DVDizzy Forum

yukitora wrote:Ew Alan Menken. He's no good without Howard Ashman.

*grabs crate of tomatoes and strings slingshot*

yukitora wrote:Ew Alan Menken. He's no good without Howard Ashman.

It depends who he is paired with. When it's Glenn Slater, the result is at best mediocre and and worst downright lousy (as the additional songs in "The Little Mermaid" proved). When it's Stephen Schwartz, the results tend to be better. Though admittedly none of his current partners has the overall strength of Howard, Alan Menken is still a strong tunesmith. The fault usually falls on the lyricist... Menken himself is still doing good work.

SpringHeelJack wrote:

yukitora wrote:Ew Alan Menken. He's no good without Howard Ashman.

It depends who he is paired with. When it's Glenn Slater, the result is at best mediocre and and worst downright lousy (as the additional songs in "The Little Mermaid" proved). When it's Stephen Schwartz, the results tend to be better. Though admittedly none of his current partners has the overall strength of Howard, Alan Menken is still a strong tunesmith. The fault usually falls on the lyricist... Menken himself is still doing good work.

Agreed. The songs from "Enchanted" are quite good, considering that they aren't quite as memorable as some of Menken's previous films.

SpringHeelJack wrote:

yukitora wrote:Ew Alan Menken. He's no good without Howard Ashman.

It depends who he is paired with. When it's Glenn Slater, the result is at best mediocre and and worst downright lousy (as the additional songs in "The Little Mermaid" proved). When it's Stephen Schwartz, the results tend to be better. Though admittedly none of his current partners has the overall strength of Howard, Alan Menken is still a strong tunesmith. The fault usually falls on the lyricist... Menken himself is still doing good work.

I don't think the fault falls purely on the lyricist however. He just seemed more inspired under Howard's partnership. He seemed to put more effort into writing musical scores (compare the Beauty and the Beast score to anything he wrote after). Although since we are dealing with such a subjective manner, it ultimately depends on ones personal preferences, however I honestly believe as the years went by his music when from having melodic intergreity to simply being generic or bland. It doesn't mean they were *crap* (although some were!), it just means he no longer wrote music that only he could write.

Sometimes I rather enjoy Glenn Slater or Stephen Schwartz lyrics, but Howard was in a league of his own.

SpringHeelJack wrote:

yukitora wrote:Ew Alan Menken. He's no good without Howard Ashman.

It depends who he is paired with. When it's Glenn Slater, the result is at best mediocre and and worst downright lousy (as the additional songs in "The Little Mermaid" proved). When it's Stephen Schwartz, the results tend to be better.

I disagree. I thought that both Her Voice and I Want The Good Times Back blow every single song from Enchanted out of the water. Two classic Menken tunes that would be fabulous when set to animation.

Stephen Schwartz is overrated in my opinion. I love the stuff Menken's done with Glenn Slater. Home on the Range has lovely songs. If only the movie had been half as good as the music.

Marky, BOLT's animation is nothing short of stellar.

How much do you know about animation? Do you understand it?

Julian Carter wrote:Marky, BOLT's animation is nothing short of stellar.

How much do you know about animation? Do you understand it?

I know a lot about animation, and I find it very funny that you call the animation of the static, emotion-less, human characters in Bolt "stellar".
Not to mention the generic extremely computer generated looking hamster you see in every film.

I agree that Menken hasn't been as great since Ashman passed. I think part of the reason is that Ashman had a better idea of what a situation calls for. Compare "Silence is Golden" to "Poor Unfortunate Souls." The PE said Ashman didn't like the former at all, and we also know he had a lot of control over the sound a song would have (when he'd ask Menken to come up with certain sounds). Overall, I think the brunt of the problem still falls with the lyricist, because I haven't seen anything as witty as "Poor Unfortunate Souls," "Under The Sea," "Be Our Guest," "Belle," or "Prince Ali" since Ashman died.

As for Glenn Slater and Stephen Schwartz, I prefer the latter. The Little Mermaid Musical was a horrible disappointment music-wise. The only reason I can partially enjoy it is out of dedication to the original movie, though it's been grotesquely manipulated to sound more show-y. And HOTR doesn't offer enough to pass much judgment, good or bad. Schwartz, on the other hand, has done "Heaven's Light/Hellfire," "That's How You Know," and The Prince of Egypt (which probably has the best non-Disney animated soundtrack that I can think of).

Now that I think of it, I'm forgetting Hercules, where David Zippel was the lyricist. This was easily the best Menken soundtrack outside of the "Fab Four" for me.

Regardless, I'm still glad to hear Menken's taken over the reigns from the-woman-who-wrote-Shrek-the-musical-and-AB-because-I-can't-remember-her-name, just because his soundtracks were still better than those by other composers (I'm looking at you, Mulan). Who knows, this might just get me to see the film in theaters?

You are forgetting Menken's collaboration with Tim Rice. What do you think about that one?

sotiris2006 wrote:You are forgetting Menken's collaboration with Tim Rice. What do you think about that one?

must have liked it. That's why DD thought Prince Ali was written by Howard Ashman

Of course, Prince Ali and A Whole New World were written by Tim Rice.

PatrickvD wrote:must have liked it. That's why DD thought Prince Ali was written by Howard Ashman.

But 'Prince Ali' was written by Ashman.

Yeah, Tim Rice wrote "One Jump Ahead," "A Whole New World" and "Prince Ali (Reprise)." Still, I really liked "One Jump Ahead," too, so I wonder why Tim Rice never worked on another Disney movie after TLK.

Neal wrote:Anyone think that the change may be because of all of our whining and Lasseter is trying to appease fans?

Also, I wonder if Tesori had any music written already. If so, it'll probably now be lost forever.

I don't know about Lasseter listening to the fans, but since I think the outcry rang beyond our forum, it's possible. But anyway, Tesori's music may not be lost forever, but end up on the DVD in deleted stuff. And have musicians ever worked with old songs someone else wrote? I mean, once she wrote them, they belonged to Disney. So if Alan liked anything she did and thought he could use it...yea. I don't know, wasn't Sleeping Beauty like that, it had songs written by someone else, and most of them were deleted except "Once Upon a Dream" and that was along with "Skumps" written by someone else?

Oh, and I'm glad Alan's working on this!

I thought the Mulan soundtrack was great, along with that film in general. That film is probably on the same levels as TLK/TLM.

yukitora wrote:I thought the Mulan soundtrack was great, along with that film in general. That film is probably on the same levels as TLK/TLM.

I think Mulan is on the same levels as Hercules and Pocahontas, film wise.

I would consider Aladdin more leveled with TLK/TLM.

sotiris2006 wrote:

PatrickvD wrote:must have liked it. That's why DD thought Prince Ali was written by Howard Ashman

Of course, Prince Ali and A Whole New World were written by Tim Rice.

But Prince Ali was indeed written by Ashman. You must have been mistaken. Look it up and you'll see.

I got it mixed up then. I thought he wrote Prince Ali, but it was just the reprise. learn something new every day.

Personally I thought Tim Rice brilliantly stepped in for Ashman on Aladdin. Never once do you feel like the songs are different.

yukitora wrote:I thought the Mulan soundtrack was great, along with that film in general. That film is probably on the same levels as TLK/TLM.

The only song I didn't like was 'A Girl Worth Fighting For'.

Mulan's score was amazing. Breathtaking.

Not to get too off-topic (Sorry Rapunzel fans! ), but:

Yes, the Mulan score is beautiful. The songs, however, are all so-so and awkwardly place, imo. "Honor To Us All" is the only song from the film that I enjoy. And there is no possible way this film could be on the same level, song-wise, as TLM, or even TLK for that matter (which was another example of a great score and so-so songs).

Anyway, I have no idea what songs to expect from this film (which is so far off in the future as it is). I don't think much has been said about the characters of the film since Unbraided was nixed. I hope they do good with the witch, because I have a special fondness for Disney's villainesses and I wouldn't want her to break the chain.

Has an image of the Witch from this new version of Rapunzel been posted yet please?