redishere

I didn't know that: I had one of the worst movie theater experiences with HP7.2 (bad 3D, bad projection, dark as heck, basically couldn't see a single thing in the last reels). I watched it again in BluRay and (while I think it's still way too dark), I enjoyed it a little bit more. But I still can't shake the feeling the saga didn't end properly, 'cause the first horrible screening I went to kinda ruined it for me, and I think DH part 2 lacked heart. I find Yates too cold, to be honest. Now I'm trying to imagine some of the best scenes in HP7.2 scored by good ol' JW, and… oh, boy, how great it could've been.

Speaking of sound quality, anyone knows what's wrong with The Shawshank Redemption? The track "Rock Hammer" has a weird crackling sound buried deep into the left channel. It's like a badly tuned radio is broadcasting a glitchy drum beat in the background. It's quite annoying: I found it both in the OST and in LLL's limited edition.

I laughed way louder than a normal human being should laugh, 'cause I imagined the damn thing.

Oh God, I hope not. I've been waiting for an expanded HP3 score since 2004. It's a matter of principle now

I never cared that much for the HP4 score, but every time I watch that movie, the music immediately brings back memories, so I guess Doyle did a great job. Gonna listen to those recording sessions, now: if anyone needs them, I found them here.

I found them all on a youtube channel a couple days ago, if I’m not mistaken.

It's not just a movie title in a big list, it's «the composer's three scores for the "Harry Potter" series»: too oddly specific to be a misprint.

That would explain the lack of inquiries. Glad to hear good ol' JW is doing fine.

Same here! I was having dinner with friends: when I checked the phone and gasped, my girlfriend actually thought I was having a stroke or something. Finger crossed for the official announcement, folks!

Those are great themes you mentioned, you're absolutely right. JW did a great job in CoS, I guess it's just the way new scenes and known music are put together that reminds me way too much about the first movie, but the score is incredible. HP3 is a weird entry: I initially loved its soundtrack way more than the previous ones, but now I think it's a pity almost all the old themes were discarded. So even if HP3 is one of my favorite scores, I think it would've been perfect if it kept (or hinted at) some of the old themes. HP1 is the perfect one in my opinion; as for HP2, it has great new themes, but the rest (not the themes, but the cue structure) is quite similar to HP1. Don't get me wrong, it's good to reuse old material in a sequel (especially with such good material!), and I love some of the variations, but when I choose between the first two, I always prefer to listen to HP1.

The HBP score is not bad. Some tracks are really lovely (Hermione conjuring birds and Ginny kissing Harry), and the crescendo leading to the deafening silence when Snape kills Dumbledore still gives me goosebumps. If I were to rank the HP scores, I would probably order them like this: 1–3 (tied, Azkaban could be #1 but Philosopher's Stone has more themes; HP3 it's still a gorgeous score, with great variety of sounds) 2 (way too many recycled tracks, making the second movie like a carbon copy of the first, but still an incredible composition) 6 (not a masterpiece, but it gives HP6 a pretty nice atmosphere, and it's certainly a better work by Hooper if compared to HP5) 4 (not a fan of the orchestration in this one, but it has a lot of memorable themes, so it works better than my least favorite scores for HP) 7 (some ideas are interesting, but it's starting to sound generic) 8 (way too blockbuster-y for my taste, still some good parts like the scene with the Grey Lady and Lily's Theme) 5 (dull, I couldn't think of a single reason to listen to this again. I'm not saying it's badly written, but I really find it boring as hell).

Spot on. Love your profile pic by the way what the f**k is Tantric?

Hooper did one of my least favorite soundtracks for the series (HP5) followed by a surprisingly interesting one in my opinion (HP6): nothing fancy, I agree, but HP5 is quite dull in comparison. Maybe it's just me, but I find it quite boring. Anyway, as the films progressed all the scores started sounding way too generic, with those horrible blockbuster-y string ostinatos. Even if I don't like Doyle's HP soundtrack that much, at least he wrote some interesting and recognizable themes. If someone played a random action cue from HP5 or HP7 out of context, and I were told it's taken from a Transformers score by Jablonsky, I probably would believe it. Ok, maybe not, but you get my point.

I feel the score for Deathly Hallows part 2 is especially lacking heart (considering it's the final chapter of a big saga), which baffles me. It has great moments and themes (like Lily's Theme), but I'm starting to think they should've kept more motifs established in the first movies. It would've granted a big feeling of payoff, for example, to hear Voldemort's theme evolve throughout the 8 movies. Instead they just kept Hedwig's theme, made it a sort-of occasional "brand" for the series, and just copy/pasted Leaving Hogwarts on the last scene to make us cry a bit. This is may be a big OT, so I apologize. I'm not against the series having different composers, and it's great that they made their own thing, mind you. But in the end, it feels a little bit weird not to hear the early themes again. I have mixed feelings for the HP2 score, but it added new themes and kept most of the ones we already knew; HP3 did a completely different thing, and even though I love that score, and at the time I appreciated the fact they didn't reuse a lot of the old stuff like in HP2, I think it was a weird choice to dump almost every theme heard before, but it's still quite cool that HP3 has its own "identity" (the Double Trouble theme), mirroring the fact that the book is quite different than the ones before (and the ones that came after), especially 'cause for the first time it's not entirely about Voldemort. So it makes sense that HP1&2 have similar scores, since the books have a similar structure, and HP3 starts adding different material. But even if some themes for HP4 are great, and they give the movie its own identity as well, it felt weirder and weirder to hear Voldemort or Hogwarts have a different theme, and this kept happening in every new movie, so I'm quite torn: I don't like it when sagas soundtracks "rest on their laurels" and don't make any effort to reinvent themselves, but leaving early themes behind without trying to make them evolve, or even hinting at them as an homage, is a weird choice 'cause it makes the movies seem somewhat unrelated to each other. But maybe this is what they wanted: not everyone chooses to pull a stunt and compose an operatic score like Howard Shore did for LOTR, I guess.

Same here: after Azkaban no HP soundtrack made me feel the same way. The In Noctem theme in HP6 is great, and I like some cues in HP7.1 as well (The Exodus is one of my favorites). HP4&5 have good parts, don't get me wrong, but a lot after HP3 became way too generic for my taste.

Thanks for that! I've been searching for that for quite some time

Didn't know that, sorry. Tried to search for a video before deciding to edit one myself, but I didn't find it anywhere.

Speaking of JP: I always wondered how the first T-Rex paddock scene would've sounded like with the cue JW originally composed for it (Goat Bait), so I tried to edit them together. I can see why they chose to avoid music: leaving just the nature sounds makes the scene way more terrifying. But this is still cool to see/hear.

I didn't want to say it actually is redundant: it's just how I feel about it, but it's still a great and complex score.

That's weird: Spielberg said multiple times he prefers the score for TLW to the JP one. I remember 'cause I personally disagree: I think TLW has great themes, but I found its score redundant and somewhat boring. Someone here said the JP soundtrack is repetitive, but TLW is like 80% percussions, especially the expanded version: which is great, but I honestly couldn't listen to it more than once. As for the OST versions, I like the way JW merged some cues, but in the JP OST the main theme is literally everywhere, which is annoying: I find the expanded chronological version way more enjoyable.

Anyway, tracks like this are way better than any other ripped HP3 expanded soundtrack I've found so far. Honestly don't know how he cleaned the audio track so well.

I completely agree. I really hope it will be released. The HP1 and HP2 expanded soundtracks are incredible.

That Youtube channel (manowweik1995) posted a bunch of HP3 cues last week and they sound pretty good: how he managed to clean the audio that well, is beyond me. Doesn't sound like a DVDrip or a BDrip at all. He should do the full soundtrack.

Nope, I found it searching for the Azkaban recording sessions. If it were my channel, and I were so good at retouching BluRay audio, I'd have no excuse for not sharing the full soundtrack

Speaking of HP, a week ago, this channel on YouTube uploaded some cues from HP3: quality is not the best, but the weird thing is there're almost no SFX whatsoever. I'm no expert at all, mind you, but I tried to extract the surround channels from the HP3 BluRay myself, and SFX are pretty much everywhere, so I really don't know how this guy managed to polish these audio clips so well. Every HP3 expanded version of the soundtrack has SFX in it. This channel uploaded HP3 tracks every day in the past week: these may not be official recording sessions, but I personally would be happy to have the full soundtrack like this, if this guy is so good at audio cleaning.