oierem

Philosopher's Stone was the first OST album I owned. At that time, I only had the 1997 SW set and the TPM UE, so I assumed that a soundtrack album always included the complete soundtrack. I had seen the film and the Diagon Alley/Great Hall music was one of my favourite pieces... and I just couldn't believe it wasn't on the set. That was my first encounter with the frustrating nature of the OST albums.

Which means, the actual film version is missing!!! Jokes aside, this is a great set, one of the best ever for sure, both for the awesome music and the presentation. I do wonder, though, why do so many of you think that the original Banning Back Home is so superior? Not counting the free improv section (which is really fun) I don't really see any objective reason to call it superior to the revised version.

Yes. The insert includes both the new music and part of the original cue in a shortened form, until it fades back into the ending of the original cue.

Do you know the exact ending point of the Insert? I always thought that it ended when it segues into the original cue material, but now I'm not sure, because I realize the original cue is shortened (I always thought it was a film edit).

As Jay put it, it fits in the sense that it contrast with the orchestral score that comes later. It's a gradual introduction to the world of magic. In fact, removing the Prologue track from the beginning of the soundtrack creates a better listening experience, in my opinion, as it's such a spoilery track.

Yes. Furthermore, in the London scenes, there is no music whenever the scene deals with the "real word". The music is used for when the "magic" creeps into the scenes (Wendy's first appearance, the haunted nursery scene, Wendy telling her story...) and is interrupted when Peter breaks the magic (when he closes the window for example). Once we get to Neverland, the film is scored pretty much wall-to-wall (although some sections were ultimately unused). It's an interesting way of scoring the film, similar to the first Harry Potter films. No music when there's no magic.

I find TLJ to be the weakest SW score, or at least, the one that I'm least interested in. Despite its great moments, thematically is lacking and relying heavily on reused music. ROS has stronger new themes and some good developments or previous themes (Ben, Rey). The result is quite stronger, in my opinion. TFA is the best of the trilogy, without a doubt. Much less dependent of previous scores, with awesome new themes, it has a strong and coherent narrative. But all three prequel scores are way above any of those three in every possible way.

The structure of Crusade is, at least on paper, perfectly balanced. Each 20-minute segment has a beginning, middle and a chase at the end. Part 1: Double prologue. Part 2: Venice and the boat chase. Part 3: Nazi castle and the motocycle chase. Part 4: Berlin and the aereal chase. Part 5: Desert and the tank chase. Part 6: Emotional climax. It's way more "perfect" than any of the other two films. Which is why it feels almost "too" neat.

It's a good recommendation, but I don't agree with the idea. Even though the first Banning Back Home is great, and maybe even superior, my criteria for what's in the main playlist is to always follow the actual film score. "What Williams always intended" would include the original Never Feast, Ultimate War, or The Flight to Neverland. Or The Departure from E.T. without "Steven's fix". Or the original Binary Sunset. The final film score is always a result of the collaboration between composer and director.

Having listened to all 3 Discs as presented (in three consecutive evenings), I've changed the placement of a few tracks, and I've just listened to the complete film score (without all the extras) for the second time, from beginning to end. It's now impossible to listen to all the themes without thinking about the lyrics, which creates a very different listening experience indeed! I've made three small changes: -I've removed the prologue (it's a musical spoiler and it's not part of the film score, so I've moved the first track to the very end of the additional music section.) -I've incorporated both non-Williams source cues to the main score presentation. (I always include the source music if it's composed or arranged by Williams. For me, it's part of the score, the same way When You're Alone or the Pirate Town music is). -I've swaped the Lost Boy Chase tracks, to include the film version on the main programme. Awesome set and awesome score.

I've listened to the first two discs (planning to listen to Disc 3 tonight) - and I'm reading the liner notes for each CD after the first listen. As everyone else has said, magnificent release of one of the best soundtracks ever. Couple of comments/nitpicks. The liner notes (which are awesome) say that both versions of Banning Back Home are longer than the actual scene in the film. That's not correct, is it? The film version is featured without edits in the final film, as far as I know. (The album version, which I always liked less than the film version, is FANTASTIC in its extended form! Great solos!) Thinking about how to create my own playlist while keeping the Film Presentation & Musical Album concept, I'm thinking that the five additional tracks at the end of Disc 2 could be incorporated into the Disc 3 program, right? I'm assuming the only reason they are not there is because lack of space, but I think it would be a more logical place. After all, Disc 3 contains a lot of alternates, so the "Additional Music" belongs there, I think.

Jane Eyre and The Force Awakens, I would say. I don't think TLJ and ROS are great as a whole (though they have great highlights of course). The Post and The Fabelmans are too small to be considered great (although I love the simplicity and the beauty of the two themes from the Fablemans). And Indy 5 has great themes, but is a very uneven score because of the copy-pasting.

It's fascinating that Williams actually remembers and/or cares about such small details. That being said, I will probably switch those cues, as I prefer to have the actual film verion on the main program.

The lenght of track 12 is wrong, if I'm not mistaken.

I agree with that. I don't like to "spoil" the score by placing the final/concert/end-credits version of the main theme at the beginning. That being said, what's your opinion about the "Prologue" from Hook? In a way, it's a spoilery track, and it doesn't belong to the opening of the film. On the other hand, it was composed for the teaser, and the beginning is just magical. So I don't know about my playlist yet.

Yes, but that's still baffling because it's not tracked music. It's newly recorded. Which means, once Williams / Ross is given the tempt-track, he goes through the old scores, searching for those couple of bars that the editor has chosen, which don't fit musically with anything before or after, and just copy-paste them, with slight and seemingly-random differences ("let's just add a cymbal crash for the sake of it"). The result is something almost impossible to conduct, or even play, and yet they do it. Why? Isn't is easier just to track music? Again, if those copy-pasted cues came from a single source, that would be more logical. A good example is the "Cornish Pixies" music from Chamber of Secrets. It's a copy-paste/expansion on a cue from PS. But it's musically coherent, and it works well. It's based on an existing cue, but it's adapted to the new scene. Ok, fine. But a cue made up of dozens of previous cues, randomly chosen, and often just a couple of bars... I don't know, I can't imagine why they bother, because it's too complicated and the result is just not good.

Some of the combined cues are split up (Granny Wendy, Hook-napped, and The Face of Pan). By the way, what happened to Banning Back Home album verion? This set seems to have the film version and a significantly longer alternative....

Having listened to the full Isolated Score, I still find some of the copy-pasted sections hard to listen to on their own: they sound jarring, and unnatural (I don't know how Williams was able to conduct some of these), and I find myself trying to identify every small segment before it jumps to another. I'm OK with taking an idea from a previous score and expanding it (Spiders from MR or The Duel from Tintin). I can even accept taking a big chunk from a previous score and copy-pasting it (Belly of the Steal Beast or On The Tank). But I just can't stand the almost-random usage of a couple of bars from a previous score pasted together with another couple of bars from another score (and on and on)... It doesn't sound good, it doesn't sound musical. On the other hand, the score is wonderful in many other areas: the variations on Helena's theme, the new Nazi themes and, particularly, the Dial and Archimides themes are lovely, exotic and unique. It's definitely a mixed bag, this one.

That's one thing. But many of the cues of DoD are not just that. They literally copy/paste bars from previous scores, lifting and juxtaposing cues that have nothing in common, in a rather unnatural way, I might add. It's more than concious: it's the equivalent of parts of Chamber of Secrets being copy/pasted from the previous score.

Yes, "Love Pledge and The Arena" has a manufactured ending using the end of "Arrival at Kamino".

Agreed. Even if a reworking/combination of different cues would probably be the most effective way to tell the whole story, you could select 3-4 cues from each film to represent the different sections of the story. For example, if I had to choose a handful of cues from Empire Strikes Back, I would select: -The Asteroid Chase (which features both the Imperial March and the Love Theme, and reflects the action of the first act of the film) -Yoda and the Force (which features Luke's theme in minor mode, The Force theme, Yoda's theme and the Imperial March, and represents the more introspective middle act of the film) -The Clash of Lightsabers (which features a brutal rendition of the Imperial March, an action driven Yoda's theme, the Cloud City March and a dramatic version of the Love Theme, and represents the dramatic third act) -The Rebel Fleet & End Credits There you have it: a 19-minute selection of cues representing the story of the film, which feature different variations of the main themes.

And they need to crack a lot more! I'd much rather hear actual cues from the films than the concert suites (a lot of which have been played to death, and are much more boring -and less "story-driven"- than the actual cues). At the very least they should play the end credit suites! That way, you'd get most of the themes in one continuous musical piece, which flows much better than 3-minute concert suites!

Really cool! My top 5 for each decade: 1970s Star Wars Superman - The Movie Jane Eyre Jaws Close Encounters of the Third Kind 1980s The Empire Strikes Back Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom E.T. the Extra Terrestrial Return of the Jedi Raiders of the Lost Ark 1990s Hook Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace Jurassic Park Schindler's List Far and Away 2000s Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban A.I. Artificial Intelligence 2010s War Horse The Adventures of Tintin Star Wars: The Force Awakens Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Out of the top 25: -11 Spielberg films -8 Star Wars films -2 Harry Potter films -3 Indy films

Can anyone post a breakdown of the OST? I'm still not sure about the music of some of the cues...

Considering the Indy series as a whole, I find that both Crystal Skull and Dial of Destiny have the same function: an epilogue of sorts, in which "old tired Indy" goes from being depressed at how the world is changing to finding a new family and a reason to life. And in that regard, I think Crystal Skull is a much more satisfactory epilogue than Dial of Destiny, because it's actually a happy ending for Indy. Heck, even the final shot of Indy grabbing the hat works much better in Skull! That being said, the Indy films are essentially independent films, so I like that each film has its own sidekicks. And Dial is a fun and enjoyable film! Just not the best ending to the series.