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New Williams Harry Potter music at Universal Studios?


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Well it's new alright and uses Williams themes, but did Williams compose/arrange this himself?

I'm not convinced William arranged this, it sounds more like what William Ross would have come up with if he really had written new music for Chamber of Secrets

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I'm surprised by the lack of comments so far

surely if Williams wrote new HP music for the rides there's have been somekind of announcement?

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This doesn't sound particularly like Williams to me. And I can't see JW taking the time to score this, given his priorities recently. He's willing to score SW7 while delegating the music for Star Tours to Michael Giacchino, but he won't write new HP music unless it's for a theme park? Although it is a bit odd that they only used JW themes, and not anybody else's.

The ride looks cool, though

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This doesn't really sound like Williams to me, either. And I'm not surprised they only used his themes Some parts of the ride required his themes, such as the flying car sequence. Looks like a fun ride, regardless.

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Yes, they did, but I don't think they were as good and memorable as Williams' themes. Although, I thought Doyle created an excellent score, especially since it followed the Azkaban score, which I don't think even Williams could have topped.

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I don't think Williams wrote it but it's still a fairly good take on his themes. If Williams did write it it will be genius of course and of top of the unreleased music want list

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Yes, they did, but I don't think they were as good and memorable as Williams' themes. Although, I thought Doyle created an excellent score, especially since it followed the Azkaban score, which I don't think even Williams could have topped.

I feel like those later scores were kind of like if you were to strip out Williams's 3-4 strongest themes per film, leaving the rest of the underscore. You still have a few pleasant earworms and catchy melodic hooks and you may be able to construct some kind of through line with the spare parts, but it's all more or less incidental.

I do think Doyle gave his Harry In Winter and Voldemort themes a fair shake, but Desplat and Hooper's most interesting melodic ideas seemed to come and go with each scene while the lines that kept showing up most frequently were these lethargic, stepward-moving motifs and ostinati. Stuff like Possession, Dumbledore's Foreboding, Obliviate, Snape to Malfoy Manor, Statues. At least Lily's Theme started out with a bang, but by the time it got to its big moment in Voldemort's End, it had regressed and we were right back to heavy scalar motion entirely on downbeats. It honestly sounded to me like the type of thing someone would hum if they were asked to improvise an "epic" tune right on the spot. Or like if a variation on the Star Wars main title was made up entirely of whole notes. So vague that you barely recognize it.

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The music for the train ride back to London is even better, featuring Buckbeak and Knight Bus music from POA and Spiders music from COS, and what sounds like a small amount of original music



Whoever arranged these did a really good job, I enjoy these a lot. I hope they leak clean.

I doubt Williams was involved.
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Well, Williams did work on the Wizarding World and was even there to conduct the Orlando Philharmonic in a bizarre performance. Now, the extent of that involvement was apparently just arranging existing recordings, but still. I don't know, he might have been involved.

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I'm sure they got someone to splice the thematic material together and/or do some extra cues.

The attraction looked kinda lame, though. I was expecting a more interactive experience or at least some physical element instead of just the 'rear projection'-type stuff.

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Well, I think that'd be harder to do since it's a functioning train to take people back and forth between the two parks. It's not a ride so much as transportation.

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I think it looks awesome. While I would also prefer some kind of physical elements (which you basically find in all the other attractions), I can see why it wouldn't have been feasible since this passes backstage between the parks. These kind of things look MUCH better in person. The video effects of making the portraits come to life and appear as though Dumbledore and the other characters are in the room with you are amazing.

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That Buckbeak flight version is somewhat cool but definitely doesn't sound like Williams arranged it

that.

it sounds like another composer using williams music. Some bits are good, but others are definately not williams'.

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  • 2 weeks later...

William Ross and his team recorded all of this at Abbey Road with the LSO a few weeks back.

I'm not convinced William arranged this, it sounds more like what William Ross would have come up with if he really had written new music for Chamber of Secrets

Ok, it's pretty good, but it's another "proof" that Ross didn't compose anything for CoS

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So the music for the Japan park was recorded in the USA, and the music of the USA theme park was recorded in London. Oooooookkkk

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There was a short documentary on TV a week or two ago that I DVRed because I happened to catch it right at the beginning. It was called "Harry Potter: The Making of Diagon Alley." It has a little 2:00" section about the music that was created.

I haven't been able to find it online so I did the old trick of using my phone to make a video of the TV while it played back. I apologize that it's not great quality or in flac or anything (ha!), but here's the spot. Definitely no sign of Williams at the recording studio (Abbey Road).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvOwRIxDGS4

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Listen on the train ride. Sounds all new to me and pretty awesome. Listen how great the ending is with Hogwarts arrival motif. Sounds like Williams to me.

It's all Williams, just cut and pasted from his OSTs.

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Er, did you read the rest of the thread?

The rest of the thread was about the second vid I thought.

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