Chen G.

Yeah. Its all striped anyway (which does make one wonder: are they not done with the editing?) and they're clearly going to manipulate the sound significantly in the mixing, if they want 18 violins to withstanding playing with six horns and a Rauschpfeife, which sounds like a cousin of our old friend the rhaita. So they could definitely cast some of these sounds to the background of the texture.
 
But I do assume at least some of these colours were concieved of as cultural, so we should expect to hear some of them with some characters more than others. And since the film does have quite a few such factions - Rohirrim, Dunlendings, Wizards (Saruman), Orcs, Haradrim and presumably Gondorians - its interesting to speculate. Certainly, the first bit of music Gallagher shared sounds to me more like something to be expected of a scene with Wulf than anything else.
 
I will say, the absence of, ahem, a certain instrument is as of yet quite glaring: I know that when Gallagher was doing "Blunt the Knives" he couldn't find a Hardinfelle in New Zealand, so you gotta wonder... Maybe in the coming days, though!
 
And the really interesting thing? Some of these Medieval instruments tend to come tuned to the Dorian mode... 

Not improbable, but tbf they don't necessarily have to be center-stage instruments to define a specific culture.

Yep. Also Tibetan singing bowls (a Smaug-y sound!), wooden fish and the now-mandatory taikos. Gallagher also told someone in his notices that there are more medieval instruments yet to come!
 
I kind of did a roundup of the orchestrations from what I could tell from the pictures and partitura:
 
Strings: 10 Violins I, 8 Violins II, 6 Viola, 4 Violoncelli, 2 Contrabasses.
 
Woodwinds: 2 Flutes and 1 Piccolo, 2 Oboes and 1 Cor Anglais, 2 Clarinets and 1 Bass Clarinet, 2 Basoons and 1 Contraforte; at least two Crumhorns, doubling multiple registers, seemingly bass, tenor and soprano; at least two shawms also doubling several registers and on Rauschpfeife and Dulcian.

Brass: 6 horns, 2 Trumpets, 2 Trombones and 1 Bass Trombone.
 
Keyboards: 1 Grand Piano
 
Percussion: At least 2 percussionists on Taiko (O-Daiko, Chu-Daiko, Hira-Daiko and Shime-Daiko), gong, fish temple blocks, tibetan singing bowls, possibly vibraphone.
 
 
Interesting to imagine what some of these colours are for: Even not bearing the Shore scores in mind, I'm having a hard time imagining Helm striding into Meduseld and hearing singing bowls, and somehow it also doesn't strike me as a Dunlending sound: Maybe for the Southrons?

Unsurprisingly, we're getting shawms too.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C4fPZ8kMkCK/

Hush now, Bespin, Bespin, don't you cry
Mama's gonna check out all of your books for you
Mama won't let any Tolkien get through
Mama's gonna keep you right under her wing
She might let you read, but not Lord of the Rings
Mamma's gonna keep Bespin, Middle-Earth Free

With 7 Oscars for Oppenheimer, Nolan has finally achieved godhood.
 

 
Next year his apostle Denis Villeneuve will join him in the Olympus.

I should add, I don't entirely object, but I think prequels are typically better for that than sequels.

I think a story - as told in a film or in a series of films - has to have a certain dramatic shape.
 
Gladiator's dramatic shape is complete. To make a sequel would mean to take the bow that had been wrapped over this most wonderful present, and unravel it anew.
 
I find those kinds of films - we're getting many of them nowadays - depressing.

Some films lend themselves to having sequels.
 
Gladiator is not one of those.

Wait, there are people who haven't tried counting the themes and motives? Wow. 

We get this a lot recently: sequels to stories that, whether told in one entry or more, ended on a full-stop. Off the top of my head:
 
Indiana Jones (sorta)
Toy Story (sorta)
Star Wars
The Matrix
Marvel (post Endgame)
 
Hollywood had developed a topical allergy to finality.

Yeah, I find it depressing.
 
What does Gladiator ends with? It ends with the sad but heroic sacrifice by the main character and, like all the best dramas, it ends with a sense of promise for the future and we're left to imagine a rosier Rome and, for all they've weathered, a "happily ever after" for Lucila, Gracchus, Juba and Lucius.
 
By making a sequel -  not "another film set in that world", a sequel - you're forced into going "well, actually!" and show that those characters still have terrible trials and tribulations to go through, if they manage to go through them at all...
 
It ruins it.

I think we just define "story" differently.
 
I don't mean story strictly in the sense of plot mechanics unfolding. I mean story in the sense "characters going through something."

I think a story - as told in a film or in a series of films - has to have a certain dramatic shape.
 
Gladiator's dramatic shape is complete. To make a sequel would mean to take the bow that had been wrapped over this most wonderful present, and unravel it anew.
 
I find those kinds of films - we're getting many of them nowadays - depressing.

Some films lend themselves to having sequels.
 
Gladiator is not one of those.

And even there, I feel, it would have been better served by having Endgame be the actual, err, Endgame.
 
An audience knows a climax and coda when they see it, and once that cadential feeling had been fired-up, it can't be taken back.

What if John Williams is in fact behind Mattriss and has been using the Star Wars Disenchantment to torment his fans that for years have complained about unreleased cues and microedits?

See, to me "worlds" exist to stage stories in, rather than stories existing to "showcase" worlds.

I think a story - as told in a film or in a series of films - has to have a certain dramatic shape.
 
Gladiator's dramatic shape is complete. To make a sequel would mean to take the bow that had been wrapped over this most wonderful present, and unravel it anew.
 
I find those kinds of films - we're getting many of them nowadays - depressing.

It has Lucila, Gracchus and an older Lucius...
 
Its not a standalone vignette of Roman history. Its a sequel.

I might go as far as to say someone who is set to make a Gladiator sequel probably kinda misses the point of Gladiator.
 
The same is applicable to other movies. Ahem...
 

The story is going to be about a young gladiator, played by Ryan Gosling, in search of the legendary Maximus, who might be still alive and residing in Greece.