Underrated scores that have influenced you the most?

The Rocketeer
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO6S2qKFLclrrQDjbhylW6b3ThfPPHuHe

Independence Day
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2XL1LU1Am0iWHn8ZI7Ze8Wto9mXoV5vV
(With score available)

Short flight in a big balloon

(With score available)

Of course the race also.

And many many more from the classical repertoire

 

I was growing up surrounded by these highly lyrical themes. As a kid, they were just strong impressions, but now, I feel their melancholic and poignant nature hitting the deepest layers of my-self.

The first minute of this:

I miss when films were this pensive... This is probably my fave film ever. A masterful juxtaposition of the everyday against the metaphysical, a scene after scene, the mixture of what a human life is. With sequences like this, when music and picture interweave into this lost in thought mood... just to slowly shift to show some old weekend cottager jogging.

But also the adventurous melodies for these fantastic Jules Verne adaptations:

The music that plays in my head so often is from this another favorite movie of mine, an incredible parody of US pulp comics. A sensational theme after a sensational theme!

Trying to come up with great themes and melodies like these when being able to maintain a vivid/appropriate and fluent symphonic structure is my main goal when composing.

How crushingly heavy is this for a cartoon music?

I could go on and on... There are so many treasures not known to the world, underrated only because people basically do not know them.

 

Power Rangers definitely had an influence on me . As for real scores, early cartoons had great scores (i.e. Batman, Gargoyles). The quiet themes of the Last Samurai really got me in the feels, a more melodic Zimmer with an interesting palette. Videogame music has gotten much deserved recognition, but at the time, Final Fantasy and similar had really good music. Much better orchestrated via "Distant Worlds" mind you, but Uematsu is a hell of a composer.