Dixon Hill

oh you should definitely start with arn. god, I love that score.

COB: "So anyway, he's got this music out in the water, and he's listening to it on his headsets, and he's just happy as a clam. And then all hell breaks loose. See, there's this whole slew of boats out in the water—"
Jonesy: "Including one waaay out at Pearl!"
COB: "Including one way the hell out at Pearl. All of a sudden, they start hearing . . . Poledouris!"
- Uni

My analysis of this situation:

It's not the "poppiness" that has turned so many off, my securely subterranean friend. It's some intangible thing, as so much musical experience is, and that's that! Nothing will bring them 'round or make them see the light (fire?) and nothing should. There's no accounting for taste, so no need to persist in trying to sell the song's virtues or failings.
Anyway, I have this wonderful feeling that the actual score will not only be terrifically shiny, but that it won't be subject to anywhere near the same butchery as AUJ's was. Just a hunch. I'm crossing my fingers for samples when I wake up.

After the fabulous success of LotR and its impact on pop culture, making the Hobbit was anything but a risk. Certainly not financially. The films were always going to be successful, unless PJ delivered a film completely, utterly awful. And there was never a chance of that; for that, PJ is just too good a filmmaker.
And, as far as I know, many Tolkien fans (except the purists) were largely pleased with LotR, and would go to see the Hobbit.
AUJ could never have been anything but a great success at the box office. And even if it did so bad artistically to scare the Tolkien fans away, it will always remain a great, shiny action adventure escapade for the masses.
In short, financial failure of these films was never a possibility, therefor it wasn't a great risk. Now, filming 3 mammoth epics back to back, based on a book deemed unfilmable, as a second grade horror flick director, with an unknown effects company, not knowing if the first one would be successful, now THAT is a risk.

This thread made me relisten to this score. It's incredible

I like the smoother, more modern sound of the LSO for the prequels. It works well with the sleeker style of the prequels, just as the gritty, unrestrained feel of the originals works well.

Audiences are influenced by skilful film music, whether they realise it or not. Evidently.

Bingo!
"If the bastard so much as twitches I'll blow him right to Mars." - Captain Mancuso
Needless to say this release blows the OST right to Mars.

I think people are confusing "fresh/new" with "interesting". These two things are enitrely independent of each other. When I think of a score like "War Horse" or "Memoirs of a Geisha" or "Adventures of Tintin", these are great recent scores. Accusing Williams of writing bad music is one thing, but to accuse him of sounding like himself is silly. If you want to debate the musicallity of scores like "Stepmom" against "A.I." then I'm on board. Otherwise, laying into his style is like saying that Beethoven's Eighth Symphony is lame because he ran out of ideas by that point and it sounds too much like Beethoven.
Also, this is based on the assumption that most people don't listen to Williams' concert works and are only speaking to his film scores.

Batman & Robin
Some of the music is re-arranged from Batman Forever, but still plenty of new material and, as such, the score might be even a stronger work than its predecessor. It simply offers more consistency. Not to mention the fact it is closer in style to Danny Elfman - especially in the gorgeous choral work. It's baffling that such a good music was written for this film. A shame. One of my holy grails to release, if that ever happens...
Harry Potter and the Prison of Azkaban
What makes this score special is not its eclectic nature or collection of themes, or even Williams' (almost devilish) attention to detail. It is the fact that it might be one of his few fairy tale score that completely abandons Hollywood suger-coated sound. Window to the Past theme is truly moving and not for a second does it get close to schmaltzy sentimentalism of Williams/Columbus collaborations. The score sounds restrained and intimate, even though the gigantic orchestra was employed. I was taken aback at first by the strangeness of it at first (as compared to the first two), but it proved to be the most enduring and a proof that this old man has still got a few surprises up his sleeve. Unique entry.
War of the Worlds
Another musical surprise arrived a full year later. This time perhaps even more perplexing, because this time Williams and Spielberg offer you absolutely no comfort. Let alone melody - the cold main idea is chilling and unforgiving (especially memorable in the unreleased Woods Walk cue) and is a far cry from what used to be a major ingredient in this composer/director collaboration. The occasional attempts to bring some warmth are mostly crushed because this family bonding material never quite gets any resolution or shape. The score, while not exactly pleasant, gets more and more impressive with each year.
Karol - who always liked Robin's fanfare

like there isn't a night/day difference between these and the ring films! how can you be surprised by corniness after having seen AUJ? this ain't gonna be the next über-trilogy, man! get with it.
and no, of course it isn't an age thing.

Doug Adams posted some photos of young Shore -

Two more photos can be found on his Twitter.

Or maybe we'll hear the opening of that new song... it could play over the slow-mo campfire montage, Lost-style.
Karol

Well I am probably going to like this score a lot and there is nothing you can do about it! Any of you! Muaahahahaaaa! I might call it a masterpiece just to spite you naysayers!

Yes, it's apparently a rare blessing to be able to say that. A shame. I'm glad to join you there.
So what, three of us don't despise the song? I'd say that's a solid win.

Well we have nearly 130 minutes of music to explore on the Special Edition! I can't wait to delve into all the new stuff and revisiting of the older material from not only LotR but AUJ as well in the score. The new ideas and major new cultures and set pieces promise to offer such wealth of excellent music.

They're talking about what it was like on the last day of shooting....
No matter how you feel about these movies when all is said and done, it's going to be really difficult to say goodbye next year. It'll probably be a very long time until Middle-Earth comes back.

Scherzo for Shakuhachi and Spider-Web

Scherzo for Shakuhachi and Spider-Web

Wow.
The sound quality is superior to anything that's come before this. The choral mix, and the percussion in several cues, has been given a more prominent role (as ought to be the case). This was well worth getting. Great release.
- Uni

Especially with Khan. Have you ever really watched his expression after Kirk yells his name?

I'm a sheeran fan and I'm definitely liking the song on its own quite a lot. does it feel middle-earthy? no. did I expect otherwise? no. am I gonna play this on repeat today? yes!
wow! seriously?

Too bad it wasn't updated for the EE.....
I still can't get over how much better the CGI is in this trailer compared to both the earlier DOS trailer and the AUJ film itself. This bodes really well for how awesome TABA will be!
Oh, and here's a summary of the 20 minuets of footages shown at the fan event (this footage wasn't streamed)


http://newboards.theonering.net/forum/gforum/perl/gforum.cgi?guest=96279813&do%3Dpost_view_flat%3Bsb%3Dpost_time%3Bso%3DDESC%3Bpost%3D660916=View+Flat+Mode#660916

What a shame the music doesn't let them really shine.