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Comment by smoldesu | Hacker News Reader

I don't mean this in a derisive way, but was anyone else just a little disappointed by the Dune soundtrack? When I saw Hans Zimmer was working on it, I really expected him to get cut loose on this project. Instead we got pretty standard Hans Zimmer fare, some of which just sounded like him phoning it in. We're in the desert? Do the stereotypical Arabic singing sting! We're in a dark evil place? Cue the chanting (which wasn't anything interesting, either; just some people reading off the names of different Duniverse factions, nothing creative). Since Dune was (to me) always about this constant subversion of tropes, hearing Zimmer lean into these played-out sounds really sucked the air out of a movie I anticipated for a while, and a musician who I have great respect for. Maybe my expectations were unrealistic, though.

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I completely disagree. I think it was pretty different compared to typical Zimmer soundtrack; it felt very alien and didn’t lean on an orchestra as much. For me, the soundtrack was an important part of why the movie was so engrossing in a theatre. Many of the people I know (subjectively) felt that the music was pretty unique and non-stereotypical. I mean, compare any of the top blockbusters and the soundtracks are all going to be pretty similar — Dune is an outlier, at least compared to that!

> We're in the desert? Do the stereotypical Arabic singing sting!

Well, Herbert did base Fremen culture, in part, on the desert-dwelling Bedouin and San People. The scenes were shot in Jordan (Wadi Rum) and Abu Dhabi (Liwa).

YouTuber Thomas Flight has an interesting video on the score (he's a fan):

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P50VrsM_xlU

Hans Zimmer himself on the topic:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93A1ryc-WW0

I dunno, I think it was really spectacular. It's "standard Hans Zimmer" in the way that it's a bunch of new sounds no one has ever heard before - but they are also close enough to normal sounds and cinematic themes to be familiar. To me it's the mark of true skill. It sounds like something out of this world, but also something I'm already comfortable with.

I bet there's maybe 5 people on Earth who could score a movie like this and make it as credible as Hans did.

It was good. It did the job. The notion that Hans Zimmer is one of a handful of people that could score this much less anything is kind of ridiculous. I also disagree it sounded out of this world, it was comfortable though because it was obviously Zimmer.

> We're in the desert? Do the stereotypical Arabic singing sting!

It's interesting you say that because Hans Zimmer specifically said in an interview they tried their best to dodge the cliche' middle eastern musical tropes in this soundtrack. Perhaps they didn't go far enough for some people.

If you want to see the full scope of Hans' work for Dune I would suggest checking out 'The Dune Sketchbook'. It is Hans' uncut attempt at the soundtrack for the film, and it's very adventurous.

Eventually these music cues had to be edited and adapted for the final version of the film, so a certain amount of compromise was necessary, but this is your best look at the essence of what Hans is doing, and it's very exciting. I like it better than the final soundtrack, and it ruined my appreciation of the final film somewhat because I know what Hans was going for.

All in all, I still enjoy the final film.

It's not even the best soundtrack to a Dune movie. By a long way.

There's no beating Toto[1].

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjJPjAkLXS8

(Okay, that was meant as a joke, but I do love the rest of the Dune 1984 soundtrack)

I'm not sure if we should be that surprised by middle eastern tones when we have terms like Butlerian Jihad[0] and Emperor Padishah[1] Shaddam[2] IV - infact, one of the things I like about Dune is this amalgamation of the east and west in names/terms in far far future - a future so distant that the religions we know now have mixed up and produced something very new but still relatable. Otherwise, if the focus was just to be as alien as possible, we could have characters made of entirely unknown matter speaking in an unknown medium - except they won't be as accessible. I think the trick is to make things as alien as possible without leaving humanity entirely behind, which I think Dune manages to do beautifully.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padishah

[2]: based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_(name)

Depends on your expectations but was generic Hans Zimmer alright.

I could have been happier with the soundtrack, but I think most of that is on the director rather than Hans Zimmer. The Dune Sketchbook Soundtrack [1] was in my opinion quite good; I think the director just chose to avoid some of the really cool, but rather esoteric, music he had available.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huC_e9EkN8U

Hans Zimmer explained parts of the writing process for one of the Dune tracks in a recent episode of Songexploder: https://songexploder.net/dune

I found it quite interesting and did not get the impression that he is just phoning it in, but it is difficult to judge from a short podcast of course.

Remember when Kubrik went into space and eschewed a traditional sci-fi soundtrack of theremins playing in locrian mode in favour of classical compositions by one Strauss or another? Science fiction movies, at least, were changed forever and in a good way. Ground was broken.

The Dune soundtrack evoked the middle east but leveraged cliches to do so. It was good music and an enjoyable listen but not ground breaking and if people associate wailing voices and heavy bass synth glissandos with desert scenes in future, it will only be because many movies have done that before Dune. Sticking to tried-and-true ups the grosses.

He has been brutally phoning it in for a while.

Agreed. I had very high expectations, but not unrealistic ones (i.e. I expected a memorable quality, but not the most memorable possible) that were not met. I actually now think Hans Zimmer was the wrong choice - they needed the Howard Shore of sci-fi, someone with experience but who was not a big name yet and needed to create something truly great to get there.

That's more or less with consistent with the movie being a solid 8/10 instead of anything better.

Hans Zimmer being involved is exactly why I was not looking forward to the soundtrack. He has really started to phone in these overly loud, overly dramatic, and overly gaudy soundtracks. It just drives me insane. He has no creativity and very obviously has teams of people just doing very stereotypical stuff that the masses seem to like. I love Villeneuve, but I can’t fathom why he likes working with Zimmer unless it’s a studio choice he has to go with.

I would have loved to hear what Johan Johannson would have come up with if he was still around.

i didn’t know it was him ahead of time but when i watched it on a flight a few weeks ago i pegged it as standard zimmer work. it was like blade runner 2049 and gladiator had a baby. quite derivative. enjoyable, but derivative.

Just curious, did you see it in a proper cinema or at home?

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