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The Bear McCreary Thread


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9 minutes ago, Tydirium said:

This show isn’t even the same canon as the LOTR and Hobbit films though, right? I’m confused by this. Why are they hiring Shore and having McCreary mention honoring Shore’s legacy, if this is a whole different take on Middle Earth?

 

It's not a whole different take. The showrunners have said on many occasions that they want to make something that can be appreciated alongside the existing movies, it's just too legally complicated to connect directly to them for now.

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31 minutes ago, Tom Guernsey said:

He’s the kind of composer who knows what fans will expect and has enough history to hopefully not get clobbered by the producers (let’s face it, the whole arrangement isn’t a million miles from Obi-Wan but BM has much greater cache and experience than Holt so I expect it’ll be a lot closer to what we all hope for rather than a muddled disappointment). 


Right, but in this case, why would fans expect a score like Shore’s? Unless I’m mistaken, this show isn’t even in the same canon as the films; it’s separate. It would have made sense for the Obi-Wan Kenobi score to sound more like classic SW, since that show was just as canon as the main films, and featured the return of multiple big actors from the films.


This show on the other hand features different actors, is set in a completely different “Age,” and most importantly is not even set in the same canon. I guess I just fail to see why this score should necessarily sound anything like Shore? Of course I loved Shore’s Middle Earth scores, but even The Mandalorian went in a different musical direction from the SW films (and it was the same canon). To me, this is a weird choice.

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Ah crap:

 

 

Just now, Tydirium said:

Unless I’m mistaken, this show isn’t even in the same canon as the films; it’s separate.

 

Its in this kind of weird limbo where the overall design aesthetic is similar, actors were cast for their likeness of Jackson's cast (Morfydd Clark is to be to Cate Blanchett was Martin Freeman was to Sir Ian Holm) and Howard Shore is scoring the opening logos. So its definitely trying to be as similar as they possibly can.

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5 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

 

You're taking crowd-pleasing quotes from a PR fluff article far too literally and seriously.

 

If a composer ever took a franchise from another and didn't say something about honouring what the other composer had done, I'd eat my hat. It means precisely bugger all about what they're actually composing.


Good point.

 

13 minutes ago, A. A. Ron said:

 

It's not a whole different take. The showrunners have said on many occasions that they want to make something that can be appreciated alongside the existing movies, it's just too legally complicated to connect directly to them for now.


Hm, I see.

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1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

Ah crap:

 

 

 

Its in this kind of weird limbo where the overall design aesthetic is similar, actors were cast for their likeness of Jackson's cast (Morfydd Clark is to be to Cate Blanchett was Martin Freeman was to Sir Ian Holm) and Howard Shore is scoring the opening logos. So its definitely trying to be as similar as they possibly can.

That's my take and that it's going for a very similar aesthetic and style to the movies. Isn't it basically a prequel? If so, it would make more sense for it to be closer to the existing movies in all respects. I'm not sure the comparison to the Mandalorian is appropriate, that would be more akin if they did a sideways spin-off which I don't think is the case. Either way, I can think of few composers better suited for this kind of scoring. I didn't really expect Shore to score the whole thing (and having found the Hobbit scores a bit of a chore at times, his heart may not be in it these days anyway). 

 

Just given the two tracks released a spin (https://music.amazon.co.uk/albums/B0B6229P1X? - I think you can listen to them free as long as you have an Amazon account but I'm making no promises either way!) and they both really are very good indeed. The Sauron track opens with a riff that reminds me of the opening of Battle of the Heroes from ROTS, but then adds Shore's 5/4 Sauron bass line and expectedly dramatic choir. Galadriel starts and ends in relatively haunting fashion but opens out during the development quite beautifully. It's considerably less sinister and more romantic (in a grand musical sense rather than love sense) than Shore's music for Galadriel so presumably she wasn't always quite so scary!

 

If this is the level of quality he's been writing at, this could be a spectacular score.

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1 hour ago, Tom Guernsey said:

I'm not sure the comparison to the Mandalorian is appropriate, that would be more akin if they did a sideways spin-off which I don't think is the case.

I think, a comparrison with Kenobi fits better. Original composer writes the main title and the show looks like a clunky fan film.

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Interesting!

 

2 hours ago, Tydirium said:

This show on the other hand features different actors, is set in a completely different “Age,” and most importantly is not even set in the same canon.

 

"Different canon" is a funny expression, partly because it could mean a number of things. *Legally* it's unrelated to LOTR and The Hobbit, because they don't have the rights to that material. Insofar as that means they won't be referencing things from the PJ films explicitly by name, and will be taking different liberties with their material than PJ did with his, it's a different canon - but by the same logic, PJ's films are different canon than Tolkien's books. Yet for the most party (in most of LOTR at least), the films are very faithful to the source material. How the new series relates to its own sources remains to be seen, and they certainly had to make up much more of the narrative material (because most of their sources tells stories that often last hundreds or even thousands of years in very broad strokes). But from what I've seen (granted, I haven't bothered with most of the news reports in the past few months), they still all seem to be trying to be a part of the same world. So if the design and the music can tie them together, that seems only proper.

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12 hours ago, Tom Guernsey said:

If this is the level of quality he's been writing at, this could be a spectacular score.

 

Not wanting to diminish your enthusiasm, but i don't hear anything beyond 'perfectly alright'. It's certainly better than the trailer music shenanigans we are used to by now for things like that, but certainly a long way from 'spectacular'. Expected, with 40 guys sharing the workload, but as Goldsmith fan i longingly wait for a glorious return of the uneven metric, the absence of which is one of the reasons why this kind of music has become so predictable and boring.

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18 minutes ago, publicist said:

 

Not wanting to diminish your enthusiasm, but i don't hear anything beyond 'perfectly alright'. It's certainly better than the trailer music shenanigans we are used to by now for things like that, but certainly a long way from 'spectacular'. Expected, with 40 guys sharing the workload, but as Goldsmith fan i longingly wait for a glorious return of the uneven metric, the absence of which is one of the reasons why this kind of music has become so predictable and boring.

Perhaps I'm getting carried away but I still really liked it but don't get me wrong, I miss what people like Jerry could be writing, especially yesterday as the anniversary of his passing.

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The two pieces are nice.

But my first listen impression is that probably the usual effect occured: Howard Shore originally took some native original celtic music as reference and related his music to that genre and style.

McCreary now does not care much about celtic music but just takes Shore's music as a reference.

Therefore, the music becomes a little more common and generic.

But I might be wrong. Just a guess after first listen.

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I'm not massively bowled over by those two cues but there's gonna be a lot of music recorded for this and hopefully there's a fair bit of the wistful Celtic leaning stuff McCreary's so good at.

 

Looking forward to Shore's title theme though. Wonder if William Ross has got a call yet! :D

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8 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

McCreary now does not care much about celtic music

 

Yeah, he probably hates writing Celtic music after doing it for 4 seasons of Battlestar and 6 seasons of Outlander...

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  • 4 weeks later...

The Rings of Power soundtrack album is now out. Does the score for this show not have its own thread?

 

The first track by Howard Shore definitely sounds like his Hobbit music, very ethereal and Elfish mixed with some more Dwarfish stuff. Not bad, but very brief. It's almost like an extended fanfare more than anything else. Not very developed, but perfectly A-Ok. Sounds like something he might have written but left out of the Hobbit. 

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4 minutes ago, artguy360 said:

The Rings of Power soundtrack album is now out. Does the score for this show not have its own thread?

Of course it does, in the Tolkien subforum.

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2 hours ago, Mephariel said:

 

That is the weakest part of the score.


I normally agree with you, on both this forum and Filmtracks but not on this. Those ninety seconds are the only part of the music that has transported me so far. I would agree that it isn’t the most stunning minute-and-a-half of Shore’s ME output, either trilogy, but it still brings me closer to the world I want more music from than anything else in the other two and a half hours.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

You know it, Bear!

 

Anyway, I cannot find a thread for the score so I'll say it hear:

 

Rings of Power is a superb score! One of his best albums too (though flagging at the end).

 

I just noticed some possible theme links to Shore's work too, probably spotted by others here.

 

Numenor, my favourite material, seems to borrow its first phrase or two from the scene in FotR as the boat approaches the two statues (the rising motifs before the ring theme).

 

Sauron's theme... is it in the same key, or scale, as the original Mordor theme? I can certainly sing it along and it sounds like it fits, and this Sauron theme seems to pivot around two notes too.

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6 hours ago, Miz said:

 

Anyway, I cannot find a thread for the score so I'll say it hear:

Why don't you go to the Tolkien Central discussion threads.

There are more than 3 threads about The Rings Of Power there.

 

 

https://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/forum/18-tolkien-central/

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I do agree there with edmilson a bit.

 

It's a bit of a mess sometimes in the threads. There are some great things being discussed but also a lot of bantering and just shitting on McCreary. Which is not always pleasant (especially if like me, you love the music)

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I also enjoy both. I wouldn't call it love necessarily but I look forward to both new episode and score album every Friday. For all the development drama both turned out way more enjoyable than expected.

 

Karol

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I love the score. At this poimt it's I think my favorite score of the year.

I'm enjoying the show a lot. It took some time to get a feel of what it was and the pacing was a bit slow sometimes. But I really felt myself caring for the characters in epiaode 6 & 7.

 

I as well, am not posting as much in the threads anymore because everytime I've done I just got mostly negative comme ts back. Which is not very fun. And as a result I've stopped talking about something I really like (happens with more scores, films & series). Which I find a real shame.

 

So I would really like maybe a 'appreciation' thread. I feel those always work quite nicely.

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8 minutes ago, JNHFan2000 said:

I am not posting as much in the threads anymore because everytime I've done I just got mostly negative comments back. Which is not very fun. And as a result I've stopped talking about something I really like (happens with more scores, films & series). Which I find a real shame.

 

This hurts my heart. 

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For the last month or so, Fridays have been Rings day - I've looked forward to waking up to a new episode which is always worth watching to hear the score in action, before then exploring the album. Thankfully most of the time I find that we can post our latest thoughts and all is good - the problem is when one of the haters is set off and the horrible chain of responses and arguments start.

 

1 hour ago, Jay said:

For the show itself, there's certain people who followed leaks and spoilers ahead of time and were just pre-determined to hate the show based on their reaction to plot points they read about, instead of organically having the show reveal these plot points to them.


For the score, there's people who just cannot take it for what it is, and can only assess it against how it compares to Shore's score, which is frustrating.

 

For the show, I share a lot of the opinions that the show's writing is terrible, predictable (etc...), but you set your expectations based on that and look for the stuff that is good - the action, the cinematography, most of the actors. It's a decent show on the whole if you look for and focus on the positives.

 

On the score, I don't mind that a few members voiced their disappointment - that's what we're here for. The problem is that like the show discussion, that negative feeling has now outworn its welcome and just becomes trolling due to their constant need to remind us of their opinion.

 

I'd like to see the main RoP music thread 'become' an appreciation thread, because in my view that thread now has no place for deliberately or provocatively negative posts. However, the tone of that thread has been set to an extent, with people having to defend their comments against the haters.

 

Perhaps the idea of making a new 'appreciation' one makes sense as a new start for positive, constructing discussion, and those two can put whatever negative energy they want in the existing one.

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Personally, I was mostly able to overlook the bad writing in this series for the first 5 episodes, because I was willing to do that in order to get a bit of Tolkienian atmosphere every week. As such, it's only in the last 2 weeks or so that I've even been complaining about this show. That said, I don't think the fact that people are still complaining after 7 episodes necessarily makes them "trolls" or "haters." In my mind, what makes someone a hater is the way they express their criticisms and how open they are/were to changing their minds.

 

I may not like this series, but I can still admit that it's done some things right. I like the visuals, the casting, the sets, the costumes, the locations... I just think the entire writing staff should be sacked. That's all. If they did that, I could easily see this becoming a show I like in a later season. Maybe it will. Either way, I LOVE the themes Bear McCreary has written for this series and for that reason more than any other, I can't completely begrudge its existence.

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