly into account. That said the vehemence of your pre-existing is making your reviews difficult to read. It is obvious that you believe there is ONE way to write a score and that any variance from that very traditional approach will meet with scorn the farther away it roams from conservative leitmotif/Williams inspired scoring. I understand that view, many musicians hold it and yeah it’s a valid preference. But the reality is there isn’t just one philosophy to film scoring designed to meet various philosophies and approaches. Your almost absolute rejection of alternate approaches is getting so aggressive that much of the review becomes unreadable or simply unpleasant. I’ll agree with you that outside the film Zimmer’s score lacks impact and that I even agree with some of your philosophical objections to Zimmerman/remote control approach to film scoring, but I cannot reject the approach out of hand as you do. Enzo’s score to for all mankind is exactly right for that film and the atonal arrhythmic elements of 2001: A Space Odyssey are parts of its genius. Demanding a Williams-esque score for every and all films is a creative dead-end. It’s dogma that blunts, not aids creativity. I agree zimmer’s work has issues and his work on dune is nowhere near as revolutionary as he seems to believe, but the venom in your review says more about the reviewer than the work being reviewed and while I’ll accept that from Harlan Ellison and a few others, I tend to read those reviews (read his review of a new hope) for his writing more than as a critic for just that reason.

> It is obvious that you believe there is ONE way
> to write a score and that any variance from that very traditional approach
> will meet with scorn the farther away it roams from conservative
> leitmotif/Williams inspired scoring.

Interesting (conservative) facts then:
- Hans Zimmer also uses leitmotifs in Dune
- There are more methods to scoring a film, outside of Hans Zimmer or John Williams
- The criticism in the review is not levelled at the fact that Hans Zimmer doesn't sound or
score like John Williams, but that he seems to have only two modes of how his music sounds:
Very loud and building up to a crescendo or very quiet and essentially just droning on in
the background.

> Your almost absolute rejection of alternate
> approaches is getting so aggressive that much of the review becomes
> unreadable or simply unpleasant.
I think the problem is the way literally everything that Hans Zimmer does gets overhyped out of proportion. I watched Dune in cinema, loved it a lot, even liked parts of the music, but a lot of it left me very unimpressed. Of the albums I prefer the Sketchbook over the actual soundtrack.

> but I cannot reject the approach out of hand as you do.
Yes, I give you that. A number of recent works by Hans Zimmer that were interesting to say the least, got very grating reviews here

> Demanding a Williams-esque score for every and all films is a creative
> dead-end. It’s dogma that blunts, not aids creativity.
But that's not what was demanded in the review. John Williams is only mentioned once if I recall right - and I read this long review only a few minutes ago - and only then in the context of, that Hans Zimmer went furthest away from it. Your comment would make more sense, if you swapped John Williams with Toto, because the review compares those two scores a lot more.

> but the venom in your review says more about the
> reviewer than the work being reviewed and while I’ll accept that from
> Harlan Ellison and a few others, I tend to read those reviews (read his
> review of a new hope) for his writing more than as a critic for just that
> reason.
Definately agree here. The tone of the review is pretty off. It does raise good points, but sounds a lot more cyncical, than it would have to.