Richard Penna

I thought Incanus was an early praiser of McCreary's RoP work, but tastes do change, especially once the first listen has soaked in. Certainly I think that overall the OST is the best listening experience, but the episode scores have so many other little bits to offer, and I still intend at some point to make an expanded OST which takes some of the better episode moments into that format. I don't love the entire score - it's got some less exciting bits - but having 99% of it to choose the bits I want to listen, long term, is the reason to have this box. I will stand firm on Bear's themes though - every single one he did for RoP is an absolute earworm, completely making up for the lack of a main title theme appearing in the score itself.

Ordinarily I'd say BTTF AINEC, but here's the thing - outside of the clocktower sequence at the end, it's a very inconspicuous score. On the whole the songs have vastly more effect in the film than the score does. A handful of moments are stunningly effective, and most of them are in the latter part of the film, and given The Kiss merges with Earth Angel I think one could easily be forgiven for not remembering any of the score. It's a really good score but it's also massively elevated by the justified love for the film.

Depends how far along the restoration process he got, if he has indeed transferred the tapes. The issue after that is cleaning up, editing, mastering, etc and is Mike/LLL going to invest time and money in that process if they don't have solid backing to release the end product? Sounds unlikely. Having the material safely stored in high definition digital format is surely the only long-term important aspect?

Almost all of this. The 'almost' being I've never understood the Batman score. Elfman's theme is fairly memorable but I don't find it anywhere near as memorable or iconic as everyone else seems to, and I don't remember a note of the score. However, I only really enjoy one Elfman score in full (Sleepy Hollow) so maybe particularly his older style just isn't for me. Also, enough of this "unpopular opinion" bullshit please I love the score to TLC and for me it's the best Indy score by miles. I'd prefer these to be considered as opinions that most in the community wouldn't agree with.

I noticed the implications of that quote too, but I largely came to the conclusion that they were taking a bit of artistic licence with Gandalf's line functioning partly as the conversation with Frodo and partly as plot exposition for the audience. If the film is othewise doing its job of being entertaining and exciting, those moments don't matter, as we transition in the film straight to the Ringwraiths arriving. With this new project, I'd suggest the usual caution against making up an entire theoretical plot, assuming which characters are going to be in it, and deciding the project is doomed before they've officially announced a thing. I say good luck to them. If it turns out to be a great film with another Shore score, great. If it turns out to be as bad as I think the Hobbit films are... well no one is forcing anyone to watch it. (We'll likely get a good score either way)

I think there are only two properly household names right now: Zimmer and Williams. I've heard non-soundtracky people mention Shore, Gia, Powell and Hisaishi, although in terms of mainstream listening from them, only LotR strikes me as a work that will still be listened to (and whatever are Hisaishi's biggest works).

What I heard of Gods of Egypt was dull, dull, dull, probably because te film's a POS. I'd give Beltrami a fair hearing just like any other composer but I don't think his style is right for LotR, and I think he falls into the category of people who respects Shore's work too much to not at least ask him.

Given Last Crusade (and the Ark theme) I'm up for any religious-tinted score where you get exquisite long-lined melodies for various characters. At least for 80s Williams - he excelled at that stuff back then. I don't think he'd write the same sumptuous material now.

That's an interesting one - two fantasy scores but one a bit more piratey, and with a slightly Irish flavour to TP for no real apparent reason. I'd probably give TP to Williams merely because I think Atlantis is a slightly more consistently enjoyable score. TP has the fantastic Jim Saves The Crew but it's amongst a few highlights in a slightly uneven work.

Why Powell? I'd have no issue, but this is Shore's natural territory.

Hell yeah, if there's any project where Shore needs to compose, end of story, it's this!

If nothing happens within the next couple of weeks to coincide with the start of the new series, I think we're looking at either a release in the late Autumn (i.e. some time after the series finishes) or the same timing as series 10 (so, forget it). There's more quotes from Gold here: In answer to his last part, if an album was sitting on his agent's server and hackers got it, and everyone was excited.... I completely fail to see what the problem is! The album has been made and is sitting on his agent's server.... how about you release it, Murray? You don't need some massive multi-billion dollar marketing compaign requiring an album to be completed months in advance to press CDs. Drop it digitally, ask Silva to send out an e-mail and watch the fans swarm. The fact that people wanted to resort to hacking indicates how much they wanted to buy it! FFS.

I saw the movie years ago and don't remember anything particularly distrating, but I picked up the album that someone put out and long term it's largely failed to maintain my interest outside of the great main theme.

I'd agree actually - I find many golden age scores far too overbearing in context for my tastes - a huge orchestral overture or crescendo when not an awful lot is happening on screen. I found that with a few clips of The Godfather and with many dialogue clips from the 50s/60s - the music feels like it's doing too much in the scene. Partly taste, partly changing musical fashions.

Tbh I'm not sure which 'sources' I'd prefer were correct. If Erik's right, it means that someone is either misinterpreting or just making up negative notes from Williams. If he's not, then Williams has made the occasional comment about another composer's choices regarding his material and someone's decided the world must be told. Either way someone out there thinks that any real or perceived creative ills against his higness must be front page news. How pathetic.