Putting Zimmer anywhere near the same league as Williams is grotesque.

Zimmer writes a medley, then has an army of underpaid and under-credited orchestrators write 95% of the film. He couldn't orchestrate his way out of a paper bag.

His primary skill is pushing the "every instrument on every note" button on his Project Sam VI and then adding an additional 6 french horns, 6 trombones, and probably a pipe organ.

Can you recall a single melody from Oppenheimer? It's all just environmental boom and brass shit, with strings that might as well be synth. Can you recall a melody from Inception? Nope, just BWAAAAH.

There's a reason all of his legitimately musical scores in the last 25 years are co-written with another composer. Batman films, The Rock, Gladiator, etc. He musically peaked as a solo composer with Backdraft, imo.

Williams, on the other hand, employees orchestrators solely because he is required by union rules to have an orchestrator. His short-scores (the blueprints that orchestrators work from) are UNBELIEVABLY detailed.

Williams went to Juilliard. Zimmer took two weeks of piano lessons and was in a band.

And no one, NO ONE, has written the number of iconic melodies and scores that Williams has. Star Wars wouldn't be Star Wars without that score... Mark Hammil has said that John Williams is more responsible for the success of Start Wars than anyone other than George Lucas.

Jurassic Park wouldn't be JP without his score.

ET. Superman. Indiana Jones. Harry Potter. You can hear the music to these films in your head right now.

Or, you can listen to Hans Zimmer in your head now too: BWAAAAH.

I'll leave you with one thought: A few months ago, my Uber driver was a former orchestrator for Zimmer at RC. He hated it and quit. Re-read those two sentences.