> This is a stellar write-up, one of your best.

Thanks!

> That said, I have this nagging sense that a score like Dune doesn't really deserve to be treated to such a detailed analysis any more than many, many other scores that have as much thought put into them. Zimmer has made himself such a lightning rod and built such an effective hype machine that we can't help but agonize over his scores and whether they're masterpieces or transforming film music as we know it (and whether that's good or bad), when the reality is often that they're far less innovative or distinct or varied in quality than they seem at first.

It's perhaps the logical progression of the various 'look at how we made this!' videos for Man of Steel. So much of the attention spent on the score was examinations of its component parts - and less so its viability as music or its impact on the narrative.

In a weird way, there are also parallels with how Leo won his Oscar for The Revenant. There, a lot of the conversation was about how the actor actually got wet and ate a real raw fish and whatnot - and there's a similar undercurrent of 'look at what he went through!' with the rationale behind Hans getting this award.

> Setting aside my 'rating' of Dune (I think it's fine/solid, like you), there's not really anything all THAT truly remarkable about it (in terms of things worth dissecting in a deep dive analysis), at least in comparison to lots of other scores that try to tailor techniques to their film's narrative/world and have interesting stories behind their creation. And yet, it's Dune, Dunkirk, Blade Runner, Interstellar, Inception, etc. that have gotten a far greater amount and depth of analysis than any other scores from the past decade+ - from people who like and dislike them, and everyone in between. It 'makes sense' - he's the most important composer of the last 30 years, he's got a huge public profile, he's scoring each year's biggest films, he's bridged the gap between film and pop music, there's more available/relevant information out there about him and his scores to build upon, etc. - but I would love to see more (from you or anyone) of this level and quality of analysis for non-Zimmer scores.

It's a fair point. ALL THIS ATTENTION for something that's ***, vs. the more limited real estate for scores I like more, isn't quite 'something is rotten in the state of Denmark', but it is proportionally odd nonetheless. But I'd also say this is also a function of how Hans has been covered in the Too Big To Fail era. There are so many more quotes and pieces about this - and more interesting tidbits in the public domain about how it was created - than, say, Spanglish, for which I had a red carpet interview and maybe a few other brief comments to work off of.

And I'd counter that given the popularity of Dune, its awards attention, and the propaganda machine that assembled behind it (an ad I saw on Facebook when the film came out had a producer saying it was maybe the greatest thing Hans had ever written, something I would've assuredly quoted and mocked in my piece if I could've found it this year) me justifying why I didn't love it probably merits being more wordy - just as was the case with Man of Steel.

Funny enough, I'd call this a pretty short post for something like Dune. If I'd written this all in one go instead of whittling down individual sections as I went, I'd venture the first draft would've clocked north of 4,000 words. And editing this one actually wasn't a huge challenge; for that, look to the Holkenborg 2021 post which took ages to cut down to its final sub-3,000 word form (heck, the Snyder Cut portion was over that threshold in its initial incarnation).

It would admittedly be interesting to go back once this is all done and see how the word counts break down across what I've covered.