Rate "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban"!

[Datameister 2,073]

Oooh, that's a good one.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Hermione, I prefer a dose of common sense! You're proposing that we go backwards in time, find Sirius and Buckbeak, then bring them forward in time, drop 'em off, and hope to hell Sirius tells these Dementors what to do with themselves!

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I don't..."Forward to Time Past" and that unreleased cue you mentioned have got to be the two dullest Williams cues I've heard! The idea is intriguing, and both cues have moments of greatness...I mean, the opening passages of "Forward to Time Past" are just awesome...but I'm not a fan of the rest.

The whole Forward To Time Past sequence is my favorite part of the the film and score! Pretty from when they first go back in time to the end of the film/score, 'tis the best. I love the low-key almost minimal music playing in the Saving Buckbeack part.

[Datameister 2,073]

It's my favorite part of the film and my least favorite part of the score...well, the aforementioned minimalistic passages, that is.

[Red 75]

The ticking clock sound effect from "Forward to Time Past" has always felt out of place to me. It would have been better if Williams had written an actual time motif similar to what he did in Hook.

[John Crichton 4]

Oh man, that clock drives me nuts. It works fine at the start of the cue, but once the music kicks in I want it to go away.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I like it. Nifty use of percussion, if you can call it that. Really more of a sound effect.

[indy4 155]

I love that cue.

[Datameister 2,073]

The ticking doesn't bother me so much as the lack of other interesting stuff for the majority of those two cues! As I said, though, the beginning is awesome. I love all the stuff the orchestra plays...there's even some backwards hi-hat in there!

[Marian Schedenig 8,239]

It's all good.

[Josh500 1,615]

BTW, I want the cue near the end when Harry and Hermione come back into the room where Ron's lying and he says, "Hey, you can't be in two places at once!" (or something like that)

JW scores this with a light-hearted cue played by a clarinet. JW apparently needs only one second to tell us, "Everything's all right now. The adventure is over and everybody is happy."

VERY impressive, I thought.

The ticking clock sound effect from "Forward to Time Past" has always felt a little out of place to me. It would have been better if Williams had written an actual time motif similar to what he did in Hook.

Well, that was the goal, wasn't it?

What takes place there IS out of place (or time), after all.

Really VERY originally scored scenes there...

It's all good.

Yes.

[Henry B 50]

Eh... Prisoner of Azkaban complete score...

I just don't know about this one. I'd like to hear it all, but unfortunately it's not all available due to the film's editing, unused cues and whatnot. I tried to edit and sequence my album to reflect film order and incorporate unreleased music, but now I realize this was a bad idea (the same goes for such albums as The Terminal and Munich). You either have to have the album experience or the complete score experience; they're different. And since the complete score isn't available... Even editing the full version of "Mischief Managed!" has a drawback because the film truncates the transition between Hedwig's theme and the unreleased bit (source). It's also a little different stylistically from the rest of the cue. Amazing music, nonetheless.

[Red 75]

Oh man, that clock drives me nuts. It works fine at the start of the cue, but once the music kicks in I want it to go away.

It's things like that that remind me no score is perfect, even if it is a masterpiece (and I think POA is).

[Bowie 45]

I like it. Nifty use of percussion, if you can call it that. Really more of a sound effect.

Aren't some of the instruments reversed?

[alainmayrand 22]

One of my fave JW and also one of the best sounding scores of all time. By that, I mean the actual sound quality of the recording by Shawn Murphy. It is just transparent, clear and glowing.

The Snowball Fight has some really great harmonies in it, which remind my of Mussorgsky a little. And Aunt Marges' Waltz has some crazy polychords and JW just makes it all sound so perfectly pompous. Not to mention the medieval feel of Double Trouble which is also filled with some wild and crazy chords and counterpoint. And Window to the Past is such a great, deceptively simple, perfect tune as only JW can write, it seems.

Musically superior, for sure. A magnum opus without a doubt. Much better than anything written after he was done with that film franchise.

Yeah, I like that one...

Alain

[Josh500 1,615]

Eh... Prisoner of Azkaban complete score...

I just don't know about this one. I'd like to hear it all, but unfortunately it's not all available due to the film's editing, unused cues and whatnot. I tried to edit and sequence my album to reflect film order and incorporate unreleased music, but now I realize this was a bad idea (the same goes for such albums as The Terminal and Munich). You either have to have the album experience or the complete score experience; they're different. And since the complete score isn't available... Even editing the full version of "Mischief Managed!" has a drawback because the film truncates the transition between Hedwig's theme and the unreleased bit (source). It's also a little different stylistically from the rest of the cue. Amazing music, nonetheless.

PoA offers a VERY good listening experience on the album, I thought...

Sure, there's music missing, but that stands to reason and that's a different problem.

In fact, PoA is one of the few albums I can readily listen straight through. One reason may be that it has so many short tracks, who knows?

Musically superior, for sure. A magnum opus without a doubt. Much better than anything written after he was done with that film franchise.

Memoirs of a Geisha is just as good as PoA, although of course in a different way.

That is, if you like that kind of music.

[Henry B 50]

PoA offers a VERY good listening experience on the album, I thought...

Sure, there's music missing, but that stands to reason and that's a different problem.

In fact, PoA is one of the few albums I can readily listen straight through. One reason may be that it has so many short tracks, who knows?

That's pretty much what I said, Josh.

[Deinonychus 0]

I think is one of the best soundtracks of Williams, even the bus ride theme is a bit noisy...