Hits 21 - Scores On the Doors (1): Michael Giacchino's Up

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

Welcome to a new bonus podcast: Scores On the Doors. Andy from Hits 21 takes a deep dive into some of Hollywood's most famous soundtracks and scores.

["Pomp and Circumstance"] Hello there, and welcome to the first episode of Scores on the Doors. My name's Andy, and I'll be your host here. Most of you have probably been directed here from Hits 21, the show I co-host with Rob and Ed where we look at every UK number one single of first the noughties and now the nineties, but here we have something very different. This is a spin-off from the main feed, you don't need to have listened to the main show before because we're talking about something entirely different from the UK pop charts. This is where I get to indulge myself a little bit and talk about one of my great passions, film music. Film music has been one of my most persistent and intense

interests for basically the whole time that I've been engaging with either music or cinema. As a child I used to listen closely to the scores of the Star Wars saga and feel proud of myself for noticing the individual themes, for figuring out what they mean and spotting them when they pop up in unexpected places. And I was learning to play a few instruments myself at that time so I was also beginning to understand keys, modalities, structure and tone and how they all come together in music, all of which led me to understand from a pretty early point that film scores are not just there for decoration but they are telling a story, either by echoing

and amplifying the story on screen, enhancing the story on screen by adding additional texture to it, or sometimes actually telling a story of its own that acts as a companion piece to what we're watching. This really stuck with me and I studied music at A-level and then at university and the more I learned and the more scores I listened to, the more I felt that I was in my happy place when speaking this language and when listening to this language. Sometimes I would spend hours unpacking scores of films I'd never even seen or analysing every note of those films I had seen and I went on to

devote my master's degree to this topic with my 60,000 word dissertation titled Music of Science Fiction and Composing for the Evolving Audience. Don't worry these aren't all going to be sci-fi choices but fair to say there was a lot of them involved in that one so it's fair to say that this is sort of my specialist subject so I'm going to take this opportunity to talk about it some more. I'm just sort of trying this out for now, I don't know how many episodes of the show there will be and I don't know if this will stay as a spin-off or eventually become its own thing or whether this might just be a one-off, so enjoy it while it's here. I would love to get your feedback on whether you enjoy this, so please do take a listen and let me know what you think. The format is simple as this,

for as long as the show might last each time I'll pick a film soundtrack and talk it through, pointing out its most interesting aspects, looking at how it tells its story and creates a sound world, and hopefully keeping it pretty real, not getting too lost in the theory or the terminology. There will be some of that, but I'll always explain what I'm talking about if I start getting into the sort of bigger topics around film music. I'm intending this to be for everyone, from beginner to expert. Sometimes I might look at a whole franchise rather than one film and see how the sound has evolved, but more on that at another time. For now though, let's begin with the first film to enter the scores on the doors ranks,

a gorgeous emotional little animation from 2009, courtesy of our friends at Pixar. Starting many years ago, we watch as young Carl Fredrickson meets the love of his life, Ellie, we watch as young Carl Fredrickson meets the love of his life, Ellie. And we see how Carl's life with and without Ellie unfolds. It is of course, up! To start us off, here's a quick little mix of the film score to give you a taste of Paradise Falls and beyond. I'm going to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a I'm gonna be a good boy. The end. The I'm sorry. Okay, so that was a quick whistle stop tour of the music from up composed by Michael Giacchino, a name that you might be familiar with as he is very well travelled. Giacchino's first big break was on Lost where he composed the music to every episode of that show, and by the way did a simply incredible job of it, and from there he got the gig for The Incredibles and for Ratatouille. And now you might be detecting a theme. Yes, Michael Jachino has sort of become known as Mr. Pixar over the years with his scores for Up, Inside Out and Coco all making quite an impact on the hearts and minds of the audience as well as I should say the Incredibles and Ratatouille as well. It's quite the Pixar catalogue that he's got to his name.

Everything I'm going to talk through on this episode and all of the clips I'm sampling are all available to stream and purchase in all the usual places as part of the Up! original soundtrack release. What we just heard there was Up! with titles from the very start of the movie, Married Life from that famous montage with Carl and Ellie's life near the start, Carl Goes Up, the staring piece that plays as the balloons are released and Carl's house takes to the skies, and the Ellie badge from the very end of the film where Carl awards Russell with the badge and the two enjoy ice creams together. So why have I picked this, and especially why have I picked this as the first film to

discuss? Well, there's a few reasons. This is an extremely interesting score in more ways than one, because it both plays into musical and narrative convention by giving us the big Hollywood moments we want, and also subverts it, and even inverts it sometimes, to make us question the reality of the narrative. It's an extremely emotional score as well, that's what both the score and the film are chiefly known for, and I'm a sentimental old sap, so that gives it some points as well. But I think the main reason that I've picked this for the very first score to discuss is because there is a simplicity to this, which is kind of genius really. A few minutes ago when I played those clips you might have noticed

that there were only two different themes at play in those four clips We'll revisit both of them in a moment just to remind you but that's pretty much what you're getting with this score The whole thing is largely built around those two themes the love theme for Carl and Ellie and Charles Munster's theme On first glance it doesn't seem like enough but the way the two themes are developed throughout and then used in contrast with each other, helped to tell the story in a deceptively simple way, allowing the themes to run free and pull at the heartstrings, while still hitting narrative beats whenever it needs to. The simplicity of the thematic material in this score is its greatest strength, and that's's saying something because there is a whole lot of great great stuff here and the key phrase I used there was deceptively simple. It may sound very straightforward but once you

look into this and see how the uses of those themes are different each time they appear and what the emphases are and how that's being achieved it's really a masterful piece of work this. So let's begin with another look at Married Life. This is the most famous piece from the film, the one that you're probably most likely to know from the most famous scene of the film, as Carl and Ellie's marriage across decades goes by in front of us in four short minutes before Carl is left alone. Here's some more of that lovely piece Married Life. I'm sorry. I'm going to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a The End The So I'm going to pause at this point just so you know where we are in the piece. That first minute or so that you just heard covered all of the happy, cheerful events in Carl and Derry and Ellie's early marriage. Buying the house that they played in as kids and renovating it, putting their handprints on the post box going for picnics together. Before the pacing gradually slows, almost to a stop, telling us that something is wrong and the happiness is being disturbed. And that's communicated through the music itself and what we've already become accustomed to. The musical safety of that brisk mid-tempo waltz that we've been following all the way through, that safety is being disturbed, something is slowing it down, and that just instinctively

tells us that something is wrong. And the fact that we've already connected to that music and we've seen that as a comfort means that we are connecting to the characters of Carl and Ellie but we are caring about this because we don't want this pleasant musical experience to be disturbed so when it is disturbed we know something is wrong for Carl and Ellie we associate the two and we feel sad with them we don't want that to happen we want the music to carry on and be happy, we want Carl and Ellie to be happy, this is us connecting to the characters. And this is the part of the montage where Carl and Ellie find out that they can't have kids with a simple solemn piano version of the theme carrying us through that moment. To really appreciate the story that we're being told here,

it's helpful to identify characters in the music. That theme, that do-do-do-do theme that carries us all the way through, that is Ellie, that's the character of Ellie. She's the constant throughout this montage. It's played in various settings here with different instrumentation in different modes, but it's always Ellie. And the more frivolousous playful elements of the piece are Carl, particularly those muted trumpets that are almost comedic in their sound that come in over that sad piano theme and bring us back to the nice foot tapping piece that we were previously enjoying. That's Carl

reawakening Ellie and getting her back to her life and thus restarting the piece and getting us back to comfortable territory. And now we rejoin the piece for the ending where Ellie's theme continues playing all the way through. It's the sole focus of the piece because Ellie's health and well-being are now Carl's sole focus as she nears the end. And this is on a slow piano with nothing else behind it really because there's not much more Ellie can do at this point quite frankly that's what's trying to be communicated here that Ellie's life is continuing she's still here but now it's in a much more soft much more restrained fashion and as Ellie leaves the world at the end the peace ends and her theme finally stops.

["The Star-Spangled Banner"] I'm sorry. Yes, let's all dry our eyes, shall we? I think what's important to note though is that although that's an extremely sad end to the scene and to the piece, and it's executed so well by Jucino there. I think what's important to note is that we never leave the major key, we never leave that optimistic hopeful sound that carries all the way through a married life. Even at the very end when Ellie passes away we're left on a very clear very uninterrupted very very resonant major chord. That her life has been happy, it feels complete, that she's not leaving on any kind of regret or

with any kind of tension in the air. And I think that's one of the things that makes it most emotional really, is that there are complex emotions at play here. That we're not just learning about a life having been lived, we're learning about a life having been lived happily. And although it's had its ups and downs and its sadnesses within it, Ellie is ultimately leaving in a happy place. It's a fantastic piece of work.

And I think it's no surprise that this is the most famous scene from the film, because these four minutes are just an education in how you embed story, character, theme and structure into film in order to tell a story with no dialogue with just the music and just the images that is incredibly powerful and is done entirely through musical texture with visual accompaniment. That is cinema at its finest. But let's move on to happier times.

Let's talk again about that piece I played at the start of the episode, Carl Goes Up, where the balloons burst out of the house and launch it into the sky. At this point, the purpose of Ellie's theme changes. It still represents her, but now it represents her through Carl's eyes and how she's still motivating him even though she's gone. Of course, everything that Carl is doing throughout most of the movie is about constantly keeping

Ellie's memory alive and doing exactly what he thinks she wanted by going to Paradise Falls, meaning that she is a constant presence in the movie, and her theme, taken forward from Married Life, supports that by making Ellie a fully present musical character. This is the magic of what you can do with film scores, is that even though a character has gone, has left the story in a visual sense

and in a narrative sense, the character can still be fully present in the music, and you can get to the subtext of what is motivating characters through that. Listen here to the extremely peaceful, calm, warm, satisfied strings as they take on Ellie's theme as Carl takes to disguise. Because that's what he believes she would be feeling in this moment. This is Ellie through the memory of Karl. So The I'm going to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a So as we arrive in Paradise Falls, let's remind ourselves of the other main theme from Up. In the universe it's known as the Spirit of Adventure song, but it's going to be known to us as Charles Munce's theme. Right at the very start of the film, a young Karl watches Munce's adventures on TV as he flies around the world, discovers new areas of the globe, and then he goes outside to try and recreate them in his front yard in what is one of the most unabashedly pleasant old-fashioned bits of swashbuckling jazz imaginable. Let's remind ourselves of that tune first of all. I'm going to make a little bit of a Isn't that just lovely? I mean aside from anything else in the film and getting away from the story for a second, I do want to just quickly acknowledge that piece first of all. In just one minute the sense of fun, whimsy, harkening to old times past and a lot of actual

jazz detail in there as well through the instrumentation, through the use of the bass line and through the way that, through the use of the bass line and through the way that harmonically develops all the way through. It really does make jazz look so easy so I'd really just have to praise that little bit in particular. At the very start of the movie what a way to set the tone for a score with real credibility to it yeah. But as that theme develops as we get to Paradise Falls we then meet the man who inspired this, Charles Muntz, who definitely is that swashbuckling adventurer that we're familiar with, but this is where the story starts to subvert slightly, that although he is no less than what he's

been described, there is a sinister edge to him, that he is ruthless in his pursuit of new lands, that he is someone who believes in conquest and locking things down when he gets there, rather than the friend to all man that he's been depicted as thus far. And it takes a while for that to reveal itself, so we get different versions of the theme that gradually turn more and more sinister to complete that transition. And I think the really interesting thing about this is that most villains get themes that start as a villain theme and you might hear them in happier settings at the start but they

always reach their natural home as a villain theme. This is the opposite what you've just heard there in that Up With Titles sequence is a piece of happy friendly jazz that feels completely at home in that setting and when it gets turned into the villain theme that it actually is it feels out of place it feels wrong it feels corrupted because that's what's happened to Charles Muntz he shouldn't be a villain he's just been alone for too long with his thoughts he's been not questioned for too long and so these genuinely lovely ideals that

he started out with have now tended to something that's very strange and sinister and not nice to listen to. But first let's hear a version of the theme that sort of sits in the middle of those two modes where Carl, Russell and the gang are all getting to know Muntz and they see him as a sort of Walt Disney figure, you know, someone who is of the days of yore that you look back as a sort of old film star that exists in this mythology and that's what this piece conjures up and then I'm going to transition straight into a piece from later on where you hear the first truly sinister version of Muntz's theme. It's a great transition across all three tracks.

So here are two more versions of Munster's theme and track that theme as it goes into different modes. ["Munster's Theme"] I'm sorry. The End I'm sorry. So yes, that was two different versions of Munch's theme. First of all, we had the Nickel Tour where the gang are shown around and we have that more Disney-fied version of the theme. And then we had the Explorer Motel where they get to know Munzer's true intentions a little more and we get that very, very dark version at the end there that builds towards their escape from Munzer's lair. What I think is really interesting about this intention of developing the theme from something that sits naturally as a very happy,

very glorious thing into something that's very unwelcome and very sinister. I think it actually has the same intention as Ellie's theme is that once again we're seeing something that is important to Carl, that is a core part of his personality and his life experience, that he's interpreting that through his eyes. So the way Ellie's theme sticks around all the way through and is incorruptible is always this lovely force because that's how Carl sees Ellie. Here we have Montz's theme, which Carl has grown up on and associates months as this wonderful heroic figure that has this uncomplicated joy in his heart and so when he's confronted with

the real months we hear that through Carl's ears again and it has to be twisted and changed and corrupted because that's all Carl can do with it. We're seeing it through his eyes once again. It's a really fascinating exploration of how people can change in your eyes and yet you're still trying to grasp onto something that you do know about them. So we have those two opposing ideas,

but coming from the same central concept, which is that they are through Carl's imagination and through Carl's experience of these people. Ellie, like I say, is incorruptible and that theme doesn't change really at all, whereas Munz's theme does develop in quite a horrible and unnatural way, because that is how it is when you see people who've changed and you try and grasp and find something to hold on to. So I think it's a very interesting part of the school and it leads to a natural conclusion later on,

which comes as a very satisfying end to that idea. But we're not quite at the end yet. Let's look at some more little features on Paradise Falls. I'm sorry. The So that was a piece called Walk in the House which comes after the arrive at Paradise Falls and Carl is forced with the situation of having to lug his house around on his back. How's that for a metaphor for you if you assume that Ellie is inhabiting the house? And you've got Russell, the friendly boy scout who's ended up pulled along on this mission with nobody's say so. You have Doug the dog who is a very lovely dog, but he's definitely a bit of a distraction.

And you've got Kevin Bacon, the bird, who again is a very lovely bird, but he's a giant rainbow colored distraction who months is after. And so Carl gets this sort of comedy piece here with this theme that is sort of a theme for all three of that gang of Russell, Kevin and Doug. They never really get their own individual themes and I think that's because that's not their story

that this is all through Carl's eyes and he sees them all as one collective at this point of this thing that is sort of dragging him down, that is holding him back from this mission of settling on Paradise Falls. And one thing that comes up here once again that we haven't really talked about enough is this jazz influence in here once again that we haven't really talked about enough is this jazz influence in the whole soundtrack that we get these muted trumpets just layering in a rhythmic layer over the top. And I think it is an important point to remember that Carl is quite an old man in this story that he naturally lives in an era long before this that there's a part of the film at the start that showcases how he really doesn't fit in in 2009, which I assume is when this

is supposed to be set, that he feels far more at place in the mid 20th century when he met Ellie, when they set up their lives together, when that kind of music, that sort of old dancehall jazz, would have been far more in vogue. And so that just sort of layers through the film slightly, that whenever we're sort of old dance hall jazz would have been far more in vogue. And so that just sort of layers through the film slightly that whenever we're sort of having a moment where Carl is contemplative and he's just sort of trying to muddle through and ignore the distractions around him, we get those little bits of jazzy influences, either those double bass lines at the bottom

or those muted trumpets over the top, just to remind us that this is not where Carl wants to be. This is not his natural place. And I think that's interesting, that that helps set a character for the whole film and not just the character of Carl. It helps set this concept of that this is an old fashioned man trying to live

in an old fashioned story in a world that's not going to allow it, that the world is not really at the same pace as he is, that he hasn't kept up with that. That's one of the lessons that Carl learns throughout the film and just that simple idea of utilizing jazz all the way through shows that he is out of step with reality slightly and I think that's very lovely. Another thing to point out about this as well is coming back to that metaphor again of looking around the house with Ellie in it on his back,

is becoming more of a distraction to Carl than he likes to admit. Because it's in the back of his head all the time and you can tell that from the music. Because even just in this little sketch type piece of music that we've got here, at the end of that phrase that we hear twice we have a little repeat of the end of Ellie's theme that he's always just thinking about Ellie just slightly even when there's other stuff in front of him

Ellie is always there in the back of his mind. Just compare these two moments again you'll see what I mean Isn't that clever? Isn't that quite cool to have something like that appear where you have a very small element of the theme that's only about 5%, 10% worth of the theme that's being taken out of it and used as an ostinato in its own right here. By ostinato what I mean by that is a piece of music, a piece of melody that's short enough, only a couple of seconds worth that it can be used as a sort of tiny little cue that you can throw in anywhere, and Osto being a kind of tinier, more agile version of a

leitmotif or of a theme. And that's really clever to take something small out of the theme and use it just to remind us that Ellie is always there in Carl's mind. just to remind us that Ellie is always there in Carl's mind. Another thing I'd like to look at just before we get to the conclusion of the film is some of the action music that's in this, because a film like Up that is very cerebral, that is very about people's emotions and is very about character, you could forgive that for not really knowing what to do with its action scenes. But as we've seen from a lot of Jujino's later works like the Spider-Man films and the Marvel

films as well as some of his earlier stuff from Lost, Jujino is actually really good at action music and he manages to utilise some of the themes that he's established so far to make some really good really fist-pumping action music here which I just wanted to give a quick shout out to. Have a quick listen to this. The So that's Escape from Munt's Mountain, which which you just heard which is towards the second act of the film where they're escaping as you might suspect from the title from Mont's lair and there's a few things about that that are really clever. First of all you may have noticed now that we've been talking about both of these themes for quite a while you may have noticed both of those themes appearing in the action there. That you had that near the start, you had a do-do-do-do, appear in the background, that

bit of Ellie's theme just carrying us through, reminding us that we've got Ellie on our backs in the form of the house and that that's still at the forepoint of Carl's mind that his dream of living on Paradise Falls is now in real danger. And so that existential worry, not just of captured by Muntz but of even if he does escape what's going to happen now because he can't live the life on Paradise Falls that he wanted that's right at the forefront of Carl's mind and you've also got Muntz's theme coming right after that in a few different variations which is again reminding us that this reality that Carl wanted for himself is now being invaded

by Munz whenever he thinks of Ellie, Munz is right behind him. But in some of those instances of both Ellie's theme and Munz's theme they're not actually the original theme as you would play it on a piano, it's not actually that theme. Cicino does this very interesting sort of classical technique of using a variation where the basic shape is essentially the same for both themes, but he's able to change some or all of the notes within that so that it's still recognizable as the theme, but you can just change the tune while keeping the shape the same to subconsciously conjure that image in your head of, oh I know that tune even if it's not quite the same tune that you've heard before. It's just a little trick to

make action scenes run a little easier which you see quite a lot in action movies actually that they have these fairly basic themes that are set out that have a very wide melodic line where they'll go up and then down and then up again in very noticeable places so that you can change the notes within it to make them easy to recognize even when they're not actually being played as you would imagine. If you think of music as a language it's sort of like imagining someone saying something as a colloquialism saying like you're right instead of are you all right. You know the basic shape of what is being said

and so you recognize it the same way you know the basic shape of these musical phrases so you can slightly restructure them, slightly reword them in the language sense and they still come through as the little ostinatos or the themes that you know very well. It's really clever and it's just one of the many clever things about this score. So we're going to move now to the climax of the film where Carl is at a real low ebb. Russell and Doug and Kevin have all been taken by months onto his flying zeppelin lair and Carl is left alone with a house that's been attacked by months and the dogs so really he doesn't have much at his

disposal. He sits in his house and he looks through his photo album where a really lovely version by the way of Ellie's theme plays called Stuff We Did which I'm not going to play now because it's very similar to the versions that we've heard already and I don't want to inundate you too much with that theme but that's very nice you should give Stuff We Did a listen as well. He looks around and he thinks what have I still got at my disposal and he realizes he still has the house and the film is at pains to always tell us that the house is his personification of Ellie. So what he thinks really is well Ellie can save

me, the house is Ellie so Ellie can save me And so the house flies into battle and that in Carl's view is Ellie sailing into battle. On the other hand, we've got Montz also flying through the air on his zeppelin and we know that his theme has been a big part of this as well. So we have Montz's theme flying through the air into the climax. We have Ellie's theme flying through the air

into the climax. And in the words of Harry Hill, which is better? There's only one way to find out. FIGHT! The Wow! ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in D major, Op. 16, No. 2 in D minor, Op. 16, No. 3 in D major, Op. 16, No. 4 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 6 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major, Op. 16, No. 5 in D major Yes, what you've just heard there is quite an extraordinary thing which really gets into the minds of people like me who pour over film music and just excites us because what we had there was a musical duel which is a very rare thing to hear, surprisingly rare really given given you know how many films have heroes and villains themes coming up against each other. This is a really right up against each second of the music a duel where those themes are swapping over, over and over again. Sometimes you can't even tell which

is which because they do have a relatively similar shape in parts but first of all you've got that quite large version of Munster's theme as he's creeping up on the heroes about to capture them again. And then you've got that soaring, incredible, expressive version of Ellie's theme, completely pure and completely joyous as it sails into battle, which, by the way, is probably my favourite part of the whole film and of the whole score as well. Everybody says that married life is the bit that gets them weepy, that montage at the start of the film, and yes

I get that and that certainly had me going a few times, but this is the part of the film and a part of the score that always gets me really, because all the way through Ellie's theme, although it's a very happy piece and although it's quite simple and quite heartfelt, it's been something that has been holding Carl back throughout this film. It's been a weight around his neck, essentially, that it's represented grief for him throughout most of the film.

And here he's taking that grief and using it to power himself. He's using it as fuel, this is him seizing the day and being powered by his love for Ellie and so it's an incredibly joyous, incredibly victorious version of that theme and I find that very powerful, I think that's such a perfect climax to the score as well as a climax to the film and it's such a great dovetailing of those two different works of the score and the film itself where they've both reached this point of climax in two different ways because this is a climax

in a plot sense in the film where the two characters are coming face to face and there's an action showdown but in terms of character beats and in terms of character growth this is a climax as well And that's what the score is doing for us by giving us that massive version of Ellie's theme. We then go into some very difficult to decipher elements that, like I said earlier, where we have Munster's theme and Ellie's theme clashing with such regularity that you never really know which you're following.

And that is something that you don't hear very often that is a direct duel between two different themes and two different pieces of music. As we all know it's a Pixar film so the hero wins out in the end and that's when you hear that declamatory horrible off-key diminished chord at the end as Muntz falls to his inevitable Disney death. Such a textbook ending, such a brilliant way to do it, where you would write that out on paper and you think oh I've got these two themes that have been powering this whole film, one is the hero's theme, one is the villain's theme, let's have them duel at the end. But it's one thing to write that out on paper, to execute it

as perfectly as that without it sounding forced and frankly without it really standing out in the film and becoming a distraction. That is something that is very difficult to do and I have huge admiration for Michael Ticino for making that work. I think that's a crowning achievement of this film really, that all of this work he's doing where he has these characters that are interplaying with each other and characters that are quite prominent in the score, that are not as prominent in the film. They never dominate, they never become the text itself, this is always subtext and I think you know different people have different views on how scores are supposed to function and how obvious they should be in the text

and some directors like their scores to be really obvious and really at the front and really telling the story. Some directors like the music to be way back and just be doing its own thing. I occupy a bit of a middle ground where this is exactly the type of musical storytelling I love where it is telling a story that you can follow quite easily if you're listening out for it but it never dominates it never takes over like I say it's subtext it's not text so you can watch the film have all the subconscious elements of what the music does to you and really enjoy the film get swept away by it and then come home listen to the soundtrack and get a whole different

story out of it. That is the kind of thing that gets people hooked on film music for life and the biggest compliment I can give Michael Dicino is that this is the kind of score that has such deceptive simplicity, that has such big ideas and such well executed ideas that it can get people into film music as a wider genre and hopefully a few people listening to this might have thought the same and might now seek out this score and listen to it more in full, which you absolutely should. That piece was Seizing the spirit of adventure, a bit of a double meaning there, which Michael Giacchino likes to do with his pieces. And throughout we've listened to seven or eight different pieces of music from the Up soundtrack,

but I'm just going to finish with this last piece now called the Ellie Badge, which we did hear a little bit of at the start. This is one more version of Ellie's theme which plays at the very end where the grape soda bottle top is given to Russell as a badge for his outstanding bravery or whatever it is, I can't quite remember, but it's given to Russell as a badge at the end and represented as the Ellie badge and as they enjoy their ice cream outside and it's a happy ending we see the house sitting on Paradise Falls at peace and peace is the word I would use for this that the story is over at this point and this is about Carl moving on and being able to say goodbye to Ellie and Ellie in her house in Paradise Falls also taking a final look out at the world. So as the film fades out and the

music also comes to a very gradual, very very peaceful end, it just feels like the character journey for both Carl and Ellie is complete. It's a wonderful way to finish the film, so we'll finish off with this, the Ellie Bunch. I'm sorry. So there you have it. That was Up, a story of love and loss, of life and death, and of grief and recovery. A fantastic film with a beautiful score composed by Michael Ticino. All the music that you've heard in this episode can be listened to and purchased in all your usual places and just to recap all the things that we've gone through all the excerpts I've given you we've had Up With Titles, Married Life, Walk in the House, Carl Goes Up, The Nickel Tour, The Explorer Motel, Escape from Muntz Mountain, Seizing the Spirit of Adventure and The Ellie Batch.

I hope you've enjoyed this. I certainly have enjoyed doing this myself, so I think we'll probably come back for a few more of these. And so it only leaves me to say what's coming up next time on Scores on the Doors. Well, next time we have The Birth of a Legend in a film from 2006 directed by Martin Campbell starring Daniel Craig with a score by David Arnold. That's right, next time we're going to be looking at Casino Royale, the 21st instalment in the Bond series and the genesis of Daniel Craig's Bond and in fact the genesis or James Bond himself. It's a fascinating score with a huge story to

tell and believe me I have a lot to say about it so I think we certainly will be back next time to discuss Casino Royale in quite a bit of length. In the meantime I really hope that you've enjoyed this. Any feedback that you have either positive or negative don't worry I can take it. Any feedback you have would be really gratefully received as it always is for new things like this. If you want to leave a comment on Spotify or on your usual podcast provider then we'll make sure we get to that. Otherwise, as this is of course a Hits21 spin-off, you can email us at hits21podcast at gmail.com and we'll get to it there as well. As for other social media,

we are currently in between places at the moment because an actual Bond supervillain has taken over Twitter, so we're sort of between places at the moment. But yes, any feedback that you have would be very warmly received. I will see you next time to discuss Casino Royale with you. This has been Scores on the Doors. See you later folks!