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In my opinion there is too little footage about Vangelis Blade Runner Soundtrack work in the making of documentry "Dangerous Days". I mean honestly without Vangelis's Soundtrack that Movie would dev. not be what it is all about blade runner! The music is so important in Blade Runner.

what do you think? they're talking XX Minutes about Cars and Clothes designs and the music gets a bit lost

I remember Charles de Lauzirika mentioning in an interview that Vangelis passed on participating in Dangerous Days, which is a shame, because he could have contributed some brilliant insight. The composer is also known to have a reputation as reclusive, though.

I agree. I posted this reply in another thread a few weeks ago. I sort of feel that even though Vangelis declined to be interviewed they still could have done a little more on the music in some way.

I'm a big fan of the soundtrack because it really helps set the mood of the movie without you really noticing it. I feel like too many movies use the music to try and manipulate how the audience is supposed to feel at certain points instead of just enhancing the movie going experience. I don't think you should be aware of the music while watching a movie, I think it should just be a seamless part of the movie. Otherwise, if you notice the music it takes you out of the moment.

I was into music like Tangerine Dream when Blade Runner came out and I had just bought the soundtrack to Thief which came out the year before. I also have their soundtracks to Near Dark and Miracle Mile among a few of their other albums.

I would have loved to see a featurette on the 5-Disc set of Vangelis. Music is so important to a movie but they rarely talk about it in the DVD Extras. I'm not just talking about BR, I'm talking about most of my DVD special editions. I'm a fan of soundtrack music an I'm always curious as to why a certain composer was chosen in the first place, and what his motivation was while creating the music. Was he given a lot of direction or free reign to do what he saw fit? Even movies that don't have a composer but use a compilation of music. I want to ask why they chose certain songs.

I know Vangelis isn't very cooperative, and I was ready for his non-involvement. But what would have been much more interesting to me (and I may be alone in this) would have been an interview with some of the people at the New American Orchestra - what they were asked to do, how they felt about doing it, and how they felt about the result.

I think there's a really fascinating story to be told there, which could potentially shed a lot of light on the whole Vangelis situation...

The New American Orchestra was a group of studio musicians that were put together at the behest of the Blade Runner Partnership to record a badly arranged version of something which vaguely resembled Vangelis' pieces for the soundtrack. I'm sure that basically the guys who played on it just cared about the paycheck. The result sure sounded that way.

At least, that's what it seemed to me. I remember feeling supremely gypped when I bought the album.

totally agree. the orchestra version is uncomparable... was so dissapointed by that arranged soundtrack

When I managed the record store, and I saw people thinking about buying the NAO version, I just had to step in and give them the skinny about the recording.

People still bought the NAO sometimes, but this was before the 1994 Vangelis version. I'd rather lose a sale than have someone buy an inferior product (or at least know what they were getting).

But I agree with I.J., it would have been an interesting addition, if there was some sort of story there. But if it was like most 'studio musician sessions', it was hastily done, the musicians were given the music, and they probably had a few days to do it. Kinda hard for the artists to put anything into it when it's being treated like a product, ya know?

Oh yeah: the sax soloist on the NAO recording is Tom Scott, who is one of the best studio saxophonists in Los Angeles. The late Tommy Tedesco plays guitar in a few spots. These are not slouches on this recording. They just don't sound especially motivated..."phoned in" performances.

If you want good insight about the LA studio musician attitude, the late, great Frank Zappa breaks it all down in a song called "Yo Cats." Unfortunately the song is not on iTunes but at least the lyrics are on the Intarweb:

http://www.metrolyrics.com/yo-cats-lyrics-frank-zappa.html

(Oh yeah, almost forgot, parental warning, explicit lyrics, blah blah blah.)

Tommy was literally on EVERYTHING from the 1960s - 1980s (ok, maybe not everything, but...). He was really incredible, but his name is virtually unknown outside of other guitarists, or soundtrack enthusiasts.

That seems to be the case,maybe they didn't get any worthy footage or interviews, is he dead,I haven't researched him lately? I did have the br cd ,vangelis's a while back ,one of the best sound tracks and i've never seen one go with a movie any better than that!

I'm one who believes Tom Scott's performance on "love Theme" is better than the Vangelis cut.

Totally agree with previous posts re: the "members" of the New American Orchestra, who are all probably extremely hesitant to include their 'faux' BR soundtrack on their resumes, let alone even admit to anyone in private that they participated in the sessions.

As for the minimal amount of material on Vangelis' work in the new BR DVD set, I don't know what more could've been added, since they couldn't get the man's participation to discuss his work at length. Yes, it would've been nice to have had a special section on the DVD just dedicated to Vangelis, but without his participation, what was Charles & Co. supposed to do, just cue tracks of the score over video of people listening to it? All due respect, that wouldn't exactly make for thrilling viewing. They do spend some time in Dangerous Days talking about what a remarkable accomplishment the score is and what Vangelis was like to work with, etc. Anyone wanting to learn more about the various BR soundtracks, official and otherwise, can spend a few minutes hunting online or flipping thru their trusty Future Noir. Maybe Vangelis' not wishing to involve himself with this latest series of documentaries was a conscious decision to further his status amongst the BR community as a "hermit genius"...or maybe it was one of the silliest mistakes he's ever made...maybe both