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They all told him the same thing: “Spielberg wanted me to score Schindler’s List, but I was dead.”

One man's epic struggle to decide exactly which coat he's going to buy.

Here's a theme that doesn't get much love -- The Knights of Ren motif: It's not quite the most original of Williams's themes. Heck, it's about as generic as you can get in his style: a repeated note, followed by semitonal double neighbor figure. Blame it on the uninspired, underwritten antagonists it's supposed to depict, I guess. Perhaps the theme's punch is diminished due to a certain fuzziness of signification. In fact, on my first couple of listens I took it, wrongly, to be an additional Kylo Ren theme. The main culprit in this confusion is the first, ear-grabbing rendition accompanies the big Exegol building during the opening sequence -- not the KoR themselves. (Whether this is tracked, spliced, or something else I have no clue.) Still, there are some neat treatments throughout the score. My favorite is probably for the reforging scene (2M2), owing to the slippery string accompaniment and the way it kind of lines up with the rhythm of the hammer strikes. It's also noteworthy that, right away, we're getting two different versions of the theme, one that begins on the 5th scale degree (as on Exegol) and one that begins on the tonic (reforging). What I'm really interested to hear JWfan's opinion on in is the ostinato figure underneath the theme in 3M6 "Knights of Ren," which accompanies their "cool" aerial pose after landing on Pasaana. (Starts at 47 seconds below) Tell me that doesn't sound a little -- even a lot -- like the ostinato from Duel of the Fates? Has this been remarked upon elsewhere? The DOTF-line is extremely hard to hear clearly against soundeffects, but I'm fairly certain it's either G-A-G-F#-E, A-A-G-F#-E, or a combination of the two. Maybe relevant that E-minor is the key DoTF is most strongly associated with, and that's what this cue is in too. And rumor had it that Williams did record some form of DoTF for Episode 9. Anyone able to clean up the audio here to make that ostinato more audible? Edit: Listening even more carefully, I'm not hearing DotF that much any more in this cue -- instead, I'm getting a Bb-A-Bb-A-G-E-E pattern. But it's still very hard to make out discrete pitches. Oh well!

Yea that's the point; It was intended and shot for Low Below to be a big musical number at that point in the film, then Spielberg chickened out and removed it, but still had to show Smee bringing the hook through, etc in the final cut Yea, the backing vocals of Pirates singing "hook, hook, show us the hook!" and "hook, hook, give us the hook!" and "hook, hook, hook, hook, hook!" that were not included in the OST, LLL, or boot version of the cue would have been recorded by Williams. The session leak contained one of those vocal performances (as a separate track from the orchestral layer) but not the others

So basically, you're waiting for John Williams to die? That's morbid, dude.

Sometimes sheet music leaks reveal cues that were never recorded, like Empire of The Sun, AI, or Superman. Typically these are just sketches, like they knew they didn't need it before anyone spent time orchestrating it. But with HP3 the sheer number of fully orchestrated sheets in the leak, combined with all the talk of the evolving score, themes that changed, etc, makes me think it's likely these old versions were recorded. But who knows! We have no way of knowing. I have no idea why things weren't found >shrug<

The 3rd disc contains a brand new rebuild of the 1978 OST album because it's an iconic album and everyone felt it should be included in the definitive release of this score. When JW constructed the album in 1978, it was all made from the same takes and mixes as the cues that went into the film (this is one of those scores where Tomlinson cut the performance edits directly on the 1st generation tape, so all releases have always have the correct takes everywhere). When the original LP program was released on CD in the US years later, 2 tracks were cut to fit the CD limitations at the time; the full 1978 LP program had only been released on CD in Japan before the LLL debuted it in the US 41 years after its USA LP debut. The entirety of the LLL set is an entirely new mix. All previous albums used 2nd, 3rd, or 4th generation sources that all contained Tomlinson's film mix. For this release the first gen tapes were finally found, but they were multitrack - Tomlinson's film mix was not re-dubbed onto spare tracks on the 1st gen tape. So Mike created his own brand new mix from the first generation multitrack for every single cue in the score. So this edition of the 1978 OST album is Mike's new mix, not Tomlinson's old mix. After the mix, as far as mastering goes, the original LP was mastered in one way back in 78, the 2000 Rhino was mastered differently, and the 2008 was mastered differently again - except for any tracks they had to take off the album master. The LLL album was entirely mastered by Mike including the OST rebuild. One final note is that there is some piano heard in the Planet Krypton OST track that isn't otherwise in the Rhino, FSM, or LLL main program, so including the OST program in this set was a great way to include that little bit that Williams apparently liked enough to put on the LP (the only thing that differed from the film mix on the entire LP, other than the different placement of Margo Kidder's vocals)

Does anyone have a cue list or sheet music for this score? Or is anyone aware of a bootleg? Information seems relatively scarce for this score. I'm working on a spreadsheet and there's about 3 sections of music on the OST that can't be placed in the film (so some sheet music would fill in the blanks). There's also some film versions I'm not convinced match their OST counterpart (either different takes or partially replaced by inserts). Another classic JW OST -- the film only has 44 minutes of music, and the OST 46 minutes, yet somehow there's still half a dozen cues missing (plus film takes and inserts). Then there's an alternate version of Follow Me (mentioned by @filmmusic) that supposedly leaked on a BOT4J bootleg?!

Nice, I'm sure that stands for playback. And yea, why can't any Williams sheet leak ever be 100% complete?

I've never seen anybody make any mockups of any Hook cues at all I don't know what you mean. We have the entire cue on the LLL CD, we just haven't seen all the footage JW wrote it for

Just hire Shore's assistant, what's he called, James Sizemore, he can conform Shore's music better than anyone else I bet.

NEW 2M2 The Kryptonquake LLL, no mockup. I made numerous trims to sync, using the Extended Cut https://drive.google.com/file/d/16MyNm4jdRWvj0RYEB5g-yfshL_Ba4Y9y/view?usp=sharing

One of Spielberg's and JW's least celebrated collaborations, the most desired Matessino expansion by exactly 0 people, Always always (lol) had a bad fame. But is the score actually good? Here's Jon Broxton's review, published today: https://moviemusicuk.us/2020/01/30/always-john-williams/ So, do you think Always deserves to be rediscovered?

The impotence and the tinnitus. He's a broken man.

You Were Never Really Here by Jonny Greenwood ---- A moody (and muddy) synth scape. Not for the faint of heart. Airlines by Alexandre Desplat ---- What a fantastic release, entirely new arrangements to me. Very impressed with the concert piece! Will return to this very soon I expect. Evolution by John Powell City Slickers by Marc Shaiman ---- Had a lot of fun with this, first time! Fruitvale Station by Ludwig Goransson The Secret Garden by Dario Marianelli ---- In one ear and out the other, pleasant but empty. Random Acts of Flyness by Emile Mosseri ---- Cannot wait for Kajillionaire later this month. and Strange Angel: Season One by Daniel Hart Recommended for those interested in Hart's progression as a composer. Certainly extended his voice in my estimations, well-developed orchestral textures and occasional Britell-like trappings (think Succession but less showy). Among other things, a comfortably concise 29 minute release. Give it a go! https://open.spotify.com/album/2Ai91ptsT4jPSt3gDh48WE?si=jyGMDEfWT22tEJPmGPED4w

Well of course all of those songs would have had DEMOS recorded, that's not a question. And the full unedited finished Pick Em Up exists somewhere. The only question is if Low Below ever had a finished version made, or if Spielberg cut it early enough that JW never worked on that, and the version made for on-set playback is all that there is It's unlikely Believe, Childhood, or Stick With Me would have anything that exists beyond the original demos / versions made for on-set playback that went unused, since we've never seen any evidence those songs were filmed at all

Just listening to this again. Now THIS is how you do a live recording. So good.

Dan Schweiger's liner notes in the 2012 LLL CD list the songs We Don't Wanna Grow Up - Was filmed / Finished version of song appears in the theatrical cut / on the OST and LLL CD / Melody never used again Low Below - Was filmed (images posted a few posts up, lyrics found in shooting script sold on ebay) / Cut from final theatrical version / Unknown if finished version of song ever made / Melody incorporated into score (Presenting The Hook 1:22 + LLL Pirates! 0:31) Believe - Probably never filmed / Melody incorporated into score (From Mermaids To Lost Boys 1:57, Remembering Childhood 2:57, 3:21 and 4:14, Farewell Neverland 0:15, 1:23, 1:56) Pick Em Up - Was filmed / Finished version of song appears in the theatrical cut, but edited down / Full lyrics available here / Was not on the OST or LLL CD or any leak / Melody never used again Stick With Me - Probably never filmed / Melody incorporated into score (Presenting The Hook 1:54, Smee's Plan 0:07 and 1:11, The Ultimate War 0:31, 2:09, 4:23, 4:34, 5:42, and 7:02 + LLL Pirates! 0:07 and 0:26) Childhood - Probably never filmed / Lyrics published in 1992 / Fan-made recording here / Melody incorporated into score (Granny Wendy 0:55, The Arrival of Tink and The Flight To Neverland 5:07, From Mermaids To Lost Boys 3:57 and 4:05, The Never-Feast 0:47 and 0:57, Remembering Childhood 2:38, 5:10, 7:34, 8:37, 9:07, 9:59, 10:19, The Ultimate War 7:42, Farewell Neverland 0:00, 7:52, 8:54 + LLL The Nursery 0:25, The Watch 0:32, Hook Challenges Peter 0:12) When You're All Alone - Was filmed / Finished version of song appears in the theatrical cut / On the OST and LLL CD / Melody incorporated into score (The Never-Feast 3:53, Remembering Childhood 0:00 and 1:01, The Ultimate War 7:18, Farewell Neverland 7:24, 8:11 + LLL The Watch 0:00) It is currently unknown if the other recurring themes in the score began life as song demos or not The first theme heard in the teaser trailer (Prologue 0:06 and 1:03) heard in Hook-Napped (0:11 and 0:36 and 2:20), Hook Challenges Peter (3:15), and The Ultimate War: The Death of Rufio (2:13) The second theme heard in the teaser trailer (Prologue 0:32 and 1:12) heard in The Never-Feast (3:20) and Remembering Childhood (8:47 and 9:30 and 9:46 and 10:34) and The Ultimate War (0:05, 1:03, 1:28, 2:32, 2:54, 3:11, 3:22, 4:30, 5:07, 5:15, 5:32) The theme for Tinkerbell heard in We Don't Wanna Grow Up (0:09), The Arrival of Tink and The Flight to Neverland (1:53) The Home-Alone-esque theme for family heard in Granny Wendy (0:12) and Farewell Neverland (6:00, 6:10, 6:55, 8:25, 9:14, 9:47) The theme for Hook heard in Hook-Napped (0:54 and 1:13 and 1:49 and 2:30) and LLL tracks The Bedroom (0:20, 0:35), Pirates! (0:22, 0:40, 1:04,1:27, 2:02, 2:15), and Hook Challenges Peter (0:06) The theme for Peter's relationship with the Lost Boys heard in You Are The Pan (2:27 and 3:15) The theme for the Lost Boys heard in The Banquet (0:20 and 1:41 and 2:22) and The Never-Feast (0:05 and 0:34 and 1:16) and The Ultimate War (3:42, 6:20) The fanfare heard in The Ultimate War (1:18,1:48, 2:24)

My latest composition for orchestra:

About time that JW corrected the scores of Mahler.

Barry Lyndon was good!

BARRY is boring. EYEZ is plain bad. In every way.

Are you sure you're a film critic?

It was one of the new shots for the Special Edition, and it replaced the shot of Neary's van travelling left-to-right, with the U.F.O. following.

Rip rgb

Hardy is completely unlikable.

I thought Daniel Craig was the new Bond.

ONLY FOUR CDS!? You call that an " expansion"?

Nope

How dare you! It's quite fun for what it is. And it works really well in the show. Ludwig's score left no real impression for me and was mostly a chore to sit through.

Aaargh!

Buried under 261 different sound effects! Such a seriously great variation on Rey's Theme: jurassicjello · Rey Action (Speeder Chase) Shame nobody in the sound team gave a shit. This score is going to be revelatory when Mike finally gets a chance to expand it.

OK this probably looks like a complicated explanation, but in the end it's actually fairly straightforward. So basically we're talking about the two times in the film the Patronus charm successfully saves Sirius from the Dementors; the first time when Harry observes a mysterious figure doing it then passes out, and the second time when Harry realizes it was his future self he saw and successfully pulls it off himself. The cue for the first scene is 6M5AN First Frozen Lake. This cue is presented as recorded on the LLL CD as Disc 2 track 1 "The Dementors Converge (Film Version)" The cue for the second scene is 7M4 Watching The Past. This cue is presented as recorded on the LLL CD as Disc 2 track 21 "Watching The Past (Alternate)" The interesting thing about these two cues is of course that neither cue uses Window To The Past theme for the big Patronus moment; Each cue's climax is a similar passages of aggressive choir, rising strings, and horn triplets, but no thematic material. At some point, someone decided that it made sense to use the Window To The Past theme for successful usage of the Patronus Charm. I have no idea if this was before or after 4M14N The Dementor was recorded or not (the only version of 4M14 recorded that we know of), but we know from a sheet music leak that the original version of 4M14 Dueling The Dementor didn't use the Window To The Past theme either. Anyway, for these two frozen lake moments, Williams didn't record a revision or insert synced to anything specific onscreen, a wild recording was made containing the past theme on horns with a calm choir backing. I don't know what Williams' title was for this cue, but this is the cue Mike referred to in the liners as the "pre-recorded version of the Patronus music". For the rest of this post I'll just called it "the Patronus Insert" Cuaron decided for the film itself to keep First Frozen Lake as it was, but then use the Patronus Insert the second time around during Watching The Past when Harry realizes his potential and successfully performs the spell, saving the thematic statement for when the hero saves the day, and paralleling when it playing during the first time her performed it when training with Lupin. The choices Williams then made for the OST album are then what really muddied the waters. Here we get a version of First Frozen Lake where the climax is replaced by the horn recording from the Patronus Insert along with some hodgepodge of other edited elements, and he named the track "The Dementors Converge". We don't know whether the Patronus Insert appears here because at one point Cuaron was going to use it at both spots in the film, or if this is just something Williams did for the album on his own. Watching The Past is also included on the OST - with the climax replaced by the Patronus Insert like Cuaron did in the film - as the first cue inside a track he titled "Finale". Finally, he included just the choir element of the Patronus Insert on the OST as well, in a track he titled "The Patronus Light". The main program of the LLL album follows what the film does, and features First Frozen Lake as it was recorded (which had to be titled "The Dementors Converge (Film Version)" because of Williams' OST decisions), and Watching The Past with the Patronus Insert in place of the original climax was included inside a track called "Buckbeak Saves The Day / Watching The Past" (which also includes the ticking clock overlay over part of the cue). Then the non-film-versions of First Frozen Lake and Watching The Past were included in the bonus track section, along with "The Patronus Light" So, to sum up What was recorded 6M5AN First Frozen Lake 7M4 Watching The Past "The Patronus Insert"; The Window To The Past Theme on horns with a choir backing, with the horn and choir elements recorded separately What the film does 6M5AN First Frozen Lake plays as recorded 7M4 Watching The Past has the climax replaced by the Patronus Insert What Williams did for the OST album Track# 15 "The Patronus Light" is a presentation of JUST the choir element of the Patronus Insert Track #19 "The Dementors Converge" is 6M5AN First Frozen Lake, except the climax has been had been replaced by the horn statement of the WTTP theme from Patronus Insert mixed into other things {including apparently some material from 7M4's original climax} from 1:45-2:33 or so Track #20 "Finale" is 7M4 Watching The Past with the climax replaced by the Patronus Insert at around 1:13, which is crossfaded into 7M6 Sirius' Final Scene What the LLL main program does Disc 2 track 1 "The Dementors Converge (Film Version)" is 6M5AN First Frozen Lake as recorded, premiering clean what we heard in the film Disc 2 track 4 "Buckbeak Saves The Day / Watching The Past" is 7M3 Buckbeak Saves The Day followed by 7M4 Watching The Past, which has its climax replaced by the Patronus Insert, like in the film (and also, the tick-tock element appears at various points throughout the whole track) What the LLL bonus tracks are Disc 2 track 21 "Watching The Past (Alternate)" is 7M4 Watching The Past as originally recorded, premiering the original unused and never-before-heard climax and its unique denouement Disc 2 track 23 "The Patronus Light" is OST track #15 directly from the album master Disc 2 track 25 "The Dementors Converge" is OST Track #19 directly from the album master I hope that makes sense to everyone and answers all the questions!

The scene itself made me sick, and then a couple months later I found myself coming back to this track on the soundtrack A LOT. There's this complicated mix of emotions going on here. Pain, discomfort, hopelessness, hope, relief, romance and beauty. It's all woven together so well and makes you feel what the scene is supposed to make you feel, but again, like everything in this movie, doesn't bother to make you feel on your own. Really, between Attack of the Clones and The Rise of Skywalker, it's amazing that Williams was able to pinpoint the emotions that were SUPPOSED to be present in the movie but weren't at all. Then, to be able to communicate that via music to the world. Wow.

I'm sure whoever made these would want to include a disclaimer that they're old mockups and would most certainly sound better if that person were to redo them these days.

Tarkin was great when he wasn't moving so much, I liked the idea of his reflection in the glass. There was definitely something off about Leia though. The problem with Deepfake technology isn't just about whether or not it's ethical, it's that it's a sign of laziness and an unwillingness to move on. Countless television shows and films have made do with casting younger actors, lookalikes or playing coy with creative angles and lighting to convince audiences that we're watching the same character from a different age. I get wanting to have the seamless continuity of having the same actor over a period of time, but it doesn't look as convincing because we know the trick behind the magic. I have major issues with something like The Irishman when clearly the technology used was insufficient to make De Niro or any of the other old-timers appear younger. What, Scorsese couldn't find a younger actor to portray them? The CG is a distraction and it won't be anything else until it can seamlessly imitate reality.

Here's some of the score to a satirical film I was involved in recently. I got to write for the ondes martenot and managed to work with an ondist in Paris (since there aren't many active players in the world anymore). Was a lot of fun putting this together. Would love to hear your thoughts! @karelm @Loert @SteveMc @Dixon Hill @Sharkissimo @Nick Parker

one thing that's still not clear to me. The 12 seconds that opens the End Credits in the film version missing from the OST Is that an insert recorded later or another stellar Ramiro Belgart microedit in the OST?

Oh, I'm pretty sure there is!

I don’t think those films are necessarily bigger visually (although shooting in Spain and Italy in the sixties was cheap as hell, so one got a lot of bang for one’s buck). Narrativelly, however, they usually told stories that happened over an extended period of time, and used various devices (including a great number of day/night transitions) to support the feeling of it being a long haul. By contrast, something like the plot of The Two Towers, grand though it may get, only transpires over a couple of days. Gladiator feels like the plot takes maybe a couple of months. Spartacus feels like a couple of years, which is to say nothing of the likes of Gone With the Wind. Even The Godfather takes place throughout an entire decade. I think it’s the effect of Jaws, that we don’t accept the pacing of an event movie unless it’s main plot seems to transpire within a couple of weeks at most. There are outliers of course.