Your favorite John Williams score of the 2000's? CONCLUDED

[Wojo 2,453]

All the young girls love Alice

[Balahkay 627]

Alice doesn't live here anymore.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I'm surprised to see Philosophers Stone getting over twice as much votes as POA. Also surprised that up untill yesterday, no one complained about the lack of inclusion of CoS.

However the most startling thing is that Crystal Skull failed to get a single vote, and The Patriot, one of the least talked about "big" John Williams scores got 2.

[Balahkay 627]

I thought for sure POA or AI would take the cake, even though I voted for the first Harry Potter.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

There seemed to be a general tendency to favor POA, because it's "more mature" then the first 2 scores.

But if these polls are proving anything it's that JWFan still does favor the big, Spielberg or franchise scores that made Williams famous.

[Balahkay 627]

They're the most popular and well known, too.

[Faleel 5,330]

I would have voted for CS if it was not for AOTC and ROTS.

[Balahkay 627]

I would have too, if it weren't for the other two Harry Potters, AI, AOTC, ROTS, Geisha... :-)

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Azkaban has too much uninteresting filler/Williams autopilot music.

[indy4 155]

There seemed to be a general tendency to favor POA, because it's "more mature" then the first 2 scores.

But if these polls are proving anything it's that JWFan still does favor the big, Spielberg or franchise scores that made Williams famous.

I dunno, I think the inclusion of all the other Scotes could have split yr votr. PPl who preferred te more "mature" stuff voted for geisha, etc. if it were a head to head, poa vs SS I think it would've been closer

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I dont follow?

[indy4 155]

The people who prefer poa to SS because it's more mature are more likely to vote for an even MORE mature score, like geisha, Munich, AI, etc. if you get rid of those options and just had a SS vs poa poll, I think it would be much closer.

[Romão 2,274]

That's a very sharp observation, Indy

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Maybe you should do a "best Potter score poll"!

But Desplat would probably win....

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I prefer the original Harry Potter because it entertains the hell out of me from beginning to end and then some. Everything composed for the film including the source music and Children's Suite is Williams nirvana. Azkaban is less interesting. There are some wonderful moments, but it just doesn't do it for me as much. A lot of his writing there is comparatively duller and I tend to skip tracks. That's never a great sign when we're only dealing with a truncated album presentation.

As for this era, Minority Report contains some of Williams' best writing for strings and the atmosphere of the whole thing just captivates me. Both parts of Stopping the Crime are some of his best work, in my opinion. One of Williams' great build-up cues, which the score is full of. There is so much brooding atmosphere and tension throughout that raises my hairs. There is a deadly earnestness to the score. Anderton on the Run, Crow's Hotel Room, Confronting Lamar...I don't even know if Williams has been this good since. Another favorite is Catch Me If You Can. Recollections (The Father's Theme), Father and Son and A Broken Home are very underrated.

[Thor 7,463]

A respectable second place for my own decade favourite here.

But I'm flabbergasted as to how the first HP can win over the far superior third HP!

[Marian Schedenig 8,172]

I like both pretty much on the same level. They're different, but great at their differences. The first is the last Williams score with Wagner-style leitmotifs on a really high level. I think it's really impressive in that regard.

[Thor 7,463]

Sure, it's fine, but on the third he's firing on all cylinders -- here's gorgeous, almost religious-sounding tracks, medieval music, heroic fanfares, wild big band jazz and everything inbetween. Unquestionably the most entertaining album Williams has done in the 2000s, even though my favourite will always remain A.I. ("For Always").

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I'm a big POA fan too. I think Cuaron pushed him out of his comfort zone a bit.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

It's a bit too scatterbrained for me.

[crocodile 7,982]

Cuarón doesn't like film music, so that almost source piece approach is something he forced Williams to do.

Karol

[Faleel 5,330]

A respectable second place for my own decade favourite here.

But I'm flabbergasted as to how the first HP can win over the far superior third HP!

Probably because of the Harry's Wonderous World theme (I think thats the theme form the Family Portrait movement of the Children's suite?)

[Balahkay 627]

I find the first and third HP to be equally good in same way I find SW and ESB to be equally good but I voted for the first HP because it came first.

[Marian Schedenig 8,172]

Cuarón doesn't like film music

He doesn't? He clearly liked what Doyle wrote for A Little Princess.

[crocodile 7,982]

Cuarón doesn't like film music

He doesn't? He clearly liked what Doyle wrote for A Little Princess.

I was listening to that interview with James Sizemore (from that orchestration thread) and in that they were mentioning that Stephen Price is not a trained composer and that the director didn't want "film music" in his film. As to what he means by that, I don't know.

Karol

[Thor 7,463]

I'm not sure where the contention that Cuarón does not like film music comes from, as he has consistently had brilliant scores in his movies. Has he said something about this in interviews?

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Faleel 5,330]

Yeah, it sounds like a artistic decision, specific to that film.

[Hlao-roo 389]

I'm a big POA fan too. I think Cuaron pushed him out of his comfort zone a bit.

Everything Williams wrote for Prison of Azkaban sounds completely within his comfort zone.

[mrbellamy 6,272]

I agree, I think the only difference is that the influences are more wide-ranging and disconnected than you'll usually find within a single piece. You kind of feel like the two of them were just going through their favorite records and composers during the spotting sessions. Scatterbrained, as Sharky put it, but I love that aspect of it. It's a bit like a zany Greatest Hits tour of Williams' career, upending and riffing on many of his old tropes and tendencies. Very colorful and peculiar score, I still listen to it often.

[indy4 155]

Once you get to Hogwarts, I don't think it's that scatterbrained. Certainly a variety of different styles, but Williams finds a way to mesh and unify them all really well. It's only the waltz and the Knight Bus piece that (as great as they are) feel out of place.

[Jay 37,281]

Those don't feel out of place to me, I think they're a perfect fit.

[Faleel 5,330]

You think that so much, you said it twice!

You think that so much, you said it twice!

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

It's a bit too scatterbrained for me.

I agree.

It's more instrumentally creative but its lack of focus reduces it to a series of disjointed (but appealing) set pieces. That being said, it's still far superior to everything that came after.

[mrbellamy 6,272]

It works well in the film, though, in the sense of how the stories in those movies were more of a guise for highlighting Rowling's inventions. The Double Trouble and Window to the Past themes are also developed quite nicely and prevent the score -- if not necessarily the album, which removes a lot of those statements -- from feeling nearly as episodic as it could have been.

[Jay 37,281]

Still odd to me the double trouble theme disappears entirely after the first half of the film until the end credits

[mrbellamy 6,272]

I think there's barely a hint of it when the kids are walking past the executioner and heading down to Hagrid's, just before they run into Malfoy. I was gonna say that it doesn't seem like there would have been many places for it, but he probably could have played around with it a bunch during the time turner stuff.