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Is Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets underrated?


Josh500

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets   

67 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you think the score (as a whole, apart from the movie) is underrated?

    • Yes
      53
    • No
      14
  2. 2. Do you think the OST album Chamber of Secrets is underrated?

    • Yes
      37
    • No
      30
  3. 3. Do you think the movie Chamber of Secrets is underrated?

    • Yes
      25
    • No
      42
  4. 4. Do you think the way they score is incorporated into the movie Chamber of Secrets is underrated?

    • Yes
      26
    • No
      41


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I've been listening to this a lot lately, and I gotta say, the new music JW wrote for this movie is really top notch. I'm fact, I sincerely believe it's better (of at least as good as) Prisoner of Azkaban.

 

It's just the way of it was incorporated into the movie that sucks.

 

Still, the music itself is absolutely fantastic, my favourites being Fawkes the Phoenix, Chamber of Secrets (the title track), Dobby the House Elf, and The Spiders. 

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I would say yes, it's underrated. It's difficult to appreciate the new material though, because the HP1 rehashes are all over the entire score, integrated even into many of the tracks that contain new material. If a very clever fan ever finds a way to compile just the new material into sort of an alternate OST presentation, the results might be very enlightening. It would be necessary to combine cues and edit out material within many of the tracks, but still make it sound musically satisfying.

 

In fact, Williams' OST is valuable for highlighting some of the new material well, for example combining the Myrtle tracks into one. Most of the themes get a good showcase on the OST, even though more variations would be nice. But comparing the OST to the full score, from what I can remember it's mostly just the Chamber theme and Dobby's theme that have some really nice renditions omitted.

 

Sometimes I just listen to the complete score all the way through and try to enjoy it "warts and all".

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Yes, it is.

 

10 minutes ago, Smeltington said:

If a fan ever finds a way to compile just the new material into sort of an alternate OST presentation, the results might be very enlightening. It would be necessary to combine cues and edit out material within many of the tracks, but still make it sound musically satisfying.

 

Oh fuck, why do I always have to take everything like this as a challenge?

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1 hour ago, Josh500 said:

the new music JW wrote for this movie is really top notch.

 

Yes.

 

1 hour ago, Josh500 said:

It's just the way of it was incorporated into the movie that sucks.

 

Yes.

 

1 hour ago, Josh500 said:

It's just[...]the movie that sucks.

 

And thrice: Yes.

 

Our impression of music isn't easily isolated from our impression of the film. That's not necessarily a bad thing: Its like an opera or musical. The very idea of leitmotivic music is that it helps evoke specific images from the scenes that the music accompanies. If you like those images as they pop in your mind, you'll be more inclined to like the music. If not...

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I've added a poll, with 4 questions....

 

For me: 

 

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

No.

 

This score is absolutely fantastic, the new music especially, but also the old themes sound great (the opening prologue or the Knockturn Alley, for instance). Just the way the score was incorporated into the movie as a whole is frustratingly below standard. Not sure how much William Ross was involved, but considering both PS and POA have no problem whatsoever in this regard, it's rather obvious that it's mostly (I don't wanna say "all," although that's what I think) his fault.

 

 

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My answers were the same as yours.  I have only heard the OST and not the leaks, but I never understood why people rip on it.  It obviously leans heavily on the predecessor, but so did Home Alone 2 and I like that score a lot too.

 

The movie gets trashed, but it's a big improvement on the first one.  It's more fun, the sense of mystery is better, the climactic action is better. It has Branagh in a really good performance.

 

Movie and score don't stand up to Azkaban for me, but I prefer both to Sorcerer's Stone.

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3 minutes ago, mstrox said:

My answers were the same as yours.  I have only heard the OST and not the leaks, but I never understood why people rip on it.  It obviously leans heavily on the predecessor, but so did Home Alone 2 and I like that score a lot too.

 

The movie gets trashed, but it's a big improvement on the first one.

 

Many people also trash the movie, which I don't understand at all. This movie is awesome, if somewhat lengthy (but this is a good thing, you do wanna get lost in this magic world, go on a long magical journey)...

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No. No. No. No.

 

The score has received fair acclaim for its themes.  It's not as much of a mainstream hit as PS or POA but it's not really in the same league anyway.  

In film it's pretty undermixed and there are too many straight quotes of old material.

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2 hours ago, Smeltington said:

Sometimes I just listen to the complete score all the way through and try to enjoy it "warts and all".

 

I recently realized that I listen to CoS more often than I listen to PS! 

 

CoS includes some mind-blowingly good highlights. It's a shame these don't get mentioned here more often.

These scenes are some of the few well-scored ones... 

 

Music starts at 2:20:

 

 

The entire Spiders scene is fantastic, musically as well as visually. This almost sounds like music from Indiana Jones! 

 

 

The last scene, much more powerful than the ending of PS! 

 

 

I love this short scene when Hermione makes her first appearance, scored with themes from PS (terrible sound quality in the video, but the music is great)!

 

 

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31 minutes ago, mstrox said:

The movie gets trashed, but it's a big improvement on the first one.  It's more fun, the sense of mystery is better, the climactic action is better. It has Branagh in a really good performance.

 

This being a second film, you'd expect it to move along much faster than it does, regardless of how slow the first film was.

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Jay said:

It's a MASSIVELY underrated score!   So many people write it off as being "Mostly just HP1 rehash with some nice new themes", but its so much more than that!  Also the performance by the LSO is impeccable and the OST album is really well assembled and a great listening experience.  That being said there's a TON of amazing unreleased music and a proper release one day will really open a lot of people's eyes to it I think.

 

Well said! Agreed 100%.

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49 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

This being a second film, you'd expect it to move along much faster than it does, regardless of how slow the first film was.

 

I didn't find either movie particularly slow - just unfocused.  Columbus's two movies, in my opinion, suffered from adhering too closely to the source material.  Some slightly bolder choices in the scripting and in the editing could have made them as strong as PoA

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I like long movies, and I find long first entries especially forgivable, so I don't have much an issue with Sorcerer's Stone, since Christopher Colombus didn't know what would and wouldn't turn out to be important in the following books. However, structurally I think they both have major issues: Sorcerer's Stone essentially doesn't have a three-act structure because it doesn't even have a real plot until about the 1:20:00 mark.

 

Chamber of Secrets does have a premise from the very beginning, but it loses its way multiple times and ends up being the more numbing of the two, to me. I can only watch it if I'm making fun of it throughout the entire run-time.

 

14 minutes ago, mstrox said:

I didn't find either movie particularly slow - just unfocused.  Columbus's two movies, in my opinion, suffered from adhering too closely to the source material.  Some slightly bolder choices in the scripting and in the editing could have made them as strong as PoA

 

Yes, THAT! That's the issue.

 

Also, Columbus proved to be a less-than-competent director, as far as actors are regarded, and the production was rushed so a lot of the effects didn't turn out too good, either.

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great score. (I believe Williams composed all of it)

 

I like the movie better than I used to

 

sound mix in the film is TERRIBLE but it was great to hear it properly at the Harry Potter in Concert event

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3 hours ago, king mark said:

great score. (I believe Williams composed all of it)

 

I think so too.

 

"Adapted" means little more than putting the pieces JW composed for PS and CoS together and see what fits where. The themes themselves are phenomenal; the "adaptation" sucks, in all honesty. Even the few original cues JW wrote for CoS are great.

 

 

2 hours ago, gkgyver said:

How is the film terrible? 

 

Ask those who think and are not shy to say so!

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12 hours ago, Josh500 said:

 

I recently realized that I listen to CoS more often than I listen to PS! 

 

CoS includes some mind-blowingly good highlights. It's a shame these don't get mentioned here more often.

These scenes are some of the few well-scored ones... 

 

Music starts at 2:20:

 

 

The entire Spiders scene is fantastic, musically as well as visually. This almost sounds like music from Indiana Jones! 

 

 

The last scene, much more powerful than the ending of PS! 

 

 

I love this short scene when Hermione makes her first appearance, scored with themes from PS (terrible sound quality in the video, but the music is great)!

 

 

 

I sometimes wonder if in 1 and 2, Williams almost uses wondrous world (first part) theme as Hermione's theme. I think it is most frequently stated in connection to her.

 

It is an outstanding theme. A crying shame we lost it after 2.

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1 minute ago, TheUlyssesian said:

 

I sometimes wonder if in 1 and 2, Williams almost uses wondrous world (first part) theme as Hermione's theme. I think it is most frequently stated in connection to her.

 

 

I think its purpose hasn't changed much. It's generally the "friendship theme." And since Hermione is Harry's good friend.... Ron is somewhat there for comic relief at least in this movie, so this theme doesn't quite lend itself to accompany his antics, I guess.

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The movie's not bad. It's accurate to the book as I recall. Maybe a bit boring at points, but most of the other ones are boring in their own way. The later ones are more "artsy" boring, COS is more "This is a significant amount of the book in movie form" boring. At least it has a ton of JW music.

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That's not an excuse. If something in a book doesn't work, you improve it! The adaptation should serve the film, not the source material.

 

12 hours ago, gkgyver said:

How is the film terrible?[...]I'll watch CoS over Half-Poop Prince or Deathly Hallows any day.

 

Its poorly paced, it has no stakes, the acting is sub-par, the cinematography is uninspired, it is not well-adapted. Should I go on?

 

And yes, those elements were improved upon in following installments.

 

Terrible, it isn't. But, to me, its not a good movie, at all.

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4 minutes ago, gkgyver said:

Well, it's mostly child actors, so what do you expect?

 

Child actors can be great, if the director knows how to tap into their imagination. And the adults aren't very good in this film, either.

 

Performances depend on the director just as much, if not far more, than on the cast itself. Its the director who allows and doesn't allow for rehearsals, its he who decides how many takes to have before he's happy with the performance, and he often tells the actor just how to perform.

 

I will say, most of them are better in this than in Sorcerer's Stone. The kids are a bit more seasoned, and the adults seemed to have learned how to deal with Chris Columbus better.

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It's really not important enough to squabble much about it (the british pro's heave it up quite a bit, the score, too) but i will break a lance for the music, which is by no means very original but once you stop dividing the first two movies and just cut the repetitive stuff out of the two scores and see it as a whole (kind of like some Horner scores), COS adds some quite delicious stuff, the chamber and phoenix elaborations in particular.

 

The Fawkes piece is, much more so than any melody in HP1, a throwback Williams 20 years earlier, a feat he never managed again. Maybe the lack of time prevented overthinking the piece.

 

 

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19 minutes ago, someonefun124 said:

I'd prefer to watch/listen to COS than anything after GOF.

 

I've never even seen the last 3 Potter movies. I just lost interest.

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On 2/9/2018 at 10:59 AM, Jay said:

It's a MASSIVELY underrated score!   So many people write it off as being "Mostly just HP1 rehash with some nice new themes", but its so much more than that!  Also the performance by the LSO is impeccable and the OST album is really well assembled and a great listening experience.  That being said there's a TON of amazing unreleased music and a proper release one day will really open a lot of people's eyes to it I think.

 

Absolutely. And look, a lot of it my be rehashed for PS/SS, but even that material sounds even more engaging and full of life. Not that the original PS/SS wasn't, but there are a lot of times where I will find myself listening to the COS versions of previous material rather than the originals, for example The Quidditch Match. I have the same opinion on Home Alone 2 as well. 

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29 minutes ago, Josh500 said:

I've never even seen the last 3 Potter movies. I just lost interest.

 

At the time, I did, too! Mostly, I was just growing out of them. Rediscovering them lately was nice, though.

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Everything Harry Potter is always underrated. First three films and their scores absolutely mind-blowing. If producers wanted to make better movies in the fantasy genre, then ratings should be adjusted accordingly. But since that's not happening, Harry Potter is still one of the best movie series.

 

 

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Is the film underrated? Perhaps. I think if you're pitching it up against the rest of the films, I'd put CoS somewhere in the top 3 or 4, along with Goblet of Fire and Prisoner of Azkaban.

 

 

 

 

14 hours ago, someonefun124 said:

I'd prefer to watch/listen to COS than anything after GOF.

Yes, the scores became shadows of the former glory of the series. I dislike it when people suggest that Williams' couldn't have continued with the series as if he couldn't write for the darker tone of the series. What? Williams could murder you with his darkest, most harrowing and haunted music. 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Arpy said:

Is the film underrated? Perhaps. I think if you're pitching it up against the rest of the films, I'd put CoS somewhere in the top 3 or 4, along with Goblet of Fire and Prisoner of Azkaban.

 

If anything, the film is vastly overrated.

 

Its the worst of the lot.

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