Uni

I can see the short-term frustration, but it will die down. The final installment of a 6-film saga—complete with scores that some consider among the best in modern cinema—is naturally going to dominate the course of general discussion for a while. The same thing happened at the end of the first trilogy. And it'll happen again when the next Avatar trilogy wraps up (hell, it'll probably be this way when the first one hits theaters). And with any other major franchise as well.
Opening a new subforum every time this happens is overkill. I'll admit, I was one who objected to separating the JW topics into a separate area; and I'll also admit now (probably to Steef's chagrin) that I was just plain wrong on that count. It makes sense. I'm with mrbellamy—the bigger problem was that it happened much later than it should have. The center of gravity on this website ought to have his own unique space around here, and it does help people who are interested in reading about John Williams on a John Williams message board find what they're looking for that much easier.
But if you have to create a subforum for every subject of interest that gets a little traction once in a while, you'll wind up fracturing things to the point that it'll start to dampen discussion . . . not a good thing for a MB. You'll have to have one for Star Trek, of course, then Avatar, then the comic book movies as that franchise continues to grow, and so on, and so on. . . . No one's gonna want to scramble around to 15 forums to catch up on all the talk. They'll pick one or two they like, and stay in those. And they'll lose touch with people who've chosen different forums. And they'll all start drying up pretty soon, because people will tire of talking about something that eventually passes out of fashion. Then what do you do? Close that subforum up? Then re-open it again if a few new threads pop up?
I've used this illustration before, but I keep coming back to it in my own mind every time this conversation comes to the fore: I see GD as a big room with a lot of tables. Each table has a discussion on a particular topic. You're free to sit down and join the discussion at any table that catches your interest. The subjects are wide-ranging, of course, because people who are interested in John Williams will naturally be interested in film music, and therefore other film composers, and therefore movies (because that's what the music's for), and therefore the directors and screenwriters and performers who make movies, and in turn the authors who write the books the movies are based on, and the proposed sequels and prequels of those movies . . . and so on and so forth. Over time, the people who occupy this room, who are the people having the discussions at these tables (making the room what it is, really), will naturally get to know one another better. After a while, it won't be a bunch of strangers with common interests talking; it'll be acquaintances chatting it up, and eventually you'll be watching friends debating their favorite subjects with each other. As a result of this dynamic, they may at times treat the place like something of a rowdy pub, but that's how even good-natured and well-intentioned folks behave given long enough in each others' graces. And, like any similar group that meets together regularly, the conversations will occasionally veer off-topic—not because the members all have ADD, but because that's what happens to discussions among people who've grown comfortable with each other.
Do we really want to undermine that vibe? Do we really want to separate the topics not among different tables, but into different rooms? It'll be quieter, sure. More peaceful, probably. That's because there'll be fewer people sitting together. They won't have time each day to drop in on every room, so pretty soon they'll fall behind on some discussions and decide that they'll have to just stick to a room or two for the long haul. Message boards are for the purpose of connecting, not disconnecting. This proposal always has the feel of the latter to me.
I've gotta say, in spite of some of the nonsense that comes up from time to time—people who sit down at a table not because they're interested in the topic, but because they want to stick their tongue out at the people who are (this will never make sense to me), some of the unruliness from folks who've had a few too many and have to take their disagreements out to the alleyway, etc.—I like the milieu of this board. It sort of covers the range between that pub I mentioned earlier and a fine smoking lounge. The Trekkers and Star Wars fans go through kegs at a time playing their drinking games; the Middle Earthers raise a mug of ale (or three) as they encounter new adaptations while singing about the old days; the Zimmer fans drown their woes in cheap scotch (wait—no . . . did I say that? Never mind); the music theorists sit with their pipes and fine wine and quietly discuss obscure chord progressions like MIT professors working non-linear equations. But even these last spill a little burgundy occasionally as they stand up to cheer when their team scores a goal on the big-screen T.V.
It works. The founders and admins here have fashioned a place where people can have this kind of fun with each other—a place that is (by nearly all accounts I've seen) one of the best boards on the internet for discussing this kind of thing without people pointlessly trolling and trashing. Don't mess with a good thing.

Has it only been 35 years? Seems like longer than that. . . .
Beautifully said. And really only marginally dated, even after three and a half decades (mostly in the wardrobe department). It remains my favorite Williams score, mostly for personal reasons—and, well, the fact that it's friggin' awesome.

Gandalf: . . . and in that fair valley lies the Shelfs of Elfsdelf.
Thorin: Um . . . isn't it "shelves?"
Gandalf: Quiet, dwarv.

Ladies and gentlemen . . . the John Williams Fan Board!

He did make one very good connection in that review: comparing PJ to Thorin. The sight of all that gold rolling in from the first trilogy drove him insane.

In the end change, sense of inevitable change and the longing for what has passed, not in a reactionary way, but because with it departs quite tangibly a part of the world is central to Tolkien's stories in all the ages of the world. The world is less after that and becomes less and less extraordinary when living legend departs slowly from its shores. The elves embody this as their whole history has been "a long defeat" as Galadriel says, of giving up and seeing the world change while they stay the same. But even the marred Arda is better than nothing to them even though they yearn for the days when the world was young and had so much more beauty and blessing to it. It is the dichotomy of immortals yearning for death and end and envying the races who possess this gift and the mortals thirsting for eternal life that is also one of the central questions and themes of the legendarium. The immortal life becomes unchanging but tremendously sad as the years roll on and the world changes all around. Galadriel's song of Eldamar is one of the most beautiful crystallizations of this longing and another that has always gotten to me is Treebeard's Song (In the Willow-meads of Tasarinan...) that encapsulates antiquity, tremendous sense loss and longing for a world that has vanished. And age by age the elves tied to the Song of the Ainur with tighter bonds than Men, slowly have to accept their fate, to depart from the world and this sense of loss and longing is also felt by others, not just by the elves themselves but by the elf-friends and those who feel kinship with them. It is an incredibly powerful theme that always struck me. The films of course can depict only a small hint and layer of this, e.g. in how Rivendell slowly fades and shows signs of autumn and how the elves depart from Middle Earth but they do not offer it long explanations nor dwell on it in the way the novel can.
Then we have the mortals lusting for life eternal, the Nazgûl, who fall from grace and are corrupted by the enemy and the long-lived but proud Númenoreans. We have the most egregious example of this, Ar-Pharazôn the Golden, whose sin of pride and greed brings about the great cataclysm that destroys Númenor. This is the mirror image of the longing of the Elves and Ents, selfish, twisted and in war with the precepts of the world itself. Tolkien's writings specifically show this lust for long, even eternal life, as pride, fear and an erroneous way of thinking. It is different from the way elves cling to the world as they have no choice. They live and witness its diminishment. With men it is born of desperation to hold onto life itself, not the world as such. It is also stated how Elves envy Men for being able to die and go directly to Eru while they have to languish in the Halls of Mandos until the end of days and consider this as Eru's gift to the mortals. Again quite difficult to show in a film. Shore's music however brings parts of this to the movies both in the music but also in the text of the music, embodying the diminishment of the elves with themes and changes in the music of Rivendell etc.

Yes; in contrast to the film, it's actually really good.

Absolutely!
And that's also why I was happy to see them integrate more of the Aragorn/Arwen backstory in the films (minus the strange deviations from Tolkien's own writings, i.e. Arwen first leaving for the West and later getting sick). Many people complained that they simply invented huge amounts of screen time from a "mere" appendix just to have a love story. What they failed to understand was that this appendix is immensely important for the book, and its story (or, especially, the Beren/Luthien story it mirrors) and all it touches upon (loss of innocence, longing for an eternally unchanging world, giving up an eternal life and a return to "paradise") is at the very heart of Tolkien's writings, including LOTR. Although I can't claim to have picked up on that during my first readings.
The whole feeling of starting out on an adventure and coming back home in the end, but changed and forever different, and yet really coming home is certainly a big influence that draws me (or all of us) back to the books, and something I've rarely seen depicted only half as well as in Tolkien. There's a motif in the finale of Bruckner's 8th symphony that has a similar vibe to me and always makes me melancholic.

Hell, he didn't seem interested in where the series was going when he was directing the last three movies. Why would he care now. . . ?

Yesterday afternoon while I was driving on the highway and whistling a tune (no doubt inspired by this discussion), it suddenly struck me that I'd forgotten the most important thing the movies had given us—the one thing from 15 years of big-screen Tolkien that's meant the most (to me, anyway).
As a lifelong lover of myths and epic poetry, Tolkien's desire in writing his Book of Lost Tales (which would become The Silmarilion) was to create a mythology for Britain, which had none of its own. And he knew that arguably the most important element of myth is tragedy. What begins in innocence and purity must fall or be tainted, and though events may lead to an ultimate resolution that could be called "happy" on some level, it only comes at the price of great loss, sacrifice, and a twisting of the road that makes a return to the original state of innocence impossible. It's a state that leaves the characters forever wishing for that innocence and purity back, and mourning its loss, and longing for a replacement that resembles it in some fashion. That's how the Silmarils became the heart of Tolkien's legend: they contained the last light of the two trees of Valinor, which had been lost forever. Wars were fought between people who had once been allies in order to win back that remembrance.
And that's why the elves felt constantly torn. They were caught between the beauty and legacy of what they had created in Middle Earth and their desire to return to the Undying Lands. In going there they might find again some of what they had given up ages earlier . . . but they would have to suffer another loss to get it, leaving behind the world they still loved. Their entire race was characterized by a restlessness that could never quite be satisfied. They felt a constant yearning for both the past and something that still lay in the future, which could only be reached by laying the past aside forever. Tolkien never came out and articulated it in so many words, but the stories are saturated with that overwhelming sense of longing. In adventuring into the larger world and taking a direct hand in its destiny, the hobbits are "infected" with this same feeling as well. As indomitable as they are, they're still altered by their experiences, and can't ever really go back to being simple Shirefolk again.
And, in reading their stories, we also become infected with that same powerful sense of longing. I think that's why those of us who love the book are always drawn back to reading it again. In a way, we want to go back to the beginning, before Bilbo, Frodo, and their friends were spoiled by the world beyond. And yet . . . we're not satisfied to stay there. We're compelled by that same longing for what lies ahead, to watch them leave the safety of their homes and be hardened by the world—and yet to see them grow as a result of it, too, and be changed, and then to return to a home that's been changed in their absence, and use the ways they've grown and changed to set everything right, and yet reach a resolution that resembles the beginning but will never quite be the same again. (That's why Sam's final utterance is a perfect end to the story: as simple as it seems, it's fraught with irony.) And we're left afterward with the same, familiar sense of both finality and not-quite-satisfaction that will bring us back revisit to the story later.
That was Tolkien's true master stroke: he found and struck that infinitely fine balance between bitter and sweet, maintained it through tens of thousands of years of history, and manifested it so palpably in the Rings cycle. It's one of the book's strongest elements, what draws out the passion in its most ardent followers, and what some readers struggle with during their initial reading (and probably why some of them never come back to it).
So was Peter Jackson able to bring that same sense of yearning to the films? Well, he tried. Unfortunately, there's only so much cinema can do with something that literature can accomplish naturally. There was a lot in there about the elves leaving Middle Earth 'n' stuff, but people who had never read the books wouldn't have a clue why they were doing it, or what was so significant about it. Occasionally the sadness of the eldar races would come through, but again, its basis wasn't thoroughly explained. So honestly . . . the movies didn't really get that across in the same way the books did.
With one big exception.
Looking back now, I see I glossed over Shore's contributions somewhat in my first post. Again, I consider them great scores, and well-matched to the movies they were written for, but they've never crossed over in my mind to the real Middle Earth—that is, the fellowship's theme doesn't play in my head at any point when I'm reading FOTR, and so on. They're still two separate entities as far as that's concerned.
With . . . one big exception.
I love the story of how Shore and Co. brought the final song in the trilogy together. They had one ready to go, but Shore wasn't satisfied with it. He knew this represented "the end of all things," and was convinced they could do better. He wanted Annie Lennox, who had been selected to do the vocals, to hear it for the first time and say, "That's beautiful." So they went back and put all their effort into a new creation . . . one that inspired Lennox, when it was first played for her, to say, "That's beautiful." (That moment in the video gave me goosebumps the first time I saw it.) Her voice was the ideal complement for it, and the result, alongside Alan Lee's divine pencil sketches, made the perfect curtain call for the entire series of films.
But more than that, "Into the West" completely captures that acute, heartrending sense of yearning imbued on the books, the feeling of resolution and conclusion but not total satisfaction, the aching pull both of all that's passed and all that might still be to come. It doesn't just feel like it was made for Middle Earth; it feels like it came right out of the hearts of the elves who lived there. It brought me to tears the first time I heard it over the end credits to ROTK in the theater, and to this day it's still a rare listening that doesn't leave me misty-eyed. Hearing it just one time makes me want to see the movies and read the books all over again. In my mind, it's quite simply the best song ever written for the cinema, and Howard Shore's crowning achievement on the project.
In the end, that's what came out of the movies that's meant the most to me. And even if I had much bigger problems with the adaptations than I do, I think this one song would still have made the entire enterprise worth it.

Yesterday afternoon while I was driving on the highway and whistling a tune (no doubt inspired by this discussion), it suddenly struck me that I'd forgotten the most important thing the movies had given us—the one thing from 15 years of big-screen Tolkien that's meant the most (to me, anyway).
As a lifelong lover of myths and epic poetry, Tolkien's desire in writing his Book of Lost Tales (which would become The Silmarilion) was to create a mythology for Britain, which had none of its own. And he knew that arguably the most important element of myth is tragedy. What begins in innocence and purity must fall or be tainted, and though events may lead to an ultimate resolution that could be called "happy" on some level, it only comes at the price of great loss, sacrifice, and a twisting of the road that makes a return to the original state of innocence impossible. It's a state that leaves the characters forever wishing for that innocence and purity back, and mourning its loss, and longing for a replacement that resembles it in some fashion. That's how the Silmarils became the heart of Tolkien's legend: they contained the last light of the two trees of Valinor, which had been lost forever. Wars were fought between people who had once been allies in order to win back that remembrance.
And that's why the elves felt constantly torn. They were caught between the beauty and legacy of what they had created in Middle Earth and their desire to return to the Undying Lands. In going there they might find again some of what they had given up ages earlier . . . but they would have to suffer another loss to get it, leaving behind the world they still loved. Their entire race was characterized by a restlessness that could never quite be satisfied. They felt a constant yearning for both the past and something that still lay in the future, which could only be reached by laying the past aside forever. Tolkien never came out and articulated it in so many words, but the stories are saturated with that overwhelming sense of longing. In adventuring into the larger world and taking a direct hand in its destiny, the hobbits are "infected" with this same feeling as well. As indomitable as they are, they're still altered by their experiences, and can't ever really go back to being simple Shirefolk again.
And, in reading their stories, we also become infected with that same powerful sense of longing. I think that's why those of us who love the book are always drawn back to reading it again. In a way, we want to go back to the beginning, before Bilbo, Frodo, and their friends were spoiled by the world beyond. And yet . . . we're not satisfied to stay there. We're compelled by that same longing for what lies ahead, to watch them leave the safety of their homes and be hardened by the world—and yet to see them grow as a result of it, too, and be changed, and then to return to a home that's been changed in their absence, and use the ways they've grown and changed to set everything right, and yet reach a resolution that resembles the beginning but will never quite be the same again. (That's why Sam's final utterance is a perfect end to the story: as simple as it seems, it's fraught with irony.) And we're left afterward with the same, familiar sense of both finality and not-quite-satisfaction that will bring us back revisit to the story later.
That was Tolkien's true master stroke: he found and struck that infinitely fine balance between bitter and sweet, maintained it through tens of thousands of years of history, and manifested it so palpably in the Rings cycle. It's one of the book's strongest elements, what draws out the passion in its most ardent followers, and what some readers struggle with during their initial reading (and probably why some of them never come back to it).
So was Peter Jackson able to bring that same sense of yearning to the films? Well, he tried. Unfortunately, there's only so much cinema can do with something that literature can accomplish naturally. There was a lot in there about the elves leaving Middle Earth 'n' stuff, but people who had never read the books wouldn't have a clue why they were doing it, or what was so significant about it. Occasionally the sadness of the eldar races would come through, but again, its basis wasn't thoroughly explained. So honestly . . . the movies didn't really get that across in the same way the books did.
With one big exception.
Looking back now, I see I glossed over Shore's contributions somewhat in my first post. Again, I consider them great scores, and well-matched to the movies they were written for, but they've never crossed over in my mind to the real Middle Earth—that is, the fellowship's theme doesn't play in my head at any point when I'm reading FOTR, and so on. They're still two separate entities as far as that's concerned.
With . . . one big exception.
I love the story of how Shore and Co. brought the final song in the trilogy together. They had one ready to go, but Shore wasn't satisfied with it. He knew this represented "the end of all things," and was convinced they could do better. He wanted Annie Lennox, who had been selected to do the vocals, to hear it for the first time and say, "That's beautiful." So they went back and put all their effort into a new creation . . . one that inspired Lennox, when it was first played for her, to say, "That's beautiful." (That moment in the video gave me goosebumps the first time I saw it.) Her voice was the ideal complement for it, and the result, alongside Alan Lee's divine pencil sketches, made the perfect curtain call for the entire series of films.
But more than that, "Into the West" completely captures that acute, heartrending sense of yearning imbued on the books, the feeling of resolution and conclusion but not total satisfaction, the aching pull both of all that's passed and all that might still be to come. It doesn't just feel like it was made for Middle Earth; it feels like it came right out of the hearts of the elves who lived there. It brought me to tears the first time I heard it over the end credits to ROTK in the theater, and to this day it's still a rare listening that doesn't leave me misty-eyed. Hearing it just one time makes me want to see the movies and read the books all over again. In my mind, it's quite simply the best song ever written for the cinema, and Howard Shore's crowning achievement on the project.
In the end, that's what came out of the movies that's meant the most to me. And even if I had much bigger problems with the adaptations than I do, I think this one song would still have made the entire enterprise worth it.

I think the analogy to Star Wars in my case relates more to the whole film event spectacle which Lord of the Rings films were for me. I had missed out on the previous ones entirely. My own experience with Tolkien began when I was 11 and noticed the comics made of the Bakshi animated film at my cousin's house. During the same visit I chanced upon David Day's encyclopedia called Tolkien's World in my cousin's bookshelf, which had the most varied and colorful illustrations that set my imagination on fire even though I did not make the connection to the comic I had just read. Both intrigued me, a lover of fantasy at that age and maybe a year later I read Lord of the Rings, in wrong order largely due to the fact our local library didn't have the FotR or TTT in their collection at the time I borrowed Return of the King. So it was a kind of strange experience to have this backward first read of the novel but I did it. The Finnish translation, the only one in existence, so definitive it is considered, by Kersti Juva is a masterful achievement as I have later done some comparisons to the English original, capturing Tolkien's spirit but being very inventive and linguistically rich. Later I re-read the book with voracious appetite. It appealed at that age to my imagination with sense of adventure, interesting characters and a vivid world with feel of antiquity. I was very much a fan of Hobbits and their lifestyle as well.
Then I explored Hobbit the novel, got into roleplaying games and started to take imaginary trips to Middle Earth with friends through different games, telling stories much in the vein of Lord of the Rings, just smaller in scale. Silmarillion followed when I was 14 or 15 which I absolutely adored. I had bought the very same David Day encyclopedia Tolkien's World so I had a smattering of knowledge of the Elder Days so reading Silmarillion was easier as I had some of the basics, characters etc. already memorized from perusing that small encyclopedia. Mostly that left me with strong visual memories and some of those illustrations stayed me for years, printed on my memory as the very definition of characters, events and places in Tolkien's stories. The Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion and The Hobbit were my bibles in my youth and I must have read them countless times, in full and in part. The whole world felt very real to me, tangible and with a sense of time and place. There was a sense of familiarity that John Howe has been keen to note, Tolkien's creation linked so powerfully to our own reality but still separate and that how it felt to me and is why it appeals to so many. There is also a deep purely aesthetic appeal to his work and Lord of the Rings was the first book that truly taught me the power of written word, poetry and prose and where I actively noted such things as literary style and its changes. Again the art of the book covers (other than Finnish minimalistic awful ones) also led me to appreciate art more keenly and I noted the images by John Howe for the first time. I still have my battered paperback of Lord of the Rings with Howe's perfectly portrayed Gandalf striding through the rainy green landscape. Many other illustrators followed as did a more general interest in art. In time I began to read Tolkien's works in English, read enormous amount of roleplaying game material written about Tolkien's world (some more faithful to his vision, some less) and as I grew older I began to see the different layers of it and how it rewarded further reading as every time I found something new or rediscovered something in those pages I had forgotten. And this fascination with his work continues to this day in various forms and I have read just about everything Tolkien has ever published on his legendarium (and other works for that matter). I can't say my interest or love for Tolkien is diminished, it just changes shape and direction ever so subtly through as the years wane on. The effect of his work on me and my life is immeasurable and I would not be the person I am today without his works.
The films are an ancillary and secondary to the novels to me and will always be. My mental images of the story will always be those I formed prior to seeing the film and a rare few have been replaced by anything from the films, John Howe's Barad-dûr and Alan Lee's Orthanc might be the most specific things that exceeded my own imagination. But the Lord of the Rings films with their relatively minor flaws remain some of the most breathtaking cinematic experiences of my life. The Hobbit films are a mere footnote in comparison, a slightly limping lesser cousin who I appreciate for shedding light on some few and far between visions of greatness in an otherwise lesser trilogy of movies.

I first came into very vague contact with anything Tolkien when I was 8 or 9 years old. Like every summer, my parents, my sister and I spent about a week of the summer holidays at my grandparents' house in the country. My uncle, at that time also living there, had a C64, which he had set up in a room in a basement. It was the first time I saw a computer, and for the rest of the week my parents would have to tell me to come up and play in the sun for at least a few times each day. I spent the remaining time in the basement, playing games and right from the beginning also learning Basic and programming - my uncle had given me a few disks with games and a programming handbook. It was the beginning of my obsession with computers and also the beginning of my now professional programming career.
On the side, I browsed through my uncle's stack of C64 magazines. One of them had an article for a C64 port (and German translation) of the classic text adventure The Hobbit. I had no idea what a Hobbit was, I'd never heard of Tolkien, I didn't actually play the game (I did so several years later, after reading the book - and still got stuck and eaten by Gollum every time). But something about it struck a chord and left me with a feeling of fascination and vague familiarity.
A few years later, my parents saw that they were going to show the Baskhi LOTR on TV. They'd never read Tolkien and didn't know anything about him, and I also don't think I ever talked to them about that Hobbit article, but they thought the film might interest me. So we taped it and I watched it a day later. I'm sure I didn't understand much of it that first time, but I was deeply impressed and ended up watching it over and over again for years. I still like it and can't agree with much of the criticism about it (in several ways its closer to the source material than PJ's version), though first seeing it in my early teens, I naturally grew up with the German dub, which in this case is superior to the original English soundtrack (which I've only seen once). I was also awed by the music, long before I became aware that music was written especially for films and could even be purchased and listened to on its own. I remember having the theme stuck in my head in summer at my grandparents' house for days.
I must have been thirteen when I first read the books (in the original German translation by Margaret Carroux - which as far as I remember is actually excellent, though I believe nowadays the ugly new Krege translation is common). I borrowed FOTR from the library, but by the end of the series my mother had bought the whole set for me and I was reading my own books. The first read through took me forever (I remember spending half a summer on the Rohan chapters), but I was never not fascinated by it. I started my second read through not long after finishing the first one - I must have been during this second reading that, having never seen Star Wars or heard of the name John Williams, I discovered my father's Star Wars album (the Gerhard recording) in his CD shelf and decided to give it a listen during a late night reading session (instantly starting my obsession with Williams, film music and orchestral music in general).
After several readings, always being somewhat puzzled by some passages in the prologue, I first read The Hobbit, which made some things much clearer. The Silmarillion later made me realize how much of LOTR necessarily goes completely over the head of anyone not having read the actual backstory. A few years after my first reading, listening to either Hook or Jurassic Park late at night on the same couch, I fantasised about someone doing a film version with a John Williams score.
My first English reading must have been sometime near the end of the 90s, again from library books. At that time I'd read the German version about 7 or 8 times and actually often had the full German sentences in mind when reading the English books. I then got that Alan Lee illustrated deluxe set of Hobbit and LOTR for Christmas, which formed the basis of my second reading. I don't recall if I read that another time. Later I picked up the black paperback edition to match my Sil and Unfinished Tales, though I haven't actually finished a read through of that yet - being constantly sidetracked by other books, I've been stuck in the middle of TTT for over a year now.
When PJ's LOTR films were first announced, I was doing my civilian service and had just gotten internet access at home for the first time (after being online for a year at my first job before that). I naturally kept track of all the rumours and other coverage leading up the the release of the films a few years later. The anticipation was enormous, though I'm sure I was disappointed that Williams wasn't doing the music (as I had been dreaming for years) - although I already had a lot of respect for Shore.
Seeing FOTR at the theatre must have been one of the big film experiences of my life. I'd been living the books for nearly a decade; between readings, I used to feel a sort of home sickness for Middle-earth. "The road goes ever on" in particular captures my feelings about LOTR, or my emotional state when reading it, pretty well. Sitting at the theatre, hearing the beginning of Blanchett's voiceover and then the first statement of the Ring theme over the main title, transported my right to middle earth. To this day, I have a hard time believing that I'm looking at real world locations and not the actual Middle-earth places when watching the films. The prologue also has retained much of its effect to this day.
I went back to see FOTR three more times at the cinema, which is a lot for me (I think I've seen some of the Harry Potter films twice, and last year I watched Gravity a second time when I caught an IMAX screening, but mostly I watch films just once at the cinema and then pick up the Blu-ray when I liked them). There were some things that bothered me about it, of course, but there was so much more that was right about it (and even many changes that worked wonderfully - Aragorn's more indecisive character as portrayed by Mortensen, and Bean's Boromir, for example). The finale used to make me cry (as in cry for real, not just tear up a bit), and the music managed to retain much of that on CD.
TTT had some more flaws, though most of them were fixed in the EE (I love all three EEs, but I consider TTT's to be the most essential by far). ROTK has the most (and the EE adds several more), and some of them really bother me, but at the same time it has the culmination of the story in all its facets. For that reason alone, I don't think I could ever put FOTR above it, as many seem to do. I also never understand the criticism about its supposed multiple endings.
I've always maintained that I consider Shore's scores musically/technically solid. I still think Williams would have written something on a higher level as far as pure music goes. But Shore has managed to capture Middle-earth in all its facets, including several that the films can only vaguely touch or omit altogether, and in that regard I can't imagine music better suited for these films.
With countless rewatches over the years and endless hours listening to the various releases of the scores, I've probably become a bit exhausted of not just the films and music, but Tolkien in general. Which explains why I've been stuck in the middle of LOTR for so long - though I'm confident I'll get back to it once all the Hobbit hype has died down. I was nevertheless very much looking forward to the Hobbit films and a general supported of splitting the story into two films. Many used to claim that the book is too short for that, but I actually do think that in a way, it's a more difficult adaptation than LOTR, because much of it is so episodic, with many of the episodes being told with not too many details as a whole, and most of the characters are not much more than recurring names. Especially with integrating Tolkien's own LOTR backstory where it belongs, they would have to expand and "invent" a lot, and two films should have been fine for that - and I still have the impression that most of the failings of these films stem from the (late) decision to extend it to three films.
When I saw AUJ, I was first transported right back to Middle-earth, to an extend I hadn't thought possible. I loved the entire first part of the film (which many claim to be overlong, slowly paced and inconsequential). It's later that the problems started for me, with action sequences degrading to an incoherent string of overdone set pieces and too many failed attempts at humour. The finale, as I recall, has a particularly large share of that. If I remember my numbers correctly, I ended up loving 50% and hating 30% of it.
I remained optimistic for DOS, arguing that we were moving towards the parts of the book at are more coherent, which should mean that they would be able to rely more closely on the book's narrative structure without having to throw in too much incoherent material of their own. I think this turned out to be true, to an extent; for most of its running time I was mostly very pleased with the film, although especially towards the end there were more and more bits and pieces that soured my impression - especially all the utterly pointless Legolas/Tauriel heroics in Esgaroth (of the sort of Legolas' TTT shield stunt and ROTK Oliphaunt takedown, which belong to the more stupid bits in those films), and the all to pointless (if somewhat exciting) Alien³ type dragon chase (whereas all the Smaug material before that was utterly fantastic and probably belongs to the highlights in all 6 films).
By now I mostly remember the annoyances, which is why I'm at best mildly excited for the last film (which I'll be seeing next Thursday). Hopefully, not having many expectations will actually help me to enjoy it.
I haven't yet watched any of the EEs of the Hobbit films (I haven't picked up any versions on Blu-ray - I'll wait for a set of all three films). I've also not gone back to the theatre for a second viewing. So I've seen both films exactly once, and my recollections are spotty. Perhaps that's also the reason why Shore's scores so far haven't done too much for me - I guess they live and die with their connection to the source material, and with The Hobbit, I don't remember the films well enough and they differ too much from the book to take that as a guide. Perhaps rewatching the films once I have them at home will make me appreciate them more.
As for the several claims about the LOTR films being their generations' Star Wars: Perhaps it's partly just that I'm between these two generations - I watched Star Wars rather late, around 95, after already knowing the music, and I'd been anticipating LOTR films for nearly a decade by the time the last of those films came out. But I think the fact that the LOTR films are based on a book that a huge number of people knew by heart by the time the films came out make for a significant distinction. They may be comparable to SW for those who only turned to the books after falling for the films, but for a large part of its audience, the films actually had to live up to years (and in many cases, decades) of expectations, very often very specific ones. And let's not forget that Tolkien's writings are very concerned with their internal logic and rules, which is why I believe purists are more in the right when they criticise deviations from these rules than with most other material. And for many of these people, the films actually succeeded. That's a task that probably exceeds even that faced by the prequels (and we know how those ended up).
That's also what bothers me most about the Hobbit films. I'm a huge Tolkien fan, but at the same time I have a strong basic scepticism for fantasy in general. Because much of it seems (I admit I don't really know that much) to be so random, or contrived, or overdone. With Tolkien, it's all organic, there's a strong reasoning behind it, and the purism of many of its fans is mostly warranted by the fact that there's such a rich structure and rule set to it. The LOTR films, with all the wealth of their source material, mostly adhered to that (and were at their most problematic when they didn't). The Hobbit films, in contrast, go much more in the direction of "random fantasy", which I feel clashes with their task of being film version of a Tolkien story.

To begin with . . . for those of you who put a lot of words into this, I'd like to express my sincere appreciation. It made for some great reading. I'm a little dismayed at how old I feel compared to some of you younglings (did I really just use that word—especially in a Rings thread?), but at the same time I have to tell you I'm also greatly encouraged by how well some of you write for your age. I have to think your interest in Tolkien had something to do with that. . . .
Now for my own take. Has it really been 15 years? I remember the first time I saw a "SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE" stamp on a copy of LOTR in the bookstore. That was a good 6 or 7 years before they were released, too, which means the fundamental notion of these movies has been part of my life for more than two decades now. I'd always had a hunch it was going to happen some day (I mean really happen, like a live-action version, not the galactic awfulness of the Bakshi "film"), and ever since the advent of realistic CGI in the early 90s I figured the days before it became a reality were numbered. I'd been a Tolkien reader and fan myself for many years prior to that day, of course. I'd cut my teeth on The Hobbit early on, after hearing names like Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf spoken like mysterious words of evocation between the older kids at summer camp (I was perhaps 8 or 9 at the time). Naturally, I didn't want to reveal my ignorance among the wise, so I kept my mouth shut and my ears open until I finally got a chance to track down a copy of the book. I was hooked. It took me a few more years to get around to the sequel novel, but once past that gate there was no looking back.
I actually remember my second trip through the three volumes more vividly than my first, because it stands as one of the greatest literary journeys of my life. As I joined Frodo and his friends for late-evening conversations in front of the fire at Crickhollow, I remember feeling absolutely intoxicated with the sensation of friendly conspiracy, of anxious but hopeful planning, of the promise of the adventure to come. It's never quite reached that level of euphoria since, but that's always been balanced out by the fact that every subsequent reading has brought new details to light that I've somehow never noticed before. That's the real magic of the professor's work: as Peter S. Beagle wrote in his classic essay "Tolkien's Ring," the story "bears the mind's handling," and over time continues to mold itself in new ways to the reader's imagination.
So, as you can guess, I met the announcement of the upcoming movies with an ambivalent mixture of feelings. I was curious, and interested, to be sure, but there was no escaping the natural nagging that whoever was putting the project together would find some way to screw it up. I followed a bit of the activity on TheOneRing.net early on, but didn't want to spoil the experience with too much foreknowledge. So I saw FOTR the first time with fairly fresh eyes and guarded, but realistic, expectations, knowing they could never fully capture what the book accomplished but hoping they would get the important points right.
And, for the most part, they did. I was pleased overall with the movie, and with its immediate sequel. I had my share of "purist" issues—no escaping that, for someone like me—and I recall having exactly two major problems with each of the first two films. When ROTK came around, I vaguely recall seeing more elements that weren't exactly as they should be . . . but I couldn't bring myself to care much at the time, because the movie was so epic, such a grand conclusion of the tale, that the details of translation just didn't matter as much. Even when the series got things wrong (Lothlorien, for example, which as a whole never came close to Tolkien's picture of the elven wood), they did it with a confidence and elegance you had to admire. The general sense I took from the trilogy as a whole was one of gratitude. I was thankful that PJ and his crew allowed me to see some of the greatest events of the story with more than just my mind's eye: Gandalf's battle with the Balrog, the descent of the Riders of Rohan upon the hosts of Saruman at dawn in Helm's Deep, the battle at the Black Gate of Mordor. For that, if nothing else, the movies were well worth it.
I only saw each film once in the theaters, which was enough for me. Since then, I'll only watch the SE versions, about once every year or two.
Shore's music, while not by any means my favorite score of all time, is absolutely up to the task it's given. It's a work that, in itself, can stand alongside the books as an imaginative representation of the Ring epic.
But even beyond all that, the series has given us more than just what the movies provided. I've watched the behind-the-scenes documentaries at least as many times as I've seen the movies themselves, and gotten almost as much out of watching the quest of the filmmakers as that of the Fellowship. Their commitment to their work, their passion for the story, their love of working with each other is a phenomenal thing to watch. They deserved every one of the Oscars they won for what they did.
As for The Hobbit . . . well, it was fun while it lasted. I could forgive PJ some of his sillier overreaches in LOTR, but the new trilogy is an unfortunate exercise in pure indulgence. They could (and should) have easily made this in two films, giving it tighter storytelling and keeping things much more in line with Tolkien's story. But that's not what they're after anymore. Now they just want to pile on battle scenes and subplots that never existed between characters who never existed and shovel CGI on us until we're buried under sensory overload. I mean, the movies haven't been terrible so far, but they're neither Lord of the Rings nor a film version of the book, so . . . what's the point, exactly?

"New Worlds Theme" from 2010.

To begin with . . . for those of you who put a lot of words into this, I'd like to express my sincere appreciation. It made for some great reading. I'm a little dismayed at how old I feel compared to some of you younglings (did I really just use that word—especially in a Rings thread?), but at the same time I have to tell you I'm also greatly encouraged by how well some of you write for your age. I have to think your interest in Tolkien had something to do with that. . . .
Now for my own take. Has it really been 15 years? I remember the first time I saw a "SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE" stamp on a copy of LOTR in the bookstore. That was a good 6 or 7 years before they were released, too, which means the fundamental notion of these movies has been part of my life for more than two decades now. I'd always had a hunch it was going to happen some day (I mean really happen, like a live-action version, not the galactic awfulness of the Bakshi "film"), and ever since the advent of realistic CGI in the early 90s I figured the days before it became a reality were numbered. I'd been a Tolkien reader and fan myself for many years prior to that day, of course. I'd cut my teeth on The Hobbit early on, after hearing names like Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf spoken like mysterious words of evocation between the older kids at summer camp (I was perhaps 8 or 9 at the time). Naturally, I didn't want to reveal my ignorance among the wise, so I kept my mouth shut and my ears open until I finally got a chance to track down a copy of the book. I was hooked. It took me a few more years to get around to the sequel novel, but once past that gate there was no looking back.
I actually remember my second trip through the three volumes more vividly than my first, because it stands as one of the greatest literary journeys of my life. As I joined Frodo and his friends for late-evening conversations in front of the fire at Crickhollow, I remember feeling absolutely intoxicated with the sensation of friendly conspiracy, of anxious but hopeful planning, of the promise of the adventure to come. It's never quite reached that level of euphoria since, but that's always been balanced out by the fact that every subsequent reading has brought new details to light that I've somehow never noticed before. That's the real magic of the professor's work: as Peter S. Beagle wrote in his classic essay "Tolkien's Ring," the story "bears the mind's handling," and over time continues to mold itself in new ways to the reader's imagination.
So, as you can guess, I met the announcement of the upcoming movies with an ambivalent mixture of feelings. I was curious, and interested, to be sure, but there was no escaping the natural nagging that whoever was putting the project together would find some way to screw it up. I followed a bit of the activity on TheOneRing.net early on, but didn't want to spoil the experience with too much foreknowledge. So I saw FOTR the first time with fairly fresh eyes and guarded, but realistic, expectations, knowing they could never fully capture what the book accomplished but hoping they would get the important points right.
And, for the most part, they did. I was pleased overall with the movie, and with its immediate sequel. I had my share of "purist" issues—no escaping that, for someone like me—and I recall having exactly two major problems with each of the first two films. When ROTK came around, I vaguely recall seeing more elements that weren't exactly as they should be . . . but I couldn't bring myself to care much at the time, because the movie was so epic, such a grand conclusion of the tale, that the details of translation just didn't matter as much. Even when the series got things wrong (Lothlorien, for example, which as a whole never came close to Tolkien's picture of the elven wood), they did it with a confidence and elegance you had to admire. The general sense I took from the trilogy as a whole was one of gratitude. I was thankful that PJ and his crew allowed me to see some of the greatest events of the story with more than just my mind's eye: Gandalf's battle with the Balrog, the descent of the Riders of Rohan upon the hosts of Saruman at dawn in Helm's Deep, the battle at the Black Gate of Mordor. For that, if nothing else, the movies were well worth it.
I only saw each film once in the theaters, which was enough for me. Since then, I'll only watch the SE versions, about once every year or two.
Shore's music, while not by any means my favorite score of all time, is absolutely up to the task it's given. It's a work that, in itself, can stand alongside the books as an imaginative representation of the Ring epic.
But even beyond all that, the series has given us more than just what the movies provided. I've watched the behind-the-scenes documentaries at least as many times as I've seen the movies themselves, and gotten almost as much out of watching the quest of the filmmakers as that of the Fellowship. Their commitment to their work, their passion for the story, their love of working with each other is a phenomenal thing to watch. They deserved every one of the Oscars they won for what they did.
As for The Hobbit . . . well, it was fun while it lasted. I could forgive PJ some of his sillier overreaches in LOTR, but the new trilogy is an unfortunate exercise in pure indulgence. They could (and should) have easily made this in two films, giving it tighter storytelling and keeping things much more in line with Tolkien's story. But that's not what they're after anymore. Now they just want to pile on battle scenes and subplots that never existed between characters who never existed and shovel CGI on us until we're buried under sensory overload. I mean, the movies haven't been terrible so far, but they're neither Lord of the Rings nor a film version of the book, so . . . what's the point, exactly?

To begin with . . . for those of you who put a lot of words into this, I'd like to express my sincere appreciation. It made for some great reading. I'm a little dismayed at how old I feel compared to some of you younglings (did I really just use that word—especially in a Rings thread?), but at the same time I have to tell you I'm also greatly encouraged by how well some of you write for your age. I have to think your interest in Tolkien had something to do with that. . . .
Now for my own take. Has it really been 15 years? I remember the first time I saw a "SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE" stamp on a copy of LOTR in the bookstore. That was a good 6 or 7 years before they were released, too, which means the fundamental notion of these movies has been part of my life for more than two decades now. I'd always had a hunch it was going to happen some day (I mean really happen, like a live-action version, not the galactic awfulness of the Bakshi "film"), and ever since the advent of realistic CGI in the early 90s I figured the days before it became a reality were numbered. I'd been a Tolkien reader and fan myself for many years prior to that day, of course. I'd cut my teeth on The Hobbit early on, after hearing names like Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf spoken like mysterious words of evocation between the older kids at summer camp (I was perhaps 8 or 9 at the time). Naturally, I didn't want to reveal my ignorance among the wise, so I kept my mouth shut and my ears open until I finally got a chance to track down a copy of the book. I was hooked. It took me a few more years to get around to the sequel novel, but once past that gate there was no looking back.
I actually remember my second trip through the three volumes more vividly than my first, because it stands as one of the greatest literary journeys of my life. As I joined Frodo and his friends for late-evening conversations in front of the fire at Crickhollow, I remember feeling absolutely intoxicated with the sensation of friendly conspiracy, of anxious but hopeful planning, of the promise of the adventure to come. It's never quite reached that level of euphoria since, but that's always been balanced out by the fact that every subsequent reading has brought new details to light that I've somehow never noticed before. That's the real magic of the professor's work: as Peter S. Beagle wrote in his classic essay "Tolkien's Ring," the story "bears the mind's handling," and over time continues to mold itself in new ways to the reader's imagination.
So, as you can guess, I met the announcement of the upcoming movies with an ambivalent mixture of feelings. I was curious, and interested, to be sure, but there was no escaping the natural nagging that whoever was putting the project together would find some way to screw it up. I followed a bit of the activity on TheOneRing.net early on, but didn't want to spoil the experience with too much foreknowledge. So I saw FOTR the first time with fairly fresh eyes and guarded, but realistic, expectations, knowing they could never fully capture what the book accomplished but hoping they would get the important points right.
And, for the most part, they did. I was pleased overall with the movie, and with its immediate sequel. I had my share of "purist" issues—no escaping that, for someone like me—and I recall having exactly two major problems with each of the first two films. When ROTK came around, I vaguely recall seeing more elements that weren't exactly as they should be . . . but I couldn't bring myself to care much at the time, because the movie was so epic, such a grand conclusion of the tale, that the details of translation just didn't matter as much. Even when the series got things wrong (Lothlorien, for example, which as a whole never came close to Tolkien's picture of the elven wood), they did it with a confidence and elegance you had to admire. The general sense I took from the trilogy as a whole was one of gratitude. I was thankful that PJ and his crew allowed me to see some of the greatest events of the story with more than just my mind's eye: Gandalf's battle with the Balrog, the descent of the Riders of Rohan upon the hosts of Saruman at dawn in Helm's Deep, the battle at the Black Gate of Mordor. For that, if nothing else, the movies were well worth it.
I only saw each film once in the theaters, which was enough for me. Since then, I'll only watch the SE versions, about once every year or two.
Shore's music, while not by any means my favorite score of all time, is absolutely up to the task it's given. It's a work that, in itself, can stand alongside the books as an imaginative representation of the Ring epic.
But even beyond all that, the series has given us more than just what the movies provided. I've watched the behind-the-scenes documentaries at least as many times as I've seen the movies themselves, and gotten almost as much out of watching the quest of the filmmakers as that of the Fellowship. Their commitment to their work, their passion for the story, their love of working with each other is a phenomenal thing to watch. They deserved every one of the Oscars they won for what they did.
As for The Hobbit . . . well, it was fun while it lasted. I could forgive PJ some of his sillier overreaches in LOTR, but the new trilogy is an unfortunate exercise in pure indulgence. They could (and should) have easily made this in two films, giving it tighter storytelling and keeping things much more in line with Tolkien's story. But that's not what they're after anymore. Now they just want to pile on battle scenes and subplots that never existed between characters who never existed and shovel CGI on us until we're buried under sensory overload. I mean, the movies haven't been terrible so far, but they're neither Lord of the Rings nor a film version of the book, so . . . what's the point, exactly?

To begin with . . . for those of you who put a lot of words into this, I'd like to express my sincere appreciation. It made for some great reading. I'm a little dismayed at how old I feel compared to some of you younglings (did I really just use that word—especially in a Rings thread?), but at the same time I have to tell you I'm also greatly encouraged by how well some of you write for your age. I have to think your interest in Tolkien had something to do with that. . . .
Now for my own take. Has it really been 15 years? I remember the first time I saw a "SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE" stamp on a copy of LOTR in the bookstore. That was a good 6 or 7 years before they were released, too, which means the fundamental notion of these movies has been part of my life for more than two decades now. I'd always had a hunch it was going to happen some day (I mean really happen, like a live-action version, not the galactic awfulness of the Bakshi "film"), and ever since the advent of realistic CGI in the early 90s I figured the days before it became a reality were numbered. I'd been a Tolkien reader and fan myself for many years prior to that day, of course. I'd cut my teeth on The Hobbit early on, after hearing names like Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf spoken like mysterious words of evocation between the older kids at summer camp (I was perhaps 8 or 9 at the time). Naturally, I didn't want to reveal my ignorance among the wise, so I kept my mouth shut and my ears open until I finally got a chance to track down a copy of the book. I was hooked. It took me a few more years to get around to the sequel novel, but once past that gate there was no looking back.
I actually remember my second trip through the three volumes more vividly than my first, because it stands as one of the greatest literary journeys of my life. As I joined Frodo and his friends for late-evening conversations in front of the fire at Crickhollow, I remember feeling absolutely intoxicated with the sensation of friendly conspiracy, of anxious but hopeful planning, of the promise of the adventure to come. It's never quite reached that level of euphoria since, but that's always been balanced out by the fact that every subsequent reading has brought new details to light that I've somehow never noticed before. That's the real magic of the professor's work: as Peter S. Beagle wrote in his classic essay "Tolkien's Ring," the story "bears the mind's handling," and over time continues to mold itself in new ways to the reader's imagination.
So, as you can guess, I met the announcement of the upcoming movies with an ambivalent mixture of feelings. I was curious, and interested, to be sure, but there was no escaping the natural nagging that whoever was putting the project together would find some way to screw it up. I followed a bit of the activity on TheOneRing.net early on, but didn't want to spoil the experience with too much foreknowledge. So I saw FOTR the first time with fairly fresh eyes and guarded, but realistic, expectations, knowing they could never fully capture what the book accomplished but hoping they would get the important points right.
And, for the most part, they did. I was pleased overall with the movie, and with its immediate sequel. I had my share of "purist" issues—no escaping that, for someone like me—and I recall having exactly two major problems with each of the first two films. When ROTK came around, I vaguely recall seeing more elements that weren't exactly as they should be . . . but I couldn't bring myself to care much at the time, because the movie was so epic, such a grand conclusion of the tale, that the details of translation just didn't matter as much. Even when the series got things wrong (Lothlorien, for example, which as a whole never came close to Tolkien's picture of the elven wood), they did it with a confidence and elegance you had to admire. The general sense I took from the trilogy as a whole was one of gratitude. I was thankful that PJ and his crew allowed me to see some of the greatest events of the story with more than just my mind's eye: Gandalf's battle with the Balrog, the descent of the Riders of Rohan upon the hosts of Saruman at dawn in Helm's Deep, the battle at the Black Gate of Mordor. For that, if nothing else, the movies were well worth it.
I only saw each film once in the theaters, which was enough for me. Since then, I'll only watch the SE versions, about once every year or two.
Shore's music, while not by any means my favorite score of all time, is absolutely up to the task it's given. It's a work that, in itself, can stand alongside the books as an imaginative representation of the Ring epic.
But even beyond all that, the series has given us more than just what the movies provided. I've watched the behind-the-scenes documentaries at least as many times as I've seen the movies themselves, and gotten almost as much out of watching the quest of the filmmakers as that of the Fellowship. Their commitment to their work, their passion for the story, their love of working with each other is a phenomenal thing to watch. They deserved every one of the Oscars they won for what they did.
As for The Hobbit . . . well, it was fun while it lasted. I could forgive PJ some of his sillier overreaches in LOTR, but the new trilogy is an unfortunate exercise in pure indulgence. They could (and should) have easily made this in two films, giving it tighter storytelling and keeping things much more in line with Tolkien's story. But that's not what they're after anymore. Now they just want to pile on battle scenes and subplots that never existed between characters who never existed and shovel CGI on us until we're buried under sensory overload. I mean, the movies haven't been terrible so far, but they're neither Lord of the Rings nor a film version of the book, so . . . what's the point, exactly?

Had to get in on this one. Some thoughts:
- Initial impression: I liked it! It stirred the ol' SW feelings in me again. And I think it'll do that for most people, too—which is the whole point of the exercise in the first place.
- The reason it stirred those feelings was mostly the design elements. It felt more like the OT than the PT, which will forever be a good thing. I liked the speeder, loved the shot of the X-wings (and the pilot), and thought it was cool seeing stormtroopers again. Again, I think that was a big part of the point of this: to plant the seed of the idea that this will be a lot more like the OT than the PT.
- Speaking of design elements: did anyone notice they replaced the original round scanning dish Lando knocked off the Falcon during his Death Star run with a rectangular one?
- I wasn't expecting more than a few flash shots, what with the film more than a year away. People who were thinking they'd get any inkling of the actual story from this trailer were destined for disappointment. Not just because of the timing, but because of the director. J.J. likes to tease us, and a teaser's the best place to do that, yes? These guys nailed it:
- Some story elements, however, can be deducted from what we got here. First off, it's clear the Empire—or some leftover elements of it—is back. So it's not going to be about some kind of new threat to the galaxy, but the threat of returning to the dark times. And I'm cool with that. Second, there's going to be more conflict between the two sides of the Force. And I'm cool with that. Third, we're back on Tatooine. Again. And I'm . . . ambivalent about that. While it does help with establishing a "classic SW" vibe, why is this boonies desert planet where everything in the universe takes place. . . ?
- On the subject of the new droid:
I thought exactly the same thing on first viewing. It actually brought a moment of fear. Are we really going back to that?
- On the dialogue in the teaser:
Even though we've since established they're really Serkis's lines, I agree. I wasn't really paying attention to them. It's in the same vein all SW melodrama always has been. Why change gears now?
- I didn't have that much of a problem with the design of the lightsaber. Ever since Maul got both ends going, both the movies and the Clone Wars series have been looking for new, creative ways to design sith sabers. I had a much harder time with the element other people have mentioned: the blowtorch thing. Why, when you're trying to establish this is the SW universe we know and love, would you go and change such a central prop in the franchise? (Or is it possible this is something this guy built on his own, and it wound up being a bad copy or something? The fact that you can hear a real lightsaber sound effect at the very end of the trailer does suggest this might be something different.)
- I'll cop to it: I really liked what J.J. did with the Trek movies. Richard echoed my thoughts precisely:
I don't see why this is a problem. To believe they have to stick to late 70s/early 80s cinematography and shooting styles to keep the feel of the series intact is just silly. I'm looking forward to seeing a SW movie done in modern style. With that in mind, I thought the shot of the Falcon diving in and skimming the desert sands was pure awesome.
- I do think one thing was missing, though. As much as J.J. likes to keep his secrets (and he's entitled to them) I can't help but think that just one shot—one shot—of Luke, or Han, or maybe the three of them together, would've elevated this teaser exponentially. It would've been a much better reminder than any simple design element that we're going back there. But don't take my word for it. Replay the trailer, then pause it just after the sith dude lights his Harley. Insert (in your mind's eye) a shot of Luke turning a worried face toward the camera, or a close-up of Han pursing his lips with concern. Then start the trailer up again. Tell me that wouldn't have added a whole new level of anticipation to this thing.

I figured that might be the case. (What, by the way, is the EU? Something from one of the novel spinoffs, I take it?)
If my above assumption is correct, I think J.J. & Co. have no choice but to move forward as if the intervening fiction didn't take place. Not only would they be saddled with trying to be faithful to a boatload of other stories, but they'd have to contend with the fact that most people won't have read them, and won't have any knowledge of the events since ROTJ as they've been chronicled by other authors. They'd spend half the first film attempting to meet backstory needs, instead of moving ahead with things.

Reflections (and a couple of questions) for a quiet Wednesday evening. . . .
I spent some idle time this afternoon thinking that music resembles a number of other activities in that it's something that can be enjoyed on myriad levels. For a comparative example, consider chess. One can learn the rules of the game and the moves of the pieces in five minutes, and out of that can enjoy hours of playing against another amateur with similar skills and understanding. But they don't have to leave it at that. They could begin to study fundamental strategies to improve their abilities and comprehension. Eventually they might take to learning a wide range of openings, and advanced strategies, and start to take on more experienced opponents, even entering tournaments just for fun. They could open the encyclopedic window into the classic games of Kasparov and Morphy and Capablanca and Fischer, dissecting the classic matches to better understand how grandmasters think. And after working through all that . . . a student might still have only scratched the surface of all there is to learn about the game.
Music's a lot like that. Most people spend their whole lives just listening, and finding plenty of fulfillment in it. Beyond that, a guitar and the basic I-IV-V chords--a short afternoon's worth of effort--can make a musician out of anyone. (There are rock stars out there making millions with little more than this basic palette at their disposal.) A little more time and effort can open an understanding of intervals, scales and modes, and the circle of fifths--the ground-level components of all music. Then comes the deeper stuff, the higher theory, the more complex chordal relationships, the study of the classical and modern masters. And after working through all that . . . a student might still have only scratched the surface of all there is to learn about the craft of making music.
So with that in mind, and considering the possibilities out there for people who want to move up to the next level (now that the internet has opened the door for people to learn in ways that weren't available twenty years ago), here are my two inquiries. First, since we have the privilege of watching the several theorists we have on this forum banter over the finer points of film music structure, I think it would be interesting to know how these folks gained their knowledge. What sort of training did you receive? Formal music education? College degree? Self-taught? Apprenticeships? Do any of you work in music as a professional vocation, or is it all a personal pursuit?
Second, as a practical matter for those who'd like to step up to the next level of learning, what would you recommend as a good means of learning higher music theory (beyond the fundamentals I mentioned--the circle of fifths, scales, basic chord progressions, etc.)? Are there online courses you've heard of or personally used? Is it something only long years of schooling can impart? Or are there other ways to go?

Caught the trailer during the game yesterday. Awesome! The franchise started really well back in the early 90s, but look how far it's come! I mean, finally we get to see a JP film that doesn't just show us a dino park; we actually get to see the animals unexpectedly getting out of their pens and starting to attack—
Wait. No. I guess that's not actually a novel addition to the franchise. Still, though this movie will be breaking new ground in that it clearly tackles the questionable ethics of corporations using genetic research to create a dangerous form of—
Oh . . . the first three movies had that too, didn't they? Yeah. Sorry. But you've gotta admit, this one's gonna be way scarier, 'cause for the first time there will be children on the island, whose lives are put in danger when the dinosaurs. . . .
Shoot. Not exactly the first time for that either. Huh. But I still can't help thinking how incredible it'll be to see for the first time people driving and floating in vehicles along fields and rivers where real live dinosaurs are walking and running past—
Um. No. Forget that. Actually, the reason this one will be new and improved is because there'll be scenes of the actual laboratory where the scientists get the DNA from the resin, and grow and hatch the eggs. . . .
Okay. Never mind. But hey, if nothing else, there's this new scary dinosaur, unlike any of the others before it, because as the trailer says, it'll "kill anything that moves," and that's not at all like anything these movies have ever . . . uh. . . .
Okay. Y'got me. Is there anything about this new movie that makes it different than each one of the others before it? Didn't think so. Not so awesome after all, I guess.

As usual, I stand betwixt two extremes. . . .
Star Trek as the best franchise ever? I gotta go with you on that one, yup. Certainly the longevity, the applicability of the stories, the love for the characters among a truly epic fanbase, the (overall) quality of the productions. and, of course, the music, among other factors, have lifted it to a legitimately legendary status. I would have to agree that it stands above other franchises—Star Wars and the James Bond films—for the reasons mentioned. I'm a lifelong fan myself, and it's hard to imagine a world without Trek.
But let's draw some intelligent distinctions here, yes?
First off, pulling the likes of Tolkien and the Potter series into this discussion blurs what you're saying. It's apples and oranges. Those novels aren't franchises; they're literary works by a single author that were adapted into film versions. It's on a completely different scale. And to say they've failed some sort of "test," and that they're "nothing" compared to ST? Utter nonsense. In what universe can you call either of these works failures? They've been, each in their own way, unprecedented successes. When it comes to fantasy, it's Tolkien who's the benchmark by which all others are compared (including Martin's Game of Thrones). And if you really want to get nitty and gritty about it, what Tolkien accomplished far outstrips Roddenberry's creds. Star Trek became a success through collaborative effort, other people's money, and not a little bit of luck (without syndication, it would've died the same death most T.V. shows did back in those days). Tolkien, on the other hand, spent his entire life—from the age of 19 until his death—creating an entire world from scratch, a world that's captivated ours on the same level that Star Trek has. Roddenberry didn't do it alone; and, in fact, accounts show that often times his was the weaker vision among his colleagues. The best shows arose from great science fiction writers and directors spinning their magic out of Roddenberry's central idea. When the Great Bird took too much of a heavy hand, things tended to bog down a lot. (That's how TMP became the drag that it was, and why TNG didn't really take off and become a truly great series until Gene took a less hands-on role in the project.)
Roddenberry had done T.V. before ST, and that was just another series he started and helmed as a part of the studio process. It became something huge, of course, but not solely because of him. Comparing his story to that of Tolkien, or even Rowling—a single mother who single-handedly created an entirely new subset of young adult literature—doesn't strengthen your argument. Neither does this:
If that's how you view Tolkien, you'd do best to leave him out of discussions like this altogether. I've read the books from beginning to end a total of 14 times—and no, I didn't skim through the poems, which are some of the best elements of the story and far from incomprehensible to engaged readers. You may not care for the books, and that's fine. To each his own. But to say it's an outright failure because you're a Trekker turns your assertion on its ear by default.
Now, again . . . before the feedback starts, I'd call your attention back to my initial paragraph. I'm not sticking it to ST here. I love all the shows and movies, and have seen them all enough to tell you where all the quotes in this and the other threads come from (right down to the episode and season). I used to attend StarCons, fercryinoutloud—back during the first run of TNG, which made them a kick. I've seen Nimoy and many others, met Colm Meaney, and even rubbed shoulders with John de Lancie. And as much as I love Star Wars and the James Bond movies, I think you're right—Trek is the best franchise going, and I frankly don't think anything in the future will be able to compare with it (because they'll still be doing ST whenever said future franchise kicks off its first season!). I'm just saying we should keep franchise competition among the franchises, that's all.

People are posting so much great stuff so quickly, I'm almost missing things. . . .
Yes, yes, yes. Thank you. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about--an open door to the next level. As is usually the case with these kinds of things, there'll always be some overlap; you run through concepts you've learned before as you learn new things. But that never hurts, and can often help more than one might think.
I cannot emphasize enough how much I agree with this. This has a direct parallel to the "art" of writing. Too many people out there think telling a good story is all about imagination--that if you can dream it, you'll have a bestseller on your hands. But that's only part of it . . . and to be frank, it's really not the most important part. If you can't tell a good story well, no one will ever recognize the quality of your story or of your imagination. Writing is a craft first and foremost; you first have to master it, or at least grow a fair level of competence with it, as such. Only then can you begin to use it as an aspiration to art. Like any other form of communication, you can bend the rules--even break them sometimes--but you have to understand the rule first, and know why you're breaking it. People can tell the difference between an author who intentionally bends a rule he understands and a writer who breaks a rule because he doesn't comprehend what he's doing.
It may not be exactly the same with music, but it's not that far off. It's because I believe that so strongly that I want to get better at the craft before I try tripping my way through the dark with this stuff.

As usual, I stand betwixt two extremes. . . .
Star Trek as the best franchise ever? I gotta go with you on that one, yup. Certainly the longevity, the applicability of the stories, the love for the characters among a truly epic fanbase, the (overall) quality of the productions. and, of course, the music, among other factors, have lifted it to a legitimately legendary status. I would have to agree that it stands above other franchises—Star Wars and the James Bond films—for the reasons mentioned. I'm a lifelong fan myself, and it's hard to imagine a world without Trek.
But let's draw some intelligent distinctions here, yes?
First off, pulling the likes of Tolkien and the Potter series into this discussion blurs what you're saying. It's apples and oranges. Those novels aren't franchises; they're literary works by a single author that were adapted into film versions. It's on a completely different scale. And to say they've failed some sort of "test," and that they're "nothing" compared to ST? Utter nonsense. In what universe can you call either of these works failures? They've been, each in their own way, unprecedented successes. When it comes to fantasy, it's Tolkien who's the benchmark by which all others are compared (including Martin's Game of Thrones). And if you really want to get nitty and gritty about it, what Tolkien accomplished far outstrips Roddenberry's creds. Star Trek became a success through collaborative effort, other people's money, and not a little bit of luck (without syndication, it would've died the same death most T.V. shows did back in those days). Tolkien, on the other hand, spent his entire life—from the age of 19 until his death—creating an entire world from scratch, a world that's captivated ours on the same level that Star Trek has. Roddenberry didn't do it alone; and, in fact, accounts show that often times his was the weaker vision among his colleagues. The best shows arose from great science fiction writers and directors spinning their magic out of Roddenberry's central idea. When the Great Bird took too much of a heavy hand, things tended to bog down a lot. (That's how TMP became the drag that it was, and why TNG didn't really take off and become a truly great series until Gene took a less hands-on role in the project.)
Roddenberry had done T.V. before ST, and that was just another series he started and helmed as a part of the studio process. It became something huge, of course, but not solely because of him. Comparing his story to that of Tolkien, or even Rowling—a single mother who single-handedly created an entirely new subset of young adult literature—doesn't strengthen your argument. Neither does this:
If that's how you view Tolkien, you'd do best to leave him out of discussions like this altogether. I've read the books from beginning to end a total of 14 times—and no, I didn't skim through the poems, which are some of the best elements of the story and far from incomprehensible to engaged readers. You may not care for the books, and that's fine. To each his own. But to say it's an outright failure because you're a Trekker turns your assertion on its ear by default.
Now, again . . . before the feedback starts, I'd call your attention back to my initial paragraph. I'm not sticking it to ST here. I love all the shows and movies, and have seen them all enough to tell you where all the quotes in this and the other threads come from (right down to the episode and season). I used to attend StarCons, fercryinoutloud—back during the first run of TNG, which made them a kick. I've seen Nimoy and many others, met Colm Meaney, and even rubbed shoulders with John de Lancie. And as much as I love Star Wars and the James Bond movies, I think you're right—Trek is the best franchise going, and I frankly don't think anything in the future will be able to compare with it (because they'll still be doing ST whenever said future franchise kicks off its first season!). I'm just saying we should keep franchise competition among the franchises, that's all.

I can't think of my life without music and can't do anything else..
Right now I'm a music teacher at primary schoold but it's a job I don't like at all, and hope that it's only temporary and I will be able to pursue my dreams (becoming a working film composer in the near future). Well, the country I live in doesn't help (at all), but anyway..
Started music at my 8 years, studying at conservatory, keyboard, then double keyboard with pedal, and then piano.
Went through all the basic theory, harmony and stuff: the subject levels here after harmony are: harmony - counterpoint - fugue - composition. I reached fugue and after that due to many problems I didn't continue with composition, though I want to, to have a more guided learning, than self-taught.
After high school i went to the department of music studies at university and it was there and then that my horizons expanded, listened to more music and started appreciating more pieces of expanded harmony, atonal etc..
I would never thought I could be a composer, but in those years I started experimenting and now I can say with certainty that this is the thing that I want to do and want to live for..
The thing with me is that I always want a teacher behind me to guide me in the right way.
Now I'm trying to finish my PhD on WIlliams' film music analysis..
These years I'm a bit lost concerning music due to personal and other issues, and all is a bit blurry in my mind. I really hope I could get back on track and concentrate, because I see that when I create, or I read a score or something, it's a thing that makes me extremely happy and I feel I'm "alive".
So, moving on to your 2nd question:
it depends on the person.
if you can concentrate on your own and not let anything and anyone interfere, you can read a lot on your own and learn a lot from that. Read for example widely used harmony books and study many scores..
If you can't, like me, a systematic studying course would be suggested.
Can't write more right now because I'm at work, but I'll get back to this thread..