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Harry Potter vs. Lord of the Rings


Josh500

Harry Potter vs. Lord of the Rings   

42 members have voted

  1. 1. Which trilogy of scores do you personally like better?

    • John Williams's Harry Potter
      14
    • Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings
      28


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I know the 3 Harry Potter scores written by JW by heart.

 

On the other hand, I don't know the LOTR soundtracks at all. I haven't even seen the movies.

 

That's why I'm thinking of starting now... Better late than never.

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6 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

This thread is the JWFan equivalent of jingling keys to grab a baby's attention.  What are you trying to distracting us from, Josh500?

 

None of your business! Go to sleep! 

11 minutes ago, Sally Spectra said:

Well, there's no accounting for taste, is there? 

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Neither are particular favourites of mine as the whole "trilogy" is concerned, but HP3 and LOTR3 are bonafide masterpieces. Some individual good moments in HP1, HP2; LOTR1 and LOTR2, but they rarely involve me that much on album level.

 

As scores-in-film, I'd probably have to go with LOTR.

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The qualities of the movies are one thing. 

 

Taken only the scores, though...Yeah, there's no comparison (I think). It's Harry Potter, hands down. I'm listening to LOTR now.

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I love both trilogies of scores A LOT, they are easily among my favorite scores of all time.


But LOTR is ultimately the superior work.

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Just now, Jay said:

 

But LOTR is ultimately the superior work.

 

Superior in what way?

 

More memorable melodies? Music fits the movies better? Music enhances the movie watching experience more? 

 

Anyway, I asked which you like better, not which is superior.

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Just now, BloodBoal said:

 

All of the above.

 

Man, I gotta watch these movies one of these days. lol :lol:

1 minute ago, Jay said:

Both score trilogies are full of strong, memorable, very good themes.


Both score trilogies fit their films very well.  John Williams gave those Potter films the exact right magic touch they deserved, really helped sell the sometimes shoddy special effects and thinner plots of the earlier entries.


Howard Shore's work on LOTR is just a masterpiece.  Its a fully realized musical world with orchestral colors for each culture and location and memorable themes that connect you to the characters and change as they do, and even as they arrive in other places.  He wrote amazing, emotional music too, as the films have many more emotional moments than the earlier Potter films do.  There's a reason we have an entire subforum dedicated to discusses his masterwork.

 

So you still listen to the LOTR trilogy on a regular basis?

 

Also, which of the 3 LOTR scores is the best, in your opinion? 

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LOTR is the one with the greater conception, but at the end of the day I get more enjoyment out of Harry Potter. I just don't mesh with the LOTR soundscape that well, for me the writing verges on the dull side. Harry Potter I find more entertaining note for note. Feel free to disagree. 

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LOTR is more consistent, but I admire the blueprint and "architectural integrity" of the whole thing more than I do the music itself. In that aspect alone, HP would take the cake, although it is less lofty and ambitious in its goals.

 

I'm not a big of the trilogies of movies

 

 

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Harry Potter 1 and 2 sound similar. The Lord of the Rings 1, 2 and 3 sound similar.

 

John's scores are musically more complex than Howard's, it's still more defined and knows where to go.

 

Howard's scores are largely orientated on classic epic scoring and pieces like Camina Burana, but it doesn't go further. John's scores are a atmospheric combinations of different instrumentated textures, of various epochs, with synth experiments, chamber orchestra pieces and special scoring techniques developped by the composer himself. Creativity is the key word.

 

The Harry Potter trilogy consists of two-thirds on The Prisoner of Azkaban, the best score of all time.

 

My childhood is closely connected to the Harry Potter movies and thus logically to their scores.

 

 

 

As much as I love the Lord of the Rings scores, they lose 0/5 against Harry Potter.

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Haven't we done this before, and always ended up somehow declaring Zimmer the antichrist?

 

Shore's work is more cohesive, but he had an opportunity that JW didn't (same creative team throughout). I'd say JW's themes are generally a bit better than Shore's, but they lend themselves better to his concert style than the actual score in some cases.

 

I think some of Chamber reflects that JW's full attention wasn't on that score, but some of RotK also has some signs of how much Shore was having to write daily towards the end.

 

A draw.

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17 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

Howard's scores are largely orientated on classic epic scoring and pieces like Camina Burana, but it doesn't go further.

 

 Are you saying you don't hear any Part, Tavener, Kilar, Gorecki, Schnittke and Glass in Shore's writing?

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Yes!  Don't forget Sibelius, too, in so much of the part writing.

 

I'd also say that Shore's work features more "special scoring techniques developed by the composer himself" than the Potters do.  Williams' approach to aleatoric techniques is much less novel.

 

The Potter films invited a more colorful approach - this will to some make it more interesting, and to others, more scatterbrained.  I'm somewhere in the middle there.  I don't mind that it has a less focused sound world, but I do think that makes it far less of a singular achievement than the LOTR trilogy.  

 

The Potters are essentially run of the mill Williams scores, really.  The first is probably my favorite compendium of this particular style of his, but there isn't much more to it than that.  

 

The stories themselves are also of course leagues apart, which skews the musical results even more.

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52 minutes ago, TheGreyPilgrim said:

Yes!  Don't forget Sibelius, too, in so much of the part writing.

 

Oh I know, I was thinking of some of the post-Orff composers that Shore inherited from.

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6 hours ago, Loert said:

LOTR is the one with the greater conception, but at the end of the day I get more enjoyment out of Harry Potter. I just don't mesh with the LOTR soundscape that well, for me the writing verges on the dull side. Harry Potter I find more entertaining note for note. Feel free to disagree. 

 

This.

 

Still, but I'm listening to LOTR, desperately trying to hear the greatness.... 

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1 hour ago, Sharky said:

 

In this instance you need the context of the films to really "get it."

Definitely. Josh, just watch the fucking movies already!

 

Didn't Chris Tilton have some adverse criticism of Fellowship of the Ring's score? That hack!

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1 hour ago, Sally Spectra said:

Maybe the symphony is more your thing? The Complete Recordings and even the OSTs can be an intimidating set of works to commit time to listening and enjoying.

 

Well, I got the one-CD original soundtracks to start with....And It's okay. I like them... I just don't quite yet see what the big fuss is about. They're great, but for me it's just not on the same level as Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, or Harry Potter greatness, if you get me. Maybe it's just a different kind of greatness, or uniqueness?

 

But who knows, maybe in the end I'll come around to declaring, LOTR is the best set of film scores ever...!! :D

 (Although at this point I kind of doubt that.)

 

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Potter, even in 2001, was just so been there, done that - it really shouldn't win any competition. Romão is also right: Shore's concepts are much more lofty than what he's technically able to wring out of them but it's still a magnificent achievement. Sadly both are rather conventional. I can live with that but would have wished in both cases for a bit more innovative zest (Williams got there in Azkaban after some prodding).

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Hedwig's Theme has become a cultural phenomenon, yet I think as a corpus, a full-bodied piece of work, Shore's scores feel like an opera and one large story.

 

It's hard to say which of the three Rings scores I prefer, because I choose to view them as one narrative that has simply been divided into three scores. 

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3 hours ago, Josh500 said:

Still, but I'm listening to LOTR, desperately trying to hear the greatness.... 

 

You're obviously not trying hard enough.

 

The LOTR scores are not something you can listen to on Youtube while doing the laundry or washing dishes. You have to give the scores your full attention, to appreciate all the subtleties in the writing, all the delicate intricacies of the thematic tapestry. And as was mentioned by others, watching the films help a great deal in that regard. Even if after doing that, you still think Potter is better, then we can all agree your Williams fanboyism is clouding your judgement.

 

7 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

Harry Potter 1 and 2 sound similar. The Lord of the Rings 1, 2 and 3 sound similar.

 

John's scores are musically more complex than Howard's, it's still more defined and knows where to go.

 

Howard's scores are largely orientated on classic epic scoring and pieces like Camina Burana, but it doesn't go further. John's scores are a atmospheric combinations of different instrumentated textures, of various epochs, with synth experiments, chamber orchestra pieces and special scoring techniques developped by the composer himself. Creativity is the key word.

 

You've clearly not listened to LOTR closely enough. Please, pay more attention next time and come back to us. Thank you.

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There are sections of LOTR that I like so much, that actually makes the sections that I don't actually like stand out much, much more. And I have no love for the movies, so that doesn't help

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I think Lord of the Rings is the greater film score achievement and I appreciate those 3 scores for several different reasons. Whereas HP1 was a great score from a composer who had written so many great scores already, and with a sound that was consistent with what JW is known for, FOTR was a great score from someone not previously known for this quality of music, nor music in that style. It was Shore's breakout score. Also, Shore wrote a score that incorporated the source material so intricately that the music is elevated beyond being a score to a film and itself is a kind of love letter to Tolkien's work. Last, the flow between all 3 LOTR's scores in a thing of beauty. One score both flows seamlessly into the next and also builds on the previous. It's almost like you can hear Shore growing as a composer from 1 score to the next. The LOTR's scores are a unique achievement for Howard Shore whereas Harry Potter was just another very successful walk around the park for John Williams. 

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