#bc i kept hearing so many of horner's elements

[moki-dokie]

stunning visuals and acting aside, can we talk about the music in avatar 2 for a sec?

james horner was truly one of the top masters of music of our time. i can't begin to tell you how gut wrenching it was for me when he died, to know we'd never hear another beyond beautiful composition from him. avatar's soundtrack was absolutely stunning and i'd dare to say belongs in the top 5 scores he's done. avatar's music was just as critical to the immersion of the film as was the groundbreaking new filming techniques at the time. the elements he used were just... unique in a way i can't really put into words. and throughout the entirety, he kept a very elaborate thread of a theme going. every single note was crucial storytelling. i know each and every single scene by the soundtrack alone - do you know how hard and rare it is that music can match the visual storytelling so well that it becomes one with it? anyway. horner went above and beyond on this.

and when he died, i had no idea how they were ever going to substitute another composer for him. because there is no substitution for james horner. he is a class unto himself. hans zimmer is leagues behind him in my personal opinion (and hans is so overrated anyway but i digress). then they brought on a composer i'd really only heard of sparsely, rarely ever on his own, always working with another hugely famous person. but then i got to thinking - most of the things he had worked on had been with james horner. at which point i thought, alright, he obviously knows horner's work well enough it at least won't suck.

simon franglen composed a fucking loveletter to horner with avatar 2's soundtrack, yall. and i mean, of course it is. you don't work with someone who touches the souls of millions of people for decades without having a hell of a bond with them. and i can't imagine this was easy for simon to do. horner left such a massive, black-hole sized void in the lives of those he was close to, in the music he'd made. but in every song, you can feel his presence there. simon made sure of that. no, it isn't on the same transcendent level as james's score but... i think there's something there in that. we're getting what might as well be a eulogy in musical form. we get to hear just how much love and respect simon had for him, we get to experience james horner through the lens of someone who must have cared a great deal for him. in ways, this seems so very fitting to the theme of avatar. his energy was only borrowed, but he is not gone. i can hear him in every song, like a steady heartbeat that holds everything else together. and to simon, i have to say thank you. thank you for making his heartbeat so mighty.