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Howard Shore's The Battle of the Five Armies (Hobbit Part 3)


Jay

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It's odd that if it was indeed a last minute situation, that Shore would consider it OST worthy in favor of so many of the other unreleased moments....

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also makes me wonder if the end credits were changed to be nice to all the unreleased moments

it's always funny to me when fans think that way. Whether or not a bit of music is on the soundtrack album or not simply does not factor in whatsoever to what music they put into the end credits.

or if it was always meant to just have the last part of Ironfoot

I am sure Howard meant for all of Ironfoot to be the end credits, but of course PJ had other plans.

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It's odd that if it was indeed a last minute situation, that Shore would consider it OST worthy in favor of so many of the other unreleased moments....

Same reason Shore kept plenty of film edits for the LotR live performances?

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Boy, you guys are right, the Tauriel/Kili material in Ravenhill is basically the same as it is in Shores of the Long Lake. Weird.

Right from my first listen, it felt off to me. There's no real transition. It feels like it was put there at the last minute..

Except for strings instead of Oboe/English Horn

Also, it seems that the the Runestone has a bit of music associated with at, as well as Ravenhill.

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Was anyone else disappointed that Balin made no reference to returning to Moria once the battle for Erebor finished? I expected a little bit more closure to the dwarves in the film, but they get very little. Especially when it's such a head-scratching moment when they find Balin's tomb in FOTR, without the context of the larger Tolkien universe. It would have made that scene infinitely more powerful if they connected the dots a little more.

Hopefully EE...

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Was anyone else disappointed that Balin made no reference to returning to Moria once the battle for Erebor finished?

Yes.

So, howabout Thorin's theme in counterpoint with Samug's theme in Mithril?

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Was anyone else disappointed that Balin made no reference to returning to Moria once the battle for Erebor finished? I expected a little bit more closure to the dwarves in the film, but they get very little. Especially when it's such a head-scratching moment when they find Balin's tomb in FOTR, without the context of the larger Tolkien universe. It would have made that scene infinitely more powerful if they connected the dots a little more.

Hopefully EE...

I'd be stunned if it wasn't included in the EE. I would also hope Howard would score it with a subtle hint of Dwarrowdelf (which would probably be dialled out anyway)

And as I speculated before, they could have a scene of old Bilbo reading the letter from Gloin - which we know was made as a prop for the films - which would enable a brief epilogue, adding to it mention of Balin and co arriving at Moria, which we'd actually see. Although such an event is not mentioned in the letter they could easily expand the voiceover to include it.

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Looked on ASCAP. There were two lists for Desolation of Smaug, curiously, and it doesn't seem to correlate to "Theatrical" and "Extended". AUJ has three listings, while at this moment in time, TBOTFA does not have any, though give it time and we should get entires up there for it.

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Well I am glad to see I was on the right track with Dragon-sickness bonus track. It just sounded too filmic to be purely a thematic suite. I just confirmed that myself when I went to see the film the second time. As it has been said it underscores Bilbo's moment outside Erebor with Arkenstone (the opening flute rendition of the Arkenstone theme is unused) and remembering Smaug's taunt about being tempted to give Arkenstone to Thorin to drive him mad and transitions to the shores of the Long Lake where Bard organizes the refugees, Legolas talks to Tauriel about Gundabad (hence the theme) and we see the Lake-town people starting their trek to the Lonely Mountain. Naturally there are some tweaks and additions to the cue (PJ can't not tamper with the music as it is).

Its placement at the end of the second disc is a bit baffling though as folks here have already mentioned.

Oh and the showing I went had significantly worse sound mix than the previous one and the music was really mixed low and in general treated quite atrociously.

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Oh and the showing I went had significantly worse sound mix than the previous one and the music was really mixed low and in general treated quite atrociously.

That was an artistic decision by PJ. The film feels more real that way. With the music mixed low, you can hear the characters' emotions better.

And that is the magic of Peter Jackson.

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I was surprised that the female chorus part of the piece underscored Elrond and Saruman fighting the ringwraiths instead of Galadriel going nuclear as I first imagined. I wonder was this Shore's original intention or was that part of the piece moved.

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actually as I stated before. I am quite sure they use the start of that music AGAIN at the start of the Galadriel scene, but halfway that shifts into Saurons theme from DOS/SpellofConcealment

and Faleels sequence reflects that

though to be completely accurate to the movie version the female chorus should also be placed right after the Rivendel statement/before the 2nd Galadriel piece

other than that and whatever music was not released/tracked into it, and the bit that was moved to way earlier in the film, that video seems correct

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buried under soundeffects after all

twice

also I am still not sure if the loud goldstatue reprise from MyArmorIsIron is in the movie or not

I heard something as Smaug got hit with the black arrow, under all that SFX, but the scene seems to short

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I was trying to listen to that part as well but alas there were typical PJ shenanigans going on with dialing out music, huge sound effects and all doing their best to thwart me.

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PJ as the director has every right to amend the music in his film. This bitching and whining is just sheer fanboy nonsense!

The score is subservient to the film, not vice versa.

That doesn't mean he is very good at it in BotFA's case.

But I blame PJ for all disasters these days, floods, earthquakes and hurricanes.

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I was surprised that the female chorus part of the piece underscored Elrond and Saruman fighting the ringwraiths instead of Galadriel going nuclear as I first imagined. I wonder was this Shore's original intention or was that part of the piece moved.

The female chorus is actually used in the film?

It scores the fight with the wraiths, and a short bit is used for nuclear Galadriel. But I think it should have scored Galadriel, even though I'm thinking maybe it is a precursor to the wraith choir in Fellowship, layered over Mirror of Galadriel music.

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So has anyone else just been enjoying the soundtrack album as it is and not been just meticulously comparing it to the score as heard in the film? ;)

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I took quite a few listens to the score during the Christmas holiday and I have to say it is a great album although I moved the bonus track Dragon-sickness to its correct chronological place after Beyond Grief and Sorrow in my playlist, which kind of bolsters the thematic progression and Arkenstone theme gets a few more statements. The only downside for me is the mixing which we discussed earlier but other than that I am very happy with the music that ended up on the album.

One thing I noticed during these listens is that the build-up to the actual battle music is quite a long one but I really like the different preparation for war spins Shore gives to the various themes before the actual action music breaks out. Musically the big fracas is also somewhat short, surprisingly so, as the last few big action pieces focus entirely on these personal mano-a-mano combats between Leggy and Bolg and Azog and Thorin although it has to be said neither is very small in scope sound-wise but it is much more brutal and percussive than being more of large choruses and sweeping thematic statements.

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Did people have an issue with the mixing? It's hard for me to really pinpoint it, but certain tracks sound like compressed MP3 files to me sometimes, like the second half of Fire and Water. Over all I'm not very happy with the sound on the album, though I've been loving the music.

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Yes the separation of elements is quite poor in many places and you really can't hear all the layers with as much clarity as you would like and as Stefan says it produces a denser feel which really relies on overwhelming with sound.

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