The Fellowship of the Ring CR Edits...

[John Takis 206]

Hey, folks.

It's true that there are more "film edits" on the FOTR CR than the other two. And while I suppose it's *possible* that a few of the instances were cases where a missing measure or two simply escaped attention, Howard Shore was -- for the most part -- pleased with how the score played in the final film, and therefore decided to retain most of the edits, mixes and occasional instances of tracking. As for TTT and ROTK, it's worth remembering that both of these scores were tinkered with in terms of chronology as the films were edited and re-edited -- sometimes severely. That meant that, unlike FOTR, truly definitive "composer's cuts" of these scores didn't really exist until they were reconstructed for the CR sets.

It's also worth remembering that while Shore never signed off on anything he didn't approve -- and EVERYTHING went to him for direct approval -- there were other creative voices involved along the way, offering ideas and opinions. Additionally, decisions were made at different times, with different people involved, and in different contexts. That helps account for some of the different choices that were made between the CRs and the concerts (e.g. the fall of Barad-dur).

Fortunately for those of us who obsess over such things, all of the significant alternate or original versions are either already available on the OST CD, or will appear on the forthcoming Rarities disc. I suppose there might be a few bars that miss the boat, but I can't think of anything worth lamenting with any seriousness. Remember that the DVD "mp3 dump" idea that was tossed around at one point comes from a time when Doug was indeed sifting through "hours of material," but hadn't fully digested it. Weed out the mistakes, the cut-off takes, the alternates that are only "alternates" in the sense that no two bowls of Lucky Charms have exactly the same marshmallow content, the stuff that can already be heard on the OSTs, the six-minute pieces that would only yield six (unspectacular) seconds of unique material, etc., etc. ... cull all of that, and what's left fits comfortably on a single CD. What's more, as "curated" by Doug, it flows together rather beautifully as a coherent musical experience in its own right. This will be an album you can actually LISTEN to!

Regarding the new design of the book (which also includes new content from Doug, BTW -- yes, even since the nearly-finished previous draft) ... I've glimpsed some of what Gary Day-Ellison has been up to, and it's breathtakingly gorgeous! It's my firm belief that even people who have no interest in music will feel compelled to sit up and take notice. In both content and presentation, it goes WAY beyond the CR liners and Annotated Score PDFs. Those are fine for what they are ... but held up against the book, they're merely thumbnail sketches.

In short, we all have a LOT to look forward to!

-- John

[Jay 37,374]

Sounds great, John

[crumbs 14,319]

I'm still shitty we didn't get the cue from the theatrical version of ROTK, when Aragorn and co. ride off from Minas Tirith to Mordor for the final battle at the Black Gate. The less impressive rescored cue in the Extended Cuts replaced it on the CR's.

[Incanus 5,716]

I'm still shitty we didn't get the cue from the theatrical version of ROTK, when Aragorn and co. ride off from Minas Tirith to Mordor for the final battle at the Black Gate. The less impressive rescored cue in the Extended Cuts replaced it on the CR's.

Sometimes it is really good that I have not seen the Theatrical version since 2003. I worry less when I don't remember such small details.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Indeed!

[Richard Penna 3,695]

I'm still shitty we didn't get the cue from the theatrical version of ROTK, when Aragorn and co. ride off from Minas Tirith to Mordor for the final battle at the Black Gate. The less impressive rescored cue in the Extended Cuts replaced it on the CR's.

If you're talking about the Gondor theme rendition, it's in the BFME video game files, albeit sounding fairly compressed.

The one alternate that I think the EE made worse was Sam's triumphant run up Cirith Ungol. That marvellous fanfare gets cut off with a dissonant few seconds, and then a not exactly seamless insert takes us back to the original recording. Unfortunately that's probably one of those '6 seconds in a 6 minute cue' examples

What it comes down to is: I want to hear what I heard in each version of the film. Isolated scores on the blu-rays would also do

[Luke Skywalker 1,796]

Indeed!

You are missing an 11 oscar winning great film, which the EE is not

Can anyone PM about extracting the music from the BFME games? Having bought all the games i want to give it a try...

Did anybody played 'COnquest'? it's a Battlefront game, maybe the extracting is the same...

[Faleel 5,360]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but:

what cues have edits again?