DarthDementous

Yes! Leave irreverence to us here at JWFan!

I think you meant "reverence".

WOW WOW WOW! Everything I wanted and more. I so wanted a perfect combination of his Peter Pan magic and his King Kong 30's NYC, and he delivered, with more. I sincerely hope the rest of the score follows this piece, rather than the first one we had. 

Well, this is a bit better.

Troooooooooolllllllllll in the forum!!!! Trooooll in the forum.
 
 
 
Thought  you outta know...

I guess so. I've done the back-to-back thing just once when Part 2 came out on Bluray and found the earlier stuff more spirited (the Gringotts break-in and dragon escape really works nicely coming directly after the torture and death at Malfoy Manor, plus the trio's other setbacks and tensions in Part 1) but by the end of it all I was still a bit like
 

 
On a positive note, I did go see Azkaban in the IMAX re-release last Tuesday and I think I love film and score even more than ever now.

I don't disagree and I'm not saying great music would have made the scene a masterpiece, but I'm not totally convinced that was the most that could have been done with it. But I mean, it's fine, the problems with the scene aren't with Desplat. I just don't feel like his work does anything but add some adrenaline (which is how I feel about a disappointing amount of the score), whereas I think at least a little more emotional focus was possible. Actually the best possible version of the confrontation might have been unscored, but I don't think Yates's attempt would work without music.
 
 
I guess pot meet kettle then, brother.
 
 
We're going to have to agree to disagree on a lot of these points. Point blank, the film obviously succeeds because it connected with you. You find the face-merge and Voldemort's disintegration interesting to look at and haunting imagery, you find the battle on the staircase a human and powerful sequence and expressive of character. I do not.

Yeah, but on the other hand, Heyman has always maintained that the Columbus films were in fact where the studio was most involved -- and even so is there any doubt that those two are Chris Columbus movies through and through? I mean, that's why they hired him! -- but that by around film 4, WB was pretty trusting of the property and the filmmakers' ability to deliver. They let Cuaron get away with quite a lot, and Yates said he had a great, relaxed relationship with WB on Potter. In his recent Q&A, he said that it was Tarzan where he started to receive more of the dreaded studio notes, though even then claims it wasn't bad as he's heard from others. So in the case of HP, I'm actually more willing to blame the filmmakers, which makes the creative setbacks all the more disappointing.
 
Also I find WB very interesting because it's actually hard to think of another studio that has given directors more control over their choices. Think of their repeating relationships with Kubrick, Nolan, Cuaron, Spike Jonze, or the fact that in the last two years Inherent Vice and Mad Max: Fury Road were major studio releases. On the other hand it's garnering a reputation for being overly controlling in its franchise movies. One wonders if Alan Horn moving to Disney in 2012 and being replaced by Kevin Tsujihara has anything to do with it, which is odd because Disney is the biggest micro-manager in the business.
 
 
Maybe over-exaggerated phrasing but I don't find that music expressive of anything going on between the characters other than the sparks they're shooting at each other, which is completely uninteresting to me.

It would still be more enjoyable than reading your posts.  

Quoted as evidence of bad behavior!
 
Get out your black quill, Dcasey98: 
 
I must not be rude
I must not be rude
I must not be rude

I must be a rubbish Harry Potter fan not to get upset by other people's opinions. 

New JNH track: 
 
Porpentina takes Newt in / MACUSA Headquarters 
 
 

Ok dude, I'm sitting here in an Irish Quidditch tshirt. I will be wearing a full screen accurate Ravenclaw costume to a work fancy dress on Friday. I spent this morning in the cinema watching DH1. I own a stupidly large number of copies of each of the books and films. 
 
And I'm telling you that you need to relax a bit. 

Rowling's prose could be pretty rough (even as a teenager, I started to wonder exactly how many times Harry could do something "surreptitiously") but you both neglect to mention arguably the primary reason people loved those books in combination with those other things which was her ability to create an array of personalities who were at turns warm, kind, thoughtful, sensitive, rude, insecure, arrogant, impulsive, and that's just Harry. The books were nothing if not emotionally present and aside from some cringey metaphoric missteps like the "monster in Harry's chest" she always got me into a headspace with these people. Harry and Ron were good kids who could be royal shits to other people, she didn't treat those behaviors as mutually exclusive in her heroes. Even the caricatures like Hagrid and the Malfoys had their insecurities. 
 
The conversations about Rowling's literary craftsmanship and the (lack of) heft in her themes and world-building are certainly relevant given that it's not that uncommon for even some rather smart people to attempt to try and push them as great literature. I don't pretend to be an authority on literature, personally, but I at least know a great Paul McCartney song when I hear one. I know I love his goofy-beautiful sound and his goofy-beautiful voice, I love his sense of humor, and he somehow just doesn't get old for me even though it's always the same sentimental platitudes about love, heartbreak, war & peace etc with quirky stories about everyday experiences, newspaper headlines, weird relatives, odd characters you run into on the street, or just painting pretty pictures. Every now and then, you get a song or a verse that truly resonates, mostly he just says stuff I'm already thinking but it's nice to know somebody else is thinking it too and for the rest of the time, he's a great laugh and great company. That's something like what Harry Potter is for me.

It is indeed, good sir! Easy to miss though. It's within the cue "The Sirius Deception." 1:36 on or so. 
 
 

Nothing super special, but I always enjoyed Hooper's cue for when the group flies off on the thestrals to save Sirius. One of the few cues from him that evoked a feeling of wonder for me.
 
 

Spider-Man 3

Do you need to feel some connection to a film to fully appreciate the score? Do you associate the score with the film, and if visiting the film's themes and ideas when you listen doesn't interest you, does it lessen your desire to explore the score?
 
Take a film like Tomorrowland for example. Let's say you're not interested in the film or its subject matter at all. Can you still appreciate and get into the score despite that? Or suppose it's The Terminal?  Can you listen and judge it purely on its own merits without associating it with the thematic material the score represents?  For example, if you were listening to "Making A Comeback" from Nixon, do you associate it with Nixon's comeback? Whether the music is appropriate for just making a comeback in life in general? Or is it simply a piece of music you judge on its own merits without reference to it's thematic inspiration? In other words, can you listen the way you would traditional classical music?
 
What say you?!

I think it will definitely be a Star Wars score for a Star Wars movie. 

Uh oh. We've heard 3 minutes of a 70 minute score and we're already discussing how JNH is passed his best and longing for the days when he was in his prime

Hooper always seemed most at home writing in the spirit of Williams's little music box melodies and folk lullabies in chamber settings. He's a half-decent tunesmith, albeit more like a jingle writer than a true Romanticist. Some of his more emotional and atmospheric colors were quite nice too, like his little love motif in HBP which often doubled as an identity for Felix Felicis on glass harmonica (?). Whenever he was called to really engage in mystery, suspense, or more intense action/spectacle, though -- as opposed to his more successful light comic setpieces like "Fireworks" or "Ron's Victory" -- it often came across like he was just winging it, sometimes painfully so. It's disappointing to say the least that he apparently worked on his Potters for like 18 months each and yet so much of his work feels like a first draft.
 
JWFanners love to characterize Nicholas Hooper as this musically illiterate doofus and I mean, clearly he was the least sophisticated of his peers....I found the soundtracks pleasant on first listen but hard to get much enjoyment out of anymore apart from select highlights. Part of me is a little curious how he might have coped with Part 1, probably not totally unfair to say Part 2 may have ended up a near-disaster. Still for someone considered to be like, a "dunce" (lol or whatever people think ), his scores are modest and goofy fun, tuneful, colorful, and emotionally sensitive with a healthy sense of humor, which is more than I can say for some of our favorite Hollywood punching bags.

All changed, changed utterly. 

GOF is such a wonderful, gorgeous score. I really wish Doyle could've kept going with the series in Williams' stead.

Doyle's GOF opening title is probably my single favorite non-Williams statement. People complain about his changes to the melody and harmony but I love it.