Gnome in Plaid

It has to be said that they replaces Connoly with a CGI recreation of Kamens' head in post production.

So Thorin became a wraith? That explains the Thorin vs. Azog theme! Shore clearly has a much deeper understanding of Tolkien than we do!

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

If the LotR films were made today, we would see pictures of Thorin in Bag End, Gandalf would hear Smaug's voice as he picks up the map, Frodo would find Azog's hook hand on Weathertop, we would see at least five of the dwarves from The Hobbit in the Council of Elrond, Tauriel would become a member of the Fellowship and fall in love with Gimli, Bard would join the Siege of Gondor with an army from Dale and Legolas would slay the Witch-King, bring down Barad-dur and destroy the One Ring in a spectacular 10 minute sequence of CG extravaganza!

I figured it would be a good Idea to paste my version of the thematic breakdown into one post instead of spread throughout.

I vaguely remember there being a statement of The Nine theme in the "Guardians of the Three" scene in the film. Was that tracked in? Also, can we just talk about how gorgeous that theme is?

I'm probably more forgiving of these films then most. But even I am not convinced of the need for a third film.
While LOTR, even in it's epic EE form still felt like a huge truncation of the original story, The Hobbit feels like the exact opposite. You know. Thin, sort of stretched...like...well you know.

Inception has a lot of Braaaaaaaaaahms in it.

Maybe it was the theater I was in, but the music was almost inaudible in the second half of the film. Anyway, at this point I'm pretty much pretending the album is all the it exists of the movie, because, Jesus what a mess of a film.

I was under the impression that all Williams does is watch baseball and walk on a golf course, and that the only movies he sees are whatever Spielberg or Lucas (or both) come out with. So that could potentially be very awkward. They should do it!

Karol

Drag Me to Hell - Now that's a great Raimi film!

Thank you, albeit those are not particularly detailed. But it does name my favorite theme of the whole saga, that I which had been used more often: The Journey There theme

What? Bilbo shell shocked from his experiences.

I thought James Horner wrote the score for BOFA . . . right?
I haven't given the Hobbit scores enough of a listen yet to make an educated guess. As for the LOTR scores, I was impulsively going for the ROTK click, but then I stopped. It's the best in a lot of ways, but . . . it doesn't feature the Rohan theme as prominently as TTT does. Nor does it approach the Fellowship theme as grandly as FOTR. But it has "Into the West," so it has to be the best, right? But the opening to TTT is the best of the three. And FOTR has "Aniron," one of my favorite vocal parts of the trilogy. But so is Billy's song in ROTK, so. . . .
The more I think about it, the harder it is to even consider these as separate scores. Like the novel--which isn't actually a trilogy at all, but a single novel published in three volumes--I've come to consider them a single, great score. Which speaks to the power of Shore's work as well as anything else, I guess.
So since the Academy sorta recognized the whole trilogy by honoring the last installment, I guess I'll do the same.

Happy new year, you disturbed, sick sons of bitches!

James Horner can use a computer?

Scores are frequently soloerotic affairs for you aren't they.

I just got back from watching the third film, and I'm kind of mess from it. I had no ante-prequel experience with Star Wars, so I didn't really have expectations that could fail to be met. This, though, I was at the perfect age when LOTR came out. I had just finished reading The Hobbit when I saw the first trailer for Fellowship. I became obsessed. I don't even know how many times I saw TTT and ROTK in theaters (my parents didn't think I was old enough to see FOTR at the time). I read and re-read The Lord of the Rings, and then I graduated to the "hard drugs" of the Arda mythos. Although Home Alone is what made me a film music fan, it was LOTR that got be thinking about it on a different level. A Magpie's Nest was my introduction to analyzing themes, and really to music theory in general. LOTR dominated my adolescence.
And then comes The Hobbit. I'm just reminded of the closing line to Fanboys: "What if the movie sucks?" From the moment the teaser music clip from "Radagast the Brown," I was stoked. I saw AUJ right when it came out, and for the first half of the movie, it had that old atmosphere that was so enticing. It felt like going home. Sure, the second act wasn't as good (with the exception of "Riddles in the Dark") and the musical decisions for the climax were terrible, but I figured the end product was just a result of Jackson not giving himself enough time to put the same level of polish on the film that he had in the past, and he would both have learned his lesson regarding time management and gotten used to the new technology, and that Shore would be given a better timetable to work on the next two. I didn't see DOS until February due to some health problems, and it felt like a major step backward. Although Tauriel was handled better than I expected, the climax of the film was an exercise in the absurd, and I had to restrain myself from screaming at the screen for the Sauron reveal.* What even was the point of Stephen Fry's character? On the other hand, I absolutely love the score, and feel like it really lived up to the greatness I'd come to expect from Shore's Middle-Earth scores.
And now comes whatever the hell I just watched tonight. What an utter abysmal failure of a film. The return to Bag End was a nice endcap to the series, but... oh God... I can't even process the rest of it. I forget who said it, but somebody on this board made a comment to the likes of "How ironic that the only man who could figure out how to make the supposedly unfilmable Lord of the Rings couldn't figure out the much simpler The Hobbit?" Whoever said it, dead on. I'd eulogize Middle-Earth on screen myself, but Carson Cistulli said it best (although this isn't what he was referring to): "As is almost always the case, reality has once again failed to present us with the best possible version of itself."
*"It was afterwards said that they came out of the far west and were messengers sent to contest the power of Sauron, and to unite all those who had the will to resist him; but they were forbbidden to match his power with power, or to seek to dominate Elves or Men by force or fear."

I just got back from watching the third film, and I'm kind of mess from it. I had no ante-prequel experience with Star Wars, so I didn't really have expectations that could fail to be met. This, though, I was at the perfect age when LOTR came out. I had just finished reading The Hobbit when I saw the first trailer for Fellowship. I became obsessed. I don't even know how many times I saw TTT and ROTK in theaters (my parents didn't think I was old enough to see FOTR at the time). I read and re-read The Lord of the Rings, and then I graduated to the "hard drugs" of the Arda mythos. Although Home Alone is what made me a film music fan, it was LOTR that got be thinking about it on a different level. A Magpie's Nest was my introduction to analyzing themes, and really to music theory in general. LOTR dominated my adolescence.
And then comes The Hobbit. I'm just reminded of the closing line to Fanboys: "What if the movie sucks?" From the moment the teaser music clip from "Radagast the Brown," I was stoked. I saw AUJ right when it came out, and for the first half of the movie, it had that old atmosphere that was so enticing. It felt like going home. Sure, the second act wasn't as good (with the exception of "Riddles in the Dark") and the musical decisions for the climax were terrible, but I figured the end product was just a result of Jackson not giving himself enough time to put the same level of polish on the film that he had in the past, and he would both have learned his lesson regarding time management and gotten used to the new technology, and that Shore would be given a better timetable to work on the next two. I didn't see DOS until February due to some health problems, and it felt like a major step backward. Although Tauriel was handled better than I expected, the climax of the film was an exercise in the absurd, and I had to restrain myself from screaming at the screen for the Sauron reveal.* What even was the point of Stephen Fry's character? On the other hand, I absolutely love the score, and feel like it really lived up to the greatness I'd come to expect from Shore's Middle-Earth scores.
And now comes whatever the hell I just watched tonight. What an utter abysmal failure of a film. The return to Bag End was a nice endcap to the series, but... oh God... I can't even process the rest of it. I forget who said it, but somebody on this board made a comment to the likes of "How ironic that the only man who could figure out how to make the supposedly unfilmable Lord of the Rings couldn't figure out the much simpler The Hobbit?" Whoever said it, dead on. I'd eulogize Middle-Earth on screen myself, but Carson Cistulli said it best (although this isn't what he was referring to): "As is almost always the case, reality has once again failed to present us with the best possible version of itself."
*"It was afterwards said that they came out of the far west and were messengers sent to contest the power of Sauron, and to unite all those who had the will to resist him; but they were forbbidden to match his power with power, or to seek to dominate Elves or Men by force or fear."

I have thought it in the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all my life seemed shrinking, and the walls of my bower closing in about me, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in. And I just don't know! I just don't know!

All I care about is that that particular shot is probably the single best shot in the whole trilogy!

They would only allow muted horns though. Because of stringent health and safety regulations regarding the capping of noise.

Yes, but the Finale of AotC is probably the best single cue in the prequels.