Dixon Hill

Not ignorant of the success of shows like Storage Wars, Peter Jackson has decided that the majority of the third film will focus on the auction of Bilbo's estate, and ensuing drama. Howard Shore will adapt the Storage Wars theme, and really make it his own.

This. This is the last score I listened to.

I'm doing my best to keep the harpsichord alive, at least in a chamber setting. As for its presence in film music... I dunno, give me a decade maybe.

If you need proof that the NZSO will fit in, just listen to the Moria sequence. One of the most compelling parts of all the Middle-Earth scores, I think. I'm not wrong, right? Did the LPO re-record that section for the final cut of the film?

Well yeah, that's essentially what I meant. I guess I should have said "mostly prior to the 70's" rather than "around the mid-20th century" haha. And I would wager that for him, like many composers, hearing and studying are the same thing. Just a matter of absorbing a new idiom into one's language. By the way, I love that Penderecki quote.

I foresee a romantic scene between Bruce and Clark, complete with animal crackers and an Aerosmith song.

I was thinking that too. It's really interesting to hear him explore an idiom that he typically stays away from, especially since it's one of the defining styles of current/relatively current music. His approach to modernism usually ends around the mid-20th century.

"The Mecha World" always strikes me as extremely Adams-ish. Man, I really love that score.

Not too surprising that Fellowship mostly wins out here, barring The Adventure Begins vs. A Conspiracy Unmasked. I got so giddy the first time I heard the last minute of the former. The one that really gave me pause, though, was The Hidden Valley vs. Rivendell. Something about The Hobbit's introduction of Rivendell seems much more dreamy to me, more in line with the overall feeling of the Elves and their world that I always get from Tolkien's work.

Just reading through this now. Awesome! I'm going to see if I can't wrangle someone to play it with.

It's a pretty large time commitment, but well worth it. Utterly fascinating to see the ideas progress towards the forms that we know, and perhaps a bit frustrating if you're easily bothered by multiple continuities.

Quite looking forward to this, think it's my most anticipated film in the foreseeable future. Here's hoping Zimmer delivers along the lines of Inception/The DaVinci Code and keeps the "sound design" to a minimum.

One of the only times I'm grateful for living where I do, this should be relatively easy to get to. Wouldn't miss it.

Thanks for your thoughts. One thing you'll notice is that I rarely make value judgements like good/bad, brilliant/awful in my analyses. There's enough of that on the internet. I always strive to offer something more on the objective side of things. (I didn't say brilliant, did I? I think this one was clean of those kinds of statements.) It's harder with a composer like Williams, where the music is so obviously brilliant that to not say so would be very odd indeed. But with Man of Steel, readers can make of the analysis what they will. I'm simply trying to show what I believe to be objectively there. As for the Zimmer Inc. thing, being a composer from the classical tradition myself, I certainly understand the criticism. That said, however, I think it's healthy to still see it as a bias. After all, think of past portrait artists like Reubens or Van Dyck. Those guys had armies of people in their studios and the artist himself would basically just do the face and hands. The same also existed in classical music, where composers would sometimes "farm out" the recitatives of their opera to their students instead of writing them themselves. Now, of course, Zimmer isn't a classical master, but then, that's the point. I think too often we apply the same standards we hold artists to in the classical, concert hall tradition to film composers. In other words, for the past two hundred years, classical music has had the idea that if a piece of music wasn't all written by the same composer, it's no good because it lacks a kind of authenticity, a trueness of expression, if you will. I actually don't buy that argument, but that's the way it is. Now take film music, which by its nature is a very different kind of music from that of the concert hall. It has a completely different function, different tradition, different expectations, etc. If Zimmer and actually most film composers aren't primarily concert hall composers, why should we hold them to those same standards? I'm not defending Zimmer here, but rather the idea of why we criticize film composers when they have help on their scores. Agreed completely. I'm also from a "classical" background, and I can appreciate that it's somewhat jarring to even see something like "orchestrated by (not the composer)", at least at first. But, I've been almost equally steeped in the tradition of groups like, say, Pink Floyd. Is their music lessened any by the collaborative nature of its creation? In recent memory, look at Cloud Atlas' score. Written by three different people, and even a few other collaborators I believe, and it's really a stunning work to my ears. As for whether or not "Zimmer Inc." is successful, or more fairly, consistently successful, with that approach, well....

Interesting stuff. I think a similarly detailed analysis could be done for Inception, which I feel is another Zimmer score that is unfairly tossed aside as bland synthy droning. It's actually a fascinatingly tight work.

What can I say, I'm a 12 year old prissy person. I've learned so much about myself after deciding to post in this thread.

Bah. There is a constant battle in my psyche: do I speak my mind on the internet, or not bother? I should not bother from now on. After all I didn't join this forum to argue about semantics or critics or anything like that... but to discuss film music. I will keep it to that from now on.

I can't wait for this to be "finished" and hopefully published. It would be great to play something of his other than score transcriptions.

Bring your toy back to da cahpet.

I didn't say that. If I couldn't do that then I wouldn't have liked The Hobbit. I just don't see the point in juggling a review if I want to see something. At any rate, I should have known that trying to be somewhat positive would be met with ridicule.

I know I'm wasting my breath (or finger strength) and it's been said thousands of times but... why even bother looking at reviews? I'm going to see this tomorrow with as little knowledge of what other people think of it as possible, and I have no doubt I'll enjoy it thoroughly. I was surprised by how disappointed I was by reviews for The Hobbit. It didn't affect my experience, and I enjoyed the film. But that was the first time I fully realized just how destructive that kind of thing can be. How many people might enjoy films (and really, everything) more if their opinions weren't colored by... other people's opinions? Of course, this is a whole other discussion... I have little regard for the idea of professional criticism of anything. But if Spielberg is right and Hollywood does "implode," you can blame me for promoting the mindset of "let's just enjoy things for what they are." I do have a threshold for genuinely bad movies. Don't want to come across as a sunshine-and-rainbows optimist. I'm just someone who doesn't want to waste time not enjoying things.

Spectacular news. So many great episodes to choose from.

^ Double this.

Mark Isham's "42" was not bad for me.

Certainly not as enchanting as the very first trailer was.