leeallen01

I absolutely adore this album. It has been accompanying me on several autumnal walks in the past weeks and made the experience so much more fascinating. Definitely up there with the best albums of 2023.
 
Karol

Yeah, I feel the biggest flaw of this score is that relies a bit too much on old themes, even when it doesn't always make sense, and doesn't allow the new material to shine as much.
 
I mean, his themes for the saga have always been a bit confusing in what they mean or what they represent, but I always interpreted the theme from Arena Crumbles as Katniss theme, so hearing it on Coryo Enters the Capitol and a couple more cues was a bit confusing.

I'm gonna have to listen to this at one point, as horrible as I found the movie.

Mike has received the physical Super Deluxe and posted pics and a video
 
 

 
 

It's crazy how hard this film and score hit me. I went into it liking the first film, but mainly I was interested in the technology and seeing how amazing it would look. I was overwhelmed by it. The film and score are very high on my all-time lists. 
 
The theatre experience of the film and the power of the score were perfect, but I can easily watch it at home and have just as meaningful experience. And not a week goes by where I don't listen to pieces of the score.

Finally watched the movie, and the score works a lot better in context than on album, which actually has made me appreciate it a lot more than on the first standalone listens. The movie is not as action-focused as I thought, being concentrated in the middle section, and I think all of the music from that part is in there, but there might be around 20 minutes, perhaps more, of unreleased music, some of it containing nice variations on both old and new themes.
 
At first I though the score didn't introduce any new ideas, but after watching the movie, it's clear there's at least two of them, a vocal idea used for Lucy Gray, and a string-based melody that seems to represent the relationship between Snow and Lucy.
 
Lucy's motif gets introduced in Assigning the Mentors, at 1:27
 
It also appears in the middle of Meet the Mentors, in Hunger is a Weapon and in Strategy, and plays one last time in Lucy?
 
The motif is followed by the theme for Lucy and Snow, at 1:16, and it appears three more times on the album, but I think at least two or three more times in the movie. It's introduced in Meet the Mentors (together with some strings that remind me of The Arsenal), and plays again in Saving Snow, in a pretty efective moment in the film:
 
 
I feel there are some additional motifs, but I haven't been able to identify them yet.
 
I was also surprised by the importance of the songs in the film, with several of them quite memorable in the way they're used, like the new versions of The Hanging Tree, or the way the song The Old Therebefore / Singing At Snakes overlaps with one of JNH's score cues, I think it's Get Her Out, in one of the most intense moments of the film. Definitely needed context to appreciate the score more, as I do now!

I think the most aggressive action music Howard has written is in Sewer Attack from Mockingjay Pt. 2

I'm really bummed about them not returning (for whatever the reasons are, we won't speak of it here).
 
I love this franchise and I hope they can do something fun and interesting with new characters.
 
They should bring back Matthew Lillard! Still convinced he's not dead!

It's crazy how hard this film and score hit me. I went into it liking the first film, but mainly I was interested in the technology and seeing how amazing it would look. I was overwhelmed by it. The film and score are very high on my all-time lists. 
 
The theatre experience of the film and the power of the score were perfect, but I can easily watch it at home and have just as meaningful experience. And not a week goes by where I don't listen to pieces of the score.

That was fast! Ordered from Walmart. And it’s the 22-track version after all! Seems that the online listings with 13 tracks are in error.

It's crazy how hard this film and score hit me. I went into it liking the first film, but mainly I was interested in the technology and seeing how amazing it would look. I was overwhelmed by it. The film and score are very high on my all-time lists. 
 
The theatre experience of the film and the power of the score were perfect, but I can easily watch it at home and have just as meaningful experience. And not a week goes by where I don't listen to pieces of the score.

It's crazy how hard this film and score hit me. I went into it liking the first film, but mainly I was interested in the technology and seeing how amazing it would look. I was overwhelmed by it. The film and score are very high on my all-time lists. 
 
The theatre experience of the film and the power of the score were perfect, but I can easily watch it at home and have just as meaningful experience. And not a week goes by where I don't listen to pieces of the score.

It's crazy how hard this film and score hit me. I went into it liking the first film, but mainly I was interested in the technology and seeing how amazing it would look. I was overwhelmed by it. The film and score are very high on my all-time lists. 
 
The theatre experience of the film and the power of the score were perfect, but I can easily watch it at home and have just as meaningful experience. And not a week goes by where I don't listen to pieces of the score.

It's crazy how hard this film and score hit me. I went into it liking the first film, but mainly I was interested in the technology and seeing how amazing it would look. I was overwhelmed by it. The film and score are very high on my all-time lists. 
 
The theatre experience of the film and the power of the score were perfect, but I can easily watch it at home and have just as meaningful experience. And not a week goes by where I don't listen to pieces of the score.

It's crazy how hard this film and score hit me. I went into it liking the first film, but mainly I was interested in the technology and seeing how amazing it would look. I was overwhelmed by it. The film and score are very high on my all-time lists. 
 
The theatre experience of the film and the power of the score were perfect, but I can easily watch it at home and have just as meaningful experience. And not a week goes by where I don't listen to pieces of the score.

It's crazy how hard this film and score hit me. I went into it liking the first film, but mainly I was interested in the technology and seeing how amazing it would look. I was overwhelmed by it. The film and score are very high on my all-time lists. 
 
The theatre experience of the film and the power of the score were perfect, but I can easily watch it at home and have just as meaningful experience. And not a week goes by where I don't listen to pieces of the score.

It's crazy how hard this film and score hit me. I went into it liking the first film, but mainly I was interested in the technology and seeing how amazing it would look. I was overwhelmed by it. The film and score are very high on my all-time lists. 
 
The theatre experience of the film and the power of the score were perfect, but I can easily watch it at home and have just as meaningful experience. And not a week goes by where I don't listen to pieces of the score.

By the way, I should point out that I rewatched the film two days ago, on Disney+, for the first time since the IMAX press screening. I've been holding off because I wanted new speakers in the house. But by GOLLY, how great it is. Just as I remembered. Totally absorbing. "Pure Cinema" at its finest. Sigourney Weaver's teenage character breaks my heart!

The #1 track that immediately jumps out at me that I wish it had, from the 22-track version, is “Happiness Is Simple.” Maybe followed by “A New Star.” But overall, the LP selection is actually pretty nice.

I don’t get it. The original digital OST program could definitely fit on a CD; it practically seemed designed to. It’s a couple minutes shorter than Horner’s original OST for the first film, and that obviously managed to fit on 1 CD. Maybe Franglen simply prefers the LP program? I doubt it, but who knows. The only things I will say I do like better about this program are (1) it includes “Kids in Peril,” one of my favorite tracks that didn’t make it onto the original digital OST, and (2) the credits song is moved to the end.
 
It’s also weird that the CD listing (as far as I can see anyway) is currently absent from the US Amazon site. This whole CD release feels very strange, almost as if they don’t really want to let people know it’s even happening. You have to hunt Google just to find out any information about the release, and aside from the old Franglen Tweet which referenced the Film Music Reporter Tweet, the only information out there is random sites that are apparently selling it.

The people who lobbied for a CD release were clearly fans of the score. I can't understand why they would release an even shorter version of the regular OST as the people who campaigned for the release would surely be disappointed. I see no point in owning this CD if it doesn't even have all the tracks from the regular OST.
 
I hope it does well though so that they might consider releasing the complete 4 hour score.

Everyone is of course entitled to their opinion but man, if someone told me 5 years ago that people would complain that not enough of new scores are unreleased, I wouldn’t have believed it.

Longer albums is the best new trend in film music in my opinion and rather than think the new JNH ost is too long, I was disappointed that it wasn’t longer, given the number of tracks! 😄
 
Whenever I listen to a “curated” ost it always feels a bit inconsequential. When listening to scores I want to be engrossed in the musical journey of the full score and highlights style albums just don’t cut it. But of course, to each his own.
 
In a perfect world new scores would get a short album and a truly complete album (with alts suites etc).

Seems like a slightly extended edition of Way of Water is coming out for Christmas
 
https://collider.com/avatar-the-way-of-water-collectors-edition-4k-steelbook-release-date/

“…12 deleted scenes will expand what we know about the sequel…”
 
 I’m hoping we’ll get to hear more of Franglen’s excellent score, but knowing Cameron we’ll almost certainly just get more hacked Horner from A1. 

Very excited. 

Here's the same video on youtube for those who prefer that