Taikomochi

Very interesting commentary. I am fascinated by the way Bear’s usage of themes has evolved between seasons, and I think you are speaking to that. There’s a lot less of the grandiose, full-throated statements that filled season 1. I was re-listening to the first season and was struck by how out of place a cue like “Sailing into the Dawn” would be in the second. He seems to have focused a lot more on smaller, fragmented statements of the themes. It’s a relatively understated approach, given how loud season 1 was. It honestly reminds me a lot of how Williams treated his themes, especially Rey’s theme, in the second and third Star Wars sequel trilogy films. He was more interested in digging down and exploring how he could twist and torture his themes than just constantly and loudly reaffirming them. And I love the approach here! It gives season 2 its own identity separate from 1. I also think it helps compensate for the fact that the new themes aren’t especially dominant, not unlike The Last Jedi

Ok, well, it was you who first introduced the idea of comparing pages to hours, not me. In any case, all I’m reading from your last comment is that Rings of Power has a lot more breathing room to write and structure the story as they see fit, which, to someone who is interested in the best adaptation rather than the one most slavish to the word of Tolkien, sounds like a very good thing. If we are accepting both adaptations are based on too little source material either way, I’d rather be the one with some degree of creative freedom.

4:28-4:36 in Durin’s Bane in the season album is what is missing.

Your spreadsheet is missing that Dwarven Loyalty in ep 7 is microedited to miss a section at 4:33 that is on the season album (unless I am misreading)

I was thinking it reminded me a lot of “War” from Avatar. Maybe temp?

Oh I’m not opposed to it on principle. Just seems like an adaptation that amounts to 1 page source material per 1/1.5 hours of content vs. 1 page per 4 hours of content is not meaningfully different. Like in either case, it’s gonna be like 95% extrapolation.

Honestly, when you put it that way, they both seem of the same magnitude of source material butter scraped over too much bread, even if they aren’t exactly proportionally identical.

Fair enough.

No point in engaging with TSS. If someone is committed to hating something in bad faith (see earlier discussion where they complained about DEI and “Afro Hobbits”, i.e. thinly-guised racism), then you don’t stand to gain anything in arguing. Your reading of the scene is obviously the intended one, and only someone with little to no media literacy would think otherwise.

I would say not necessary since it’s all new characters with a sizeable time jump. Only the prologue has anyone from the earlier films. If you remember basically what Caesar’s deal was, then you’re good.

They make Walkman mp3 players. It’s what I’ve used since I outgrew my iPod, and I don’t prefer to use my phone.

I also think the season albums are interestingly constructed enough to warrant keeping even with the episode albums. I prefer “Last Temptation” over “The Fall of Galadriel” for example, so I’ll be keeping both albums on my Walkman.

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Well especially since some of those weird edits/reverb made it into the last episode album. Like why take the approach like it’s an isolated score if you aren’t even including the whole thing?

I think that depends on if Bear ever brings it back a la Nolwa Mahtar. Hard to say now. Seems like a duel theme for this specific sequence to me from its single appearance.