SpotTheDog

God, I hope I get to see the man in person this year. Happy birthday, indeed, Maestro!

That's because it's not of the same caliber. Just my opinion, of course, but Parade of the "Ewoks" and "Luke and Leia" are both subpar themes, especially in their concert suites. Ditto Jabba's tuba music. Subpar for John Williams, meaning better than most other composers, but a big step down for Star Wars. The source music is also obnoxious. Except "Jabba's Baroque Recital," which strangely I really enjoy. Anyway, that's diverging a bit from the discussion of Empire, but Return of the Jedi has always been a disappointment to me in every regard, because it had the same potential as the other two in the original trilogy, but failed to deliver (again, in my opinion).

I personally prefer Revenge of the Sith, Prisoner of Azkaban, and even Schindler's List (although that one is obviously a very different genre...) Empire is probably not in my top five, but it would definitely find a place in my top ten. There's no denying it's a sublime score. Regarding The Imperial March, I think it's overused to the point of exhaustion in the film, and it's become such a part of popular culture outside of the "film score world" that it's easy to underestimate its original brilliance.

I was at a used book sale at my local library, and I overheard a group of people spontaneously talking about what a legend John Williams is, continuing to score the Indiana Jones franchise. I almost dropped into the conversation, but I thought I might scare them away with my level of passion for his music.

I'm most likely misunderstanding something, but this is from the official LLL description (bolded emphasis mine): "Produced, assembled and mastered by Mike Matessino, all three scores were fully remastered from the original 5.1 and stereo mixes by Simon Rhodes (SORCERER’S STONE & CHAMBER OF SECRETS) and Shawn Murphy (PRISONER OF AZKABAN). For SORCERER’S STONE, the original analog master tapes were newly transferred at high resolution and the score was meticulously re-edited and output from the first-generation material for maximum quality."

Kind of off-topic, but how was it decided that Shawn Murphy would remaster Azkaban and Simon Rhodes would remaster the other two?

Hey, I'd prefer Goblet of Fire before a few missing Azkaban cues. Or a Desplat box set would be beautiful. I just think it's a shame that the studio couldn't (wouldn't?) locate its own music the first (only?) time around. It's not the most iconic scene, but it's been made famous by discussion on this forum about shawm music. The music itself is pretty distinctive, however. There are more cues missing for sure, some of which have been identified by name, but I do not remember them. Let me do some digging, I'll come back to my own topic more informed. Also, there are apparently several cues that made it to the DVD special features menu but not the soundtrack, and I have no idea how that happened. So technically to have the most complete score collection, you should buy a used copy of the 2-disc DVD from your local thrift store and play through the old DVD mini-games to hear the maximum John Williams content.

@filmmusic I'm going to hazard a guess that's a picture of a shawm player; the instrument famously plays in the Leaky Cauldron right before/during Arthur's warning to Harry. I don't know whether John Williams vetoed it or the source couldn't be located, but it has been discussed quite a bit in other topics.

Assuming a Prisoner of Azkaban reissue does happen, do you think Stone and Chamber would be similarly reissued months before, simultaneously, or not at all? Those albums are pretty much perfect, as far as I am aware, but inevitably there will be people who missed out on the box set/new fans discovering expanded JW soundtracks years from now. EDIT: For the record, I voted "no," but I'd gladly be proven wrong.

My understanding is that, despite the best efforts of John Williams, Mike Matessino, Jay, & co., the Prisoner of Azkaban album is not as complete as it could be if Warner had been more diligent/less stingy. Will we ever get a more complete album from La-La Land? Edit: I just realized that next year is the 20th anniversary of Prisoner of Azkaban. Wow, time flies, even without a Time Turner!

It's not cheating until Mr. Matessino gets another chance at the Star Wars expansions... That said, I think the chances of the Fox Fanfare even being on any theoretical expansion (that I've completely given up on by now) are approximately 3,720 to 1.

Clearly this person wants to date you. But not until you've listened to Fiddler on the Roof while working out.

I'm sure this has been mentioned somewhere before, but I can't find it: Are "Theme From Jurassic Park" and "End Credits" on the original album unique performances, or just unique edits?

I was being somewhat facetious, but thank you for using that as a teachable moment, I learned a lot actually.

Well since it's been bumped, I voted for "Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra." I was pronouncing it "SHARE-tso" for years (silently, to myself) until I finally learned the correct pronunciation.