Movie Music

I thoroughly enjoy the music of movies. Here I'm talking about background soundtrack music. A great movie score can add so much to a film. Here is a list of my 25 favorite such songs; no surprise that the list is dominated by music from Star Wars (8) and Lord of the Rings (7). I've included links to YouTube videos of each song. This may, of course, be updated as I watch (and rewatch) movies.

1. Duel of the Fates (Star Wars). I struggled with putting this song ahead of the Imperial March. But this song is just an amazing piece of music, both instrumentally and vocally. This song actually gives me the chills.
2. Imperial March (Star Wars). Classic.
3. Battle of the Heroes (Star Wars). Music during the duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan in Episode III. More great vocals and instrumentation.
4. The Black Riders (Lord of the Rings).
5. Swords Crossed (Pirates of the Caribbean).
6. The Battle (Gladiator).
7. Emperor's Theme (Star Wars). Shares a bit with the Imperial March, but used more when the Emperor is on screen; dark and ominous. It's great.
8. Highway Chase Theme (The Matrix: Reloaded).
9. The Bridge of Khazad-dum (Lord of the Rings).
10. The Destruction of the Ring (Lord of the Rings). Good short tune with good vocals.
11. Lobby Shooting Spree Theme (The Matrix).
12. He's a Pirate (Pirates of the Caribbean).
13. Star Wars Main Theme (Star Wars). Includes lots of great music, including the opening crawl theme and the music during the most suspenseful parts of the attack in the Death Star in A New Hope.
14. Isengard (Lord of the Rings).
15. The Fellowship (Lord of the Rings).
16. Driving With the Top Down (Iron Man).
    
17. The Lighting of the Beacons (Lord of the Rings). From Return of the King.
18. Funeral Theme (Star Wars). Great little ominous tune from the prequels with a hint of the original trilogy.
19. Jaws Theme (Jaws).
20. Professor Umbridge (Harry Potter).
21. The Dark Knight Theme (The Dark Knight).
22. Smeagol's Theme (Lord of the Rings).
23. Hedwig's Theme (Harry Potter).
24. Yoda's Theme (Star Wars). Soft and slow music, very good.
25. General Grievous' Theme (Star Wars). A nice piece of music from Episode III.

The Myths

I feel like I'm coming to the end of editing on The Lords of Sargoff. My wife has started to reread it. If I feel okay with it after another read-through or two, I do believe that I'll look into submitting it somewhere over the next few months. No matter what happens, it's been great fun, and I look forward to writing the second book in the series (which I will be doing at some point, whether or not book one ever gets published). I currently envision there being 3-5 books in the series. I know I've mentioned this before, but I've decided that The Lords of Sargoff is the name of the series, and the name of the first book is currently The Second Shadow, but that is not final. (A lot of novels that get published get renamed by the publisher anyway.)

In other writing news, as I have mentioned I may do, I have started expanding on my previously posted article, The Case for Death. The idea is to expand it into something book-length. I have 7 myths that humans often believe about death, and each chapter will be discussing why each myth is incorrect. Below are the seven myths and a quick summary. Let me know if you have any thoughts about any of them. This project is, of course, only in the beginning stages, and I need to flesh out the ideas a lot more. And I need to do a lot of reading.

1. A Good Life is a Long Life. A lot of the times, our focus is on keeping ourselves healthy and living a good, long life. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that shouldn't be our focus. The point of life is not to live as long as possible, but to fulfill God's plan for your life in the time you are given, whether that's twenty years or a hundred years.
2. A Good Life is a Wealthy Life. Same general idea as the previous one; life is not about building up treasures on Earth, but about building up treasures in Heaven. We should be more generous and use our resources for good, instead of simply building up our assets.
3. We Deserve Tomorrow. I think this is one of the toughest for us to understand. As we all know, we're all sinners and fall short of the glory of God. The Bible says that we all deserve death. However, it's not that we deserve death in fifty years; we all deserve it now. This may seem like a morbid thought, but we must realize that each day we have is truly a gift from God, and not a right we have. We should be thankful for every day, because for all of us, tomorrow is not guaranteed.
4. Life is Fair. It, of course, is not fair. Some good people die young, and evil people live long. Some lives are tougher, and some are easier. Life isn't fair, and in reality, it doesn't need to be. Life should not be about complaining that things aren't fair, life is about doing what you can with what you have.
5. Our Life is But Our Own. America is a very individualistic country, with the whole "look out for number one" mentality. We're not on this Earth to live as we like; we should be mindful of the needs of others, and more importantly, surrender to the will of God in our lives. It's about His plan, not ours. For each of us, that plan includes different purposes, different places, different times, and different life spans.
6. Good People Go To Heaven. This is also a tough one to understand, but the Bible clearly teaches that salvation is earned through faith in Christ and not through being a "good" person.
7. Death is the End. We all fear death, but that's due to a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to die. It is not the end, but merely the beginning of the next (and final) phase in our lives. We must not hold on to our lives so tightly in our fear of death that we never step out of our comfort zones in faith.