Hook

[Jay 30902]

I love this thread. I started it 8 days after this version of the forum launched and it gets bumped regularly. It must bet he poll on the entire board with the most votes in it.

[nightscape94 965]

Love the score (top 5 for me). I wouldn't exactly say I hate the film, that's pretty strong, especially when it's in caps. It's not decent either, but I picked that option since there wasn't a "Love the score/film sucked" option.

[Jay 30902]

A set designer from HOOK has been posting some inside info about the production on reddit!

 

https://www.reddit.com/user/nottreallyallthere

 

@Goldfingers

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Steven Spielberg was asked on 60 Minutes if he’d ever work with Julia Roberts again after 1991’s Hook.
In a soft voice, the director said, “No”.
From all reports, Roberts was an emotional wreck on the set of the fantasy film.
The actor, who played Tinkerbell in the film, was struggling when filming began having just called off her engagement to Kiefer Sutherland four days before their wedding.
Roberts was such a nightmare on set that the crew nicknamed her “Tinkerhell”.

It's true. She bought a new blue porsche to feel better after kiefer broke up with her. Most of her shots were second unit stuff (she was a fairy! ) but she wouldn't work if Spielberg wasn't there. Im the guy that was shooting the lost boy goop at her. They said "don't hit get in the face". I hit her in the face.

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The Hook sets were spectacular and many of Hollywood elite came to see them. Actors were asking to be pirates. David Crosby is also one. Fun fact, Bruce Willis was going to be a pirate, but the day he showed up on the set he caused a large commotion among the Hook crew. He had recently blamed the Hollywood unions for high movie production costs while collecting millions. He wasn't allowed to come back. Source: I worked on Hook.

Edit Hudson Hawk. That was the problem

 

 

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He was run off the HOOK set. He was going to do a pirate cameo. He had just come off an expensive flop called Hudson Hawk I think. In an interview he blamed the Hollywood unions for the high production costs and not his ten million dollar fee. The union crew on HOOK booed and jeered him until he left the set never to return.

 

 

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The wrap party was held at Union Station, a real art deco train station in downtown Los Angeles. Hundreds of people attended. Robin Williams spent the entire evening going to every single table and joking around with everyone especially the children. He had his young daughter with him. I don't think he missed a single table.

 

 

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And of you look carefully, the curtains on those windows have embroidered Peter pan figures in the center. Source: I worked on the movie. I made those curtains

 

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A lot of these cameos are spur of the moment occurrences. A star from lot B visits lot A's set because he has a friend there and then somebody asks them, hey wanna jump in a pirate costume and appear in this scene for like 10 seconds?

The comment below stating that these were spur of the moment is not correct. All were planned. Wardrobe and make up must be planned. No one just showed up and threw on a pirate outfit. I worked on this movie.

 

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That’s pretty cool you got to work on that movie. What was the experience like? Any other hidden things?

The memory is wonderful. I only remember the fun stuff. I blot out all of the 16-18 hour days and 3 months straight without a day off. My best memory was being inconvenienced repeatedly by Miss Roberts and her demands on the entire shooting schedule. Prop master asked me to help with the shot where Tink gets hit with goop during the food fight. I volunteered to shoot the goop. They said "don't hit her in the face it'll ruin her make up." I hit her in the face.

 

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I wanna know more about the Julia Roberts problems - I heard she was a nightmare on set & have always wanted to know the truth!

She was fine, just disrupting because she insisted that Spielberg be there for every frame shot. She was mostly in 2nd unit stuff because she was a fairy. Usually a 2nd unit director would handle the effect and perspective stuff and the main director would only be there if they're was complex acting involved. She'd just broken up with kiefer Sutherland, bought herself a new blue Porsche convertible and was a bit unhappy. She wasn't a nightmare. She did cause all kinds of scheduling inconvenience because of her demands on Spielberg's time. Truth.

 

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Just thought of another detail. Hooks ship was supposed to actually float but it never did. It was designed to actually come off the stage floor when the stage was filled with water, but leaked too much. After many days of frantic effort, floating the ship was given up and Spielberg wasn't very happy about it. Hooks cabin scenes have a little movement because the set was built on a platform that had big tire inner tubes that could be inflated and deflated to make the set sway a little.

 

 

[crumbs 12572]

Some very cool details there!

 

Gotta admit I got my hopes up when I saw a newly bumped thread with HOOK in the title...

[JTWfan77 1297]

Please let Hook be one of the two Sony Music titles that LLL has in the pipeline.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6478]

What would be the point of having the pirate ship float? What an overproduced nightmare.

[bollemanneke 2866]

2 hours ago, JTWfan77 said:

Please let Hook be one of the two Sony Music titles that LLL has in the pipeline 

And please don't make us wait till Black Friday to find out!

[Kasey Kockroach 2304]

My other favorite Williams score (the other other being The Fury) and I haven't seen the movie and have no intention to.

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 313]

Brilliant orchestration (2:30 - 3:25, especially the 3:11 part):

 

One of Williams's best melodies (arguably Top 3):

 

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6478]

On 5/26/2002 at 10:45 PM, JoeinAR said:

Next to Always and AI, Hook is the biggest piece of shit in Spielberg's canon.

 

[rough cut 1397]

It would’ve been better had Michael Jackson not turned down the role as Peter Pan!

[Jurassic Shark 9301]

Nooo!

[Corellian2019 335]

 

[bollemanneke 2866]

They're broadcasting Hook on Saturday in Belgium. I'll take that as a sign from LLL.

[Henry Sítrónu 454]

 

Not very much new facts to me but quite a few BTS bits and deleted scenes.

[bollemanneke 2866]

Thanks for this.

[crumbs 12572]

On 7/7/2019 at 7:27 PM, bollemanneke said:

They're broadcasting Hook on Saturday in Belgium. I'll take that as a sign from LLL.

 

So much for that theory.

[bollemanneke 2866]

5 hours ago, crumbs said:

 

So much for that theory.

That was because you don't believe in fairies!

[Naïve Old Fart 7491]

The score I listen to, in small doses, always with a liberal supply of insulin standing by.

I don't care if I never see the film again, for as long as I live.

Even Spielberg hates it, and he directed the bloody thing. That should tell you a lot.

[Edmilson 4467]

The movie is indeed woeful, but the score is great. JW tells with his music the history that Spielberg couldn't with images and dialogue

[Naïve Old Fart 7491]

Yep. That sums up the score, and its relationship to the film.

[Nemesis 151]

Wasn't a lot of music written without the film finished?

[Jay 30902]

No

 

The teaser trailer cue was recorded early, as was anything that would need to sung / lip synced on set.  All the scores cues were written to edited footage like any other movie

[oierem 87]

1 hour ago, Nemesis said:

Wasn't a lot of music written without the film finished?

 

1 hour ago, Jay said:

No

 

The teaser trailer cue was recorded early, as was anything that would need to sung / lip synced on set.  All the scores cues were written to edited footage like any other movie

 

I think Nemesis is referring to the fact that Williams began scoring the first few reels without having watched the entire film (because it was still being edited). I believe Hook and War of the Worlds are the only two cases (at least with Spielberg) in which Williams had to start scoring without having watched the whole film. 

The film was released in December 1991 and started shooting in February of that same year. So yeah, it was a short production period for such a big film. 

[bollemanneke 2866]

That video posted earlier claimed that enormous amounts of scenes were cut, like Maggie becoming a mother to the pirates or something. Did JW ever score those things?

[Jay 30902]

Nope

[crumbs 12572]

Wasn't that scene early in Pirate Town (heard at 1:23 in LLLD2T12 Presenting the Hook - Film Version) the only major deleted scene JW scored? And it wasn't even included with the deleted scenes on the Bluray (omitted along with many others it seems).

 

I wonder how this deleted scene fit into the following sequence. Presumably it involves the Low Below lyrics, as the theme JW wrote for it remains in the final score (above track at 3:30):

 

 

 

Surely something was prerecorded with Bob Hoskins if they filmed a short musical number in the Presenting the Hook sequence? Hell, there's even a little pirate orchestra there (second photo, above).

 

@Jay Do you know if there were recording sessions before production started, for use on set? It seems some musical elements were still present by the time it reached production, even if they're missing in the final cut.

 

I'm guessing We Don't Wanna Grow Up and When You're Alone were prerecorded to help the children with performances.

[Jay 30902]

8 hours ago, crumbs said:

@Jay Do you know if there were recording sessions before production started, for use on set? It seems some musical elements were still present by the time it reached production, even if they're missing in the final cut

 

16 hours ago, Jay said:

The teaser trailer cue was recorded early, as was anything that would need to sung / lip synced on set.  

 

[crumbs 12572]

17 hours ago, Jay said:

No

 

The teaser trailer cue was recorded early, as was anything that would need to sung / lip synced on set.  All the scores cues were written to edited footage like any other movie

 

Sorry, missed this post.

 

Well those images above appear to show a deleted musical act during the Presenting the Hook sequence. Is there no further information about what this entailed, just the musical numbers that made the final cut?

[Jay 30902]

Dan Schweiger's liner notes in the 2012 LLL CD list the songs

1. We Don't Wanna Grow Up - Was filmed / Finished version of song appears in the theatrical cut / on the OST and LLL CD / Melody never used again
2. Low Below - Was filmed (images posted a few posts up, lyrics found in shooting script sold on ebay) / Cut from final theatrical version / Unknown if finished version of song ever made / Melody incorporated into score (Presenting The Hook 1:22 + LLL Pirates! 0:31)
3. Believe - Probably never filmed / Melody incorporated into score (From Mermaids To Lost Boys 1:57, Remembering Childhood 2:57, 3:21 and 4:14, Farewell Neverland 0:15, 1:23, 1:56)
4. Pick Em Up - Was filmed / Finished version of song appears in the theatrical cut, but edited down / Full lyrics available here / Was not on the OST or LLL CD or any leak / Melody never used again
5. Stick With Me - Probably never filmed / Melody incorporated into score (Presenting The Hook 1:54, Smee's Plan 0:07 and 1:11, The Ultimate War 0:31, 2:09, 4:23, 4:34, 5:42, and 7:02 + LLL Pirates! 0:07 and 0:26)
6. Childhood - Probably never filmed / Lyrics published in 1992 / Fan-made recording here / Melody incorporated into score (Granny Wendy 0:55, The Arrival of Tink and The Flight To Neverland 5:07, From Mermaids To Lost Boys 3:57 and 4:05, The Never-Feast 0:47 and 0:57, Remembering Childhood 2:38, 5:10, 7:34, 8:37, 9:07, 9:59, 10:19, The Ultimate War 7:42, Farewell Neverland 0:00, 7:52, 8:54 + LLL The Nursery 0:25, The Watch 0:32, Hook Challenges Peter 0:12)
7. When You're All Alone - Was filmed / Finished version of song appears in the theatrical cut / On the OST and LLL CD / Melody incorporated into score (The Never-Feast 3:53, Remembering Childhood 0:00 and 1:01, The Ultimate War 7:18, Farewell Neverland 7:24, 8:11 + LLL The Watch 0:00)

 

It is currently unknown if the other recurring themes in the score began life as song demos or not

1. The first theme heard in the teaser trailer (Prologue 0:06 and 1:03) heard in Hook-Napped (0:11 and 0:36 and 2:20), Hook Challenges Peter (3:15), and The Ultimate War: The Death of Rufio (2:13)
2. The second theme heard in the teaser trailer (Prologue 0:32 and 1:12) heard in The Never-Feast (3:20) and Remembering Childhood (8:47 and 9:30 and 9:46 and 10:34) and The Ultimate War (0:05, 1:03, 1:28, 2:32, 2:54, 3:11, 3:22, 4:30, 5:07, 5:15, 5:32)
3. The theme for Tinkerbell heard in We Don't Wanna Grow Up (0:09), The Arrival of Tink and The Flight to Neverland (1:53)
4. The Home-Alone-esque theme for family heard in Granny Wendy (0:12) and Farewell Neverland (6:00, 6:10, 6:55, 8:25, 9:14, 9:47)
5. The theme for Hook heard in Hook-Napped (0:54 and 1:13 and 1:49 and 2:30) and LLL tracks The Bedroom (0:20, 0:35), Pirates! (0:22, 0:40, 1:04,1:27, 2:02, 2:15), and Hook Challenges Peter (0:06)
6. The theme for Peter's relationship with the Lost Boys heard in You Are The Pan (2:27 and 3:15)
7. The theme for the Lost Boys heard in The Banquet (0:20 and 1:41 and 2:22) and The Never-Feast (0:05 and 0:34 and 1:16) and The Ultimate War (3:42, 6:20)
8. The fanfare heard in The Ultimate War (1:18,1:48, 2:24)

[crumbs 12572]

Purely based on MV's comments back in 2012, I have to believe some of that material must have been recorded but withheld due to licensing issues.

 

Not holding my breath about ever hearing it though.

[Jay 30902]

Well of course all of those songs would have had DEMOS recorded, that's not a question.  And the full unedited finished Pick Em Up exists somewhere.

 

The only question is if Low Below ever had a finished version made, or if Spielberg cut it early enough that JW never worked on that, and the version made for on-set playback is all that there is

 

It's unlikely Believe, Childhood, or Stick With Me would have anything that exists beyond the original demos / versions made for on-set playback that went unused, since we've never seen any evidence those songs were filmed at all

[crumbs 12572]

Thanks for clarifying @Jay, guess MV was referring to the demos then.

 

24 minutes ago, Jay said:

The only question is if Low Below ever had a finished version made, or if Spielberg cut it early enough that JW never worked on that, and the demo is all that there is

 

Haven't watched the film in years but seems like a fragment of the sequence was kept in the final cut. Didn't realise the pirate musicians were shown in the final cut (but weirdly with no accompanying source music or SFX, despite playing their instruments):

 

I'd guess whatever scene existed there was cut early because I can't imagine it gelling with JW's final cue at all (unless there was a wildly different alternate before 5M5 Show Us Your Hook existed).

 

Out of interest, are those Hook/Hook/Show us the Hook chants from the scoring sessions? There's another Hook/Hook/Hook chant in the partial sessions leak but no idea if that was used in the film.

[Jay 30902]

Yea that's the point; It was intended and shot for Low Below to be a big musical number at that point in the film, then Spielberg chickened out and removed it, but still had to show Smee bringing the hook through, etc in the final cut

 

Yea, the backing vocals of Pirates singing "hook, hook, show us the hook!" and "hook, hook, give us the hook!" and "hook, hook, hook, hook, hook!" that were not included in the OST, LLL, or boot version of the cue would have been recorded by Williams.  The session leak contained one of those vocal performances (as a separate track from the orchestral layer) but not the others

[crumbs 12572]

Geez, why go to all that trouble to make a partial musical then back out at the eleventh hour? It's not like he didn't have the best placed composer to handle the score. 

 

I know the deleted scenes on the Bluray are pitiful (and wildly incomplete) but the absence of this scene would further indicate it never made it far in post (certainly not far enough for Williams to score it). 

[Jay 30902]

Well, the deleted scenes on the blu clearly come from a very early rough cut, before the cut of the film Williams scored, so it's very likely Low Below WAS on this same rough cut that the other deleted scenes were pulled from, and Spielberg asked for the Low Below part not to be included.

 

Those scenes were nice curiosities, but I'm honestly more curious to see the footage Williams DID score but then Spielberg removed from the film afterward, like the slicing the hand scene, the extended Goodnight Neverland, and all the bits and bobs that resulted in various cues being shortened in the final cut

[BrotherSound 1831]

5 hours ago, crumbs said:

I'd guess whatever scene existed there was cut early because I can't imagine it gelling with JW's final cue at all (unless there was a wildly different alternate before 5M5 Show Us Your Hook existed).

Oddly enough, the 5M5 “Show Us Your Hook” that’s in both the leaked full score and sketches does not match the recorded version. The first minute or so is the same, but when the final version switches to the Stick With Me/Smee theme, the original continues with more Low Below. So, I assume the one we know must really be 5M5R or 5M5 Alt.

 

Has anyone ever mocked this up, before I go to the trouble?

[bollemanneke 2866]

There's an extended Good Night Neverland? I don't even want to start imagining what this is.

[Jay 30902]

On 9/19/2020 at 5:06 PM, BrotherSound said:

Oddly enough, the 5M5 “Show Us Your Hook” that’s in both the leaked full score and sketches does not match the recorded version. The first minute or so is the same, but when the final version switches to the Stick With Me/Smee theme, the original continues with more Low Below. So, I assume the one we know must really be 5M5R or 5M5 Alt.

 

Has anyone ever mocked this up, before I go to the trouble?

 

I've never seen anybody make any mockups of any Hook cues at all

 

 

On 9/19/2020 at 5:16 PM, bollemanneke said:

There's an extended Good Night Neverland? I don't even want to start imagining what this is.

 

I don't know what you mean. We have the entire cue on the LLL CD, we just haven't seen all the footage JW wrote it for 

[bollemanneke 2866]

Oh, sorry, yeah, I meant I didn't want to imagine what else that scene could have included. That shouting kid is bad enough.

[Jay 30902]

Oh, that's just the end of the cue, the beginning of the cue is the cut "believe your eyes" scene with Tink and Peter

[BrotherSound 1831]

Oh, something interesting I hadn’t caught before: the sketch of 5M5 “Show Us The Hook” has notes related to measures in something called “P.B.”, which I believe would mean “playback” in this context, which could be referencing the prerecorded version of the Low Below song:
 

 

 

Unfortunately, none of the songs are present in the leaked scores or sketches. Wild that a score that had multiple audio leaks and leaked full score sheet music and leaked sketches could still have this many mysteries!

[Jay 30902]

Nice, I'm sure that stands for playback. 

 

And yea, why can't any Williams sheet leak ever be 100% complete?

[BrotherSound 1831]

58 minutes ago, Jay said:

Nice, I'm sure that stands for playback. 

Cool, then looks like at least some of the song arrangement was ultimately incorporated into 5M5!
 

59 minutes ago, Jay said:

And yea, why can't any Williams sheet leak ever be 100% complete?

I’m guessing all the pre-recorded material must have been archived separately. @crumbs Are all the pre-recorded cues (“We Don’t Wanna Grow Up”, “When You’re Alone”, etc.) on the various bootlegs just taken directly from the OST?

[crumbs 12572]

1 hour ago, BrotherSound said:

Are all the pre-recorded cues (“We Don’t Wanna Grow Up”, “When You’re Alone”, etc.) on the various bootlegs just taken directly from the OST?

 

I believe so but I only have the most recent session leak, not the early bootlegs (that sounded like cassette tape rips), so I'm not 100% positive. There might have been a few orchestral-only versions on the bootleg. 

[Jay 30902]

Both boots and the leak (and the LLL CD) all took Prologue, We Don't Want To Grow Up, Banning Back Home, and When You're Alone directly off the OST album

[mrbellamy 5614]

Looking at these poll options, I like to think that Hook is what Brian Eno meant when he said John Williams has ruined many great films and he would be the first vote for "HATE the score, LOVE the movie."

[Goldfingers 50]

All the cast involved in the songs rehearsed and recorded their parts before the songs shooting. Sometimes with vocals doubles on demos, like Julie Andrews for Maggie Smith voice.  Everything had to be perfectly synchronized on the set, the demos were necessary for all the songs.

 

For the Low below scene.

First, the music was supposed to be intradiegetic. That's why you have all the musicians around Smee. You clearly see them start to play when Smee leave the forge. It's very frustrating in the final cut because you see them play but it's not intradiegetic anymore. 
The song is a mix of several styles of music that changes depending on the building where the action takes place with some instrumental interludes in between with dances scenes. Lyrics of the song interacting with the dialogues and interactions with the pirates on set.

You have an oriental style with the prostitutes (just after the forge). "Rap" in the barber shop, other in dentist shop, at the gallow and then in the tavern with a large dance scene with pegleg veterans pirates.

For the little detail, the baber cut Smee hair band during that scene, this is the reason why we only see Smee with a hair band in the forge first shots.

 

 

The final shots of the arrival at the Jolly Roger was reshot at the end of the main shooting in August.
Originally, there must have been a scene with slaves lost boys on the docks. These slaves lost boys were characters that had more importance in the deleted scenes with Maggie. She sing "When you're alone" later in the movie for them.

 

On 9/19/2020 at 11:16 PM, bollemanneke said:

There's an extended Good Night Neverland? I don't even want to start imagining what this is.

 

I tried to edit this cut scene with the music. You can find it here:

 

 

On 9/19/2020 at 4:35 PM, Jay said:

1. Childhood - Probably never filmed / Lyrics published in 1992 / Fan-made recording here / Melody incorporated into score (Granny Wendy 0:55, The Arrival of Tink and The Flight To Neverland 5:07, From Mermaids To Lost Boys 3:57 and 4:05, The Never-Feast 0:47 and 0:57, Remembering Childhood 2:38, 5:10, 7:34, 8:37, 9:07, 9:59, 10:19, The Ultimate War 7:42, Farewell Neverland 0:00, 7:52, 8:54 + LLL The Nursery 0:25, The Watch 0:32, Hook Challenges Peter 0:12)

 

"Childhood" was filmed during the last days of Maggie Smith on set, at the end of the London parts filming. Leslie Bricusse mention it in one of his book.
The lyrics were not published in 1992 in this blue songbook but in 1994 in a bigger songbook: "The Leslie Bricusse Movie Songbook".

 

 

 

[crumbs 12572]

And as John Powell recently pointed out, a "demo" for John Williams usually involves an 80 piece orchestra recording the music.

 

So all that musical material has been sitting in a vault somewhere for 30+ years, unheard and unreleased, only used on the film set as reference for the actors.

 

Hopefully one day the labels will get permission from the actors to release those recordings...

[May the Force be with You 1961]

15 hours ago, crumbs said:

Hopefully one day the labels will get permission from the actors to release those recordings...