Drawgoon

I don't buy this "not wanting to repeat myself" claim. He seems more than happy to do just that elsewhere. In fact, the only other time I recall hearing him say that was when he was asked why he passed Kingdom of Heaven to HGW. He said he was being asked to write a "Gladiator 2" for that movie and he didn't want to repeat himself. If this is not about him not wanting to work with the director again, I can only think of that copyright infringement lawsuit that was brought upon him for the first Gladiator from the Holst Foundation.

With most of his former Pixar colleagues jumping ship for Skydance animation, it won't surprise me if MG wanted to follow along, all without burning the bridges. Also his ambitions for filmmaking and all that. In any case, I think this will turn out better in Datzman's hands than if MG were to return. No matter what the film's quality may be like, a composer who is new to the scene is more likely to take advantage of the situation and give it their best than one who's already "seen it all".

The Battle of the Pelennor Fields, from Return of the King - the part during Theoden's speech, and when they march to war: The timpani, the march theme on horns, the Rohan theme on solo violin. I would have loved to be on the recording floor when they were playing this snippet (especially if everything would get played in the same room at the same time). Oh my. I remember how disappointed I was when this bit was not included on the regular soundtrack album.

Well, if it helps clear the path for LLLR or other specialty labels to release more titles from the Warner catalog, that'd be great! Otherwise, this could be yet another major blow to... what should I call it... competition scene?

His approach to "Early Man", his previous work for this studio, was pretty much the same. An hour of score would just pass by without leaving any impression on me - other than perhaps this nagging feeling that more time might have been spent on the orchestration side of the work than actual writing. I suppose this is what he is being asked to do on these, and he seems more than happy to comply. Why else would he agree to/be asked to score several films by this studio for the past two decades?

I don't know if it is the glasses or that facial gesture (particularly with the eyes and eyebrows) on the human character in the picture above, but that image instantly reminded me of JP himself.

Mine's are Howard Shore's LotR's - everything he recorded for the films (used/unused), properly mixed (i.e. no pushing the choir all the way back, no pushing some instruments way to the front), meticulously mastered (not brickwalled), without any kind of edits, cross-fades, etc. I do appreciate the CR releases but I am more than certain that they can be done better.

No Lorne Balfe, I see. He was very involved with the previous two. I actually thought this was going to be a solo gig for him.

I think the goal here might have been to avoid additional licensing fees that they may had to incur had they gone with actual character portraits from the film. I don't know the film at all, but it won't surprise me if this turned out to be a... "cartoonzed" image of a particular scene from the film.

Sometimes record labels clearly state on their promo that the material was transferred from "newly discovered masters", tapes, etc, from studio's vaults, composer's x-track tapes, etc. Some times they don't say anything and summarize it to just "newly remastered". Like the one we have here for Hook. Is that merely a wordplay decision, or does actually reflect something about the source? Like, for example, does it mean the source of all previously-released material for Hook is the same as the previous release (albeit remastered), but they were also able to source various new cues from, say, music editors, recording engineers, etc, but not necessarily from actual tapes or masters stored in place like studio vaults or composer archives, etc?

The suite-like track at the end is a good souvenir from this work but that's about it for me. As for the suite, the first round of vocal parts are a little odd and feel somewhat unbalanced to my ears. It is like the female vocals (or at least a certain singer's voice) are way to the front and everything else is placed behind a divider, wall or something. But outside of that it is fine. Score portions don't really translate well to the album, imho. But I am glad everything gets released these days, so I don't have to speculate what the rest of the work sounds like, and decide upon a playlist myself.

Wait, what? Re-issue? This had been released once before?! When? By whom?

Deja vu? I mean, isn't this situation similar to what Sony did with Titanic a few years back, before LLLR took over a while later and released the full thing?

No puns in the track titles this time. As one of the very few people who appreciates his crazy titles I must say I am disappointed, but I can fully understand the decision, as the subject of this movie is too "sensitive" for that sort of humor.

Pixar hired Djawadi for "Win or Lose" - if that counts.

That's a huge delay. They are not going to dismantle the film and rework it into a different movie (e.g. Good Dinosaur), are they?

Mario Wonder is amazing! Haven't played a game in this genre for long - very impressed by what I have seen so far. Edit: November 5: Just finished the game. Thoroughly enjoyed everything about it. The level of creativity they poured into level designs is something else.. The final set of stages - particularly the final confrontation with Bowser are so much fun. I had a huge grin on me during that boss fight - particularly when Bowser "gets in sync" with the soundtrack. Solid 5 stars!

My point was the album program, i.e. the running time, selection of cues, etc, and why they didn't offer a longer album from the outset, even if it were to be limited to 1400 copies, or digital only.

If the studio cares so much about JW's work on this film that they're offering a score-only track on the bluray, I can only wonder why they didn't go big with the album program before. Perhaps, by putting the full score on the bluray - as a bonus audio track - instead of soundtrack album, they no longer needed to ask for JW's approval on what should be put in there and what shouldn't?

So MG's company is called "Little Jacket Industries" now? It used to be simply "Little Jacket Music".

So, songs and score will be placed on the same album, as opposed to separate offerings they did for the previous installments?

The score does have some of Hans Zimmer's trademarks, particularly the early parts of "Missile Launch", but for the most part I never would have thought of him if I had listened to this without knowing who the composer was. Such a departure from his trademark of the past decade. Or perhaps this was largely a Steve Mazarro work? Good listen nevertheless. Hopefully either composers get to score movies this way.

Mask of Zorro? Legend of Zorro? Both?

I always get the feeling that the two-note motif that became the Batman's theme in Nolan's trilogy was originally Don Davis' Matrix Theme - something the studio might have used in the temps for Batman Begins. You know, that polychord alternations thing (or whatever the term is) that opens all the Matrix scores *the Logos sequences) after some rumbling piano build up. 1:20 into "Barry Flies Out" from "Bee Movie" by Rupert Gregson-Williams et al, the a string-build-up reminds me a great deal of the flight tune from Powell's HTTYD. It might be coincidence, but I wouldn't be surprised if that scene from the first Dragons film was temped with the above-mentioned tune from Bee Movie, and that Powell's tune was born out of that.

Awesome! Can't wait! Curious if he employed a real choir for the two Airbender pieces!! This compilation wouldn't have surprised me had it come during the time he was still working with M. Night, or if these cues were included along with suites of his from his works for other directors. But an album dedicated solely to his collaborations with M. Night, all of a sudden, and a decade after their last collaboration? Is someone holding out an olive branch? I mean, these two haven't worked together since After Earth - something might have happened between them during that one.