jpmatlack

Legal reasons were stated for why Shore's themes couldn't appear, not why Shore couldn't/didnt score the show.
 
The sooner you accept the situation and just ignore McCreary's score the better. We all have scoring assignments that were disappointing to us but we don't repeatedly post offensive sentiments towards the composer.

I think I actually prefer Shore's music not being spoilt by including it in this awful awful Tolkien counterfeit.

Man why the hell did Howard Shore not score the whole thing I will never get over this. The fact that he scored the main title theme is even more infuriating considering it meant he was apart of the project. And McCreary used no themes from Shore. So disappointing and one of the biggest missed opportunities in score history. Also where are my Hobbit extended scores.

Do you English at all?  Because saying it’s a miracle to not have a bunch of meddling by executives and others is no where near saying that the music itself is miraculous…

…
 
😂😂😂 I thought your post was serious until that paragraph. Nicely trolled!

Holy COW!

I just listened to the episode 8 album for the first time, and it's REALLY DAMN GOOD!
 
The way some of the themes have evolved from episode 1 to 8 is just >chef's kiss< !
 
"An Intriguing Suggestions", "Power Over Flesh", and "Confronting The Mystics" have so much cool new music in them!
 
What a delightful past month and a half it has been getting an hour of great new music from this show every week. 
 
And I am already sure I will continue to be rewarded with new discoveries in these albums for a long time to come!

It was probably the best episode so far. And I enjoyed the entire season with some minor reservations, mostly pacing-related. I get an impression that they wanted to include all the elements people expect from Middle-earth right off the bat and didn't know what to do with half of them. Perhaps it would be good to save some stuff for future seasons. Sometimes narrower focus works better as you won't please everyone anyway. Everything considered, I had a good time. I don't quite understand the backlash, it's definitely stronger than the majority of Disney+ content. The music was quite wonderful in the finale and I was surprised the entire final stretch was carried by Bear's score. Looking forward to season 2 and, hopefully, more balanced plotting.
 
Karol

Just saw the final episode.
 
I thought it was good. It's not the best show of the year but I really enjoy it even though some things could've been handled maybe better. I just love being in this world.
 
McCreary's music has 100% the best part of the series. It was a joy to hear the Valinor theme again. As well as hearing the full Rings Of Power theme in context. I also loved the big statements of The Mystics theme.
His music is so clever in so many aspects. I was already a fan of his but this, for me, really cements he's one of the best composers working today.

It did seem like, after the leisurely pacing of the season (which I liked!), a whole lot of Plot happened in the last few episodes.

I also hope to find out who the Stranger is. The Mystics are a race from the East that were written about but never shown on screen before, so I’m sorry of still thinking of them as a sort of Man. They definitely aren’t Maiar. I’m still not even sure they are “evil”… 
 
Halbrand being Sauron would be epic but I would be extremely surprised.
 
I’d like to see Celebrimbor and Gil-Galad recast next season. They about the heck out of me. 
 
i don’t actually mind Galadriel’s attitude, and I think going back and watching the previous episodes with the revelation sit Celeborn might make people more sympathetic. Anyway, I don’t mind her attitude or character as much as the other elves. 

This is amazing!

Quite. If you do a lie in a film, its not usually gone into in such detail: its a "true" or "untrue" situation: Either Girion's arrow did hit Smaug, or it didn't, for instance.
 
Also, you don't introduce something that ups the stakes only to then reveal it was a lie and lower the stakes back down. That would be like Frodo arriving to Rivendell and Elrond going "good news, everyone! Turns out this isn't Sauron's Ring after all! Funny, ainnit?"

There's no rights issues with using Shore's main title in the score proper in ROP because Amazon owns it.

The bigger question is - what could it be used for?
 
Since it opens every episode it would have to be something important?
 
It can't be the rings of power because Bear already wrote a theme for that.
 
So I think there's nothing Shore's theme can be used for. And as such I don't think it will find its way into Bear's score.

Which is just as well - I don't think Bear should feel burdened to include anything. He's doing well on his own. So I will be content if Shore's main title remains just for the main title. That would be totally fine by me.

I sincerely hope Shore and Bear’s material stays separate. I don’t think Bear’s way of composing would engender itself well to Shore’s own. I think it would make both composers sound worse.
 
I’d be happy with a different Main Title every year from Shore. That would be neat. Then I could at least end up with a short little Middle-Earth EP.
 
However, if they stop using Shore altogether, I may stop watching the show entirely. That decision would be one stone too heavy in terms of being able to agree to disagree with the showrunners. The ice would break

This coming from the guy who was so hurt and sad and shattered because other people like different music?!?!  I remember literally laughing out loud when the OST was released and @blondheim’s posts talking about how much it “stings” that other people enjoyed it… seriously. If you need a good laugh, go back and read his posts and then keep in mind that he now thinks someone else is “so fragile”… 😂😂😂

I'm more just confused at this point about the observation I've made that McCreary's RoP work rubbed you the wrong way so much that you now no longer like anything from him.
 
That's an insane degree of pettiness that even the Zimmer haters wouldn't commit to on the basis that they've liked at least one thing from him.
 
Honestly: would you treat this music particularly differently if it was for another franchise instead?

Look man, you are completely welcome to like or not like any score and talk about it, but don't personally attack people who like a score that you don't.  That's not what we do here.

Wow, missing the joke and personally attacking people in the process, a double-whammy.
 
If you don't like the atmosphere of this place you're welcome to leave

Thank you for posting this!  I've found the season slow but overall enjoyable.  I AM a little worried how they're going to pull this together in any sensible way in 1 hour remaining, unless the season finale will be longer?

Or maybe the Season Finale will be longer than an hour!!! 

I’m in a group here in Ireland of Tolkien fans. We meet up once a month to have a drink and talk Tolkien and there’s obviously a WhatsApp group. Nobody in the group is still watching this show. Some didn’t bother others watched a couple of episodes out of morbid curiosity. Everyone thinks it’s daft. 
 
If you’d told me two years ago I’d prefer a GoT prequel to a new LotR show I’d have called you insane but here we are! HotD gets better and better every week and RoP sounds like a parody. 

I totally agree. The two year wait is going to be extremely hard to recover from. 

I'm sad to learn that negativity had taken over the score thread. I think Bear has achieved something special in long-form tv scoring, a rich, diverse musical score that we are only starting to appreciate and won't be properly understood and appreciated until ROP ends many years from now. The music is so good, the spotting in the show gives the music so many opportunities to shine, and the themes are fitting and play off each other well. I'm continually impressed by each new episode.

I'm really sorry, but how big (or thin) does an ego need to be in order to perceive any other opinion than one's own as trolling, as if nothing but one's own opinion can possibly have merit?
 
I don't think I'm meant to be for long here, there are some seriously toxic people.
 
Astoundingly, it's the people who don't really have a deeper affection for Tolkien, who want to tell the actual Tolkien fans how the Tolkien show should be looked at.
 
I mean, it's clear by now that casual viewers will swallow just about anything as long as it has the proper labels attached, so my suggestion would be: if you don't really give a crap about source material, and take the source material in whatever form it is presented to you, let the people who actually do care about it speak up about adaption flaws, so it MAYBE gets better, and if it does, fans are more happy, and you still take whatever is given to you. Because you are absolutely entitled to having no standards, while others are entitled to have some.
But what do I know, I'm just a troll.

Liked Bear's music right from the start and it has only continued to grow on me. How fortunate we are that we're getting a fully symphonic and thematic television score by a composer excited to share as much of his music and process as Bear is.
 
I only hope his approach is allowed to continue for the remaining seasons.