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


Jay

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They probably recorded with closer mics this time so PJ could ask for separate orchestra sections only when working on the final mix of the film's audio. Which means we album listeners have to suffer.

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I'm not asking for an overblown emotional finale! I love The Return Journey, which is quite understated. The reason I don't like There And Back Again is not because it's not overly emotional or whatever: it's just that it's basically comprised of music we've heard a thousand times before. It's basically a copy-paste job of the History Of The Ring theme statement from the FOTR prologue and some Shire theme statement similar to the ones we've heard before. Nothing to get excited about, really.

Yes, that is exactly what I meant as well.

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It does seem like there's a lot of very familiar music in this score but at the same time more listenable to me

I think he assembled a pretty listenable OST here, despite the fact it's far from complete.

The score overall is good, though I wish the ending was stronger.

I think the EE cues will feature some of the best material the score has to offer. It's annoying to think we might never get to hear them in full if they are hacked up and dialed in and out in the final EE, and there is no CR release.

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Most of Shore's Middle Earth music sounds like it's meant to be edited and cut and moved around

There's no inherent structure to a cue like Williams where every little bit has a purpose

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Most of Shore's Middle Earth music sounds like it's meant to be edited and cut and moved around

There's no inherent structure to a cue like Williams where every little bit has a purpose

You really think that way? Wow.

I think The Fellowship Of The Ring's score has a super strong inherent structure, throughline, and purpose.

I do agree that from ROTK on, he tended to write shorter cues, as PJ began sending him edited footage in smaller chunks...

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ROTK, shorter cues? It has some of the longest musical sequences of the entire trilogy!

And some of the shortest!

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I think it would have been nice if Shore had used music accompanying the final image of Bilbo's map to connect the Thorin / House of Dúrin themes with those similar Shire phrases heard when Gandalf picks up the map in The Fellowship of the Ring.

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I have only just bought this so I'm still ripping my copy at the moment. Having said that, I enjoyed the music when I heard it in the film (I went to see it today) so here's hoping they do CR releases for all three films (not likely until all three EEs are out). While they're at it, they could poke Amazon up the backside and get them to make it so that they stock the LOTR CEs properly as well.

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I think it would have been nice if Shore had used music accompanying the final image of Bilbo's map to connect the Thorin / House of Dúrin themes with those similar Shire phrases heard when Gandalf picks up the map in The Fellowship of the Ring.

YES! Something like that would have been SO COOL!

Anything than the nondescript cue we got....

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Wait, you thought it sounded a little familiar? You didn't immediately recognize the specific reference?

Have you not listened to the FOTR OST or CR that many times or something?

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All The Hobbit scores have references to bits from LOTR that you weren't expecting Shore to turn into a theme (at least, I wasn't).

And then the one bit I *was* expecting him to turn into a theme (the music that plays when Gandalf looks at Bilbo's map), he didn't!

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The "Gandalf looking at the map" music? Yea, it's in "Old Friends" three times, but doesn't really represent anything specific.

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And then the one bit I *was* expecting him to turn into a theme (the music that plays when Gandalf looks at Bilbo's map), he didn't!

Although arguably he did, of course! In my judgement, the fact that not just one but both of the melodic patterns used in the map scene are used for Thorin and The House of Dúrin (which are really just two incarnations of the same underlying theme) suggests a very high probability that the similarity was a conscious decision on Shore's part. I mean, that he deliberately grew the dwarf themes out of those seeds.

It's just not absolutely clear-cut, so it remains something for the likes of us to quibble over!

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You know that's the thing - when I first heard Thorin's Theme - to ME, it was clearly inspired by the "Gandalf looking at the map" music. But then I talked to John Takis about it and he convinced me I was wrong!!! Was I right the whole time?


A more specific reference to the map music does turn up in Old Friends 3 times though, most notably when Gandalf carves the mark on Bilbo's door.

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I guess only Howard Shore can tell us whether the correspondence is deliberate or accidental, but in either case the musical relationship is very real and, since it makes perfect narrative sense, I can't help but connect the two in my mind.

The fact that the map music is used directly for the scene with Gandalf vandalising the door means that that particular motif has an identity of its own, but there's no reason why that should rule out a fundamental connection with Thorin.

Can you remember what John Takis had against the idea?

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He just thought it wasn't related directly to Thorin's theme.

It's obviously the same theme used for the door scratch.

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I feel like Doug's book being released before The Hobbit made some themes seem odd and out of place. If it were released after all six films, he could make the scores seem more coherent.

What?

It's not Doug who should make the themes coherent. Thats' the responsibility of Howard Shore!

Shore didnt compose anything for LOTR with the idea that it would be clear after he finished The Hobbit a decade later.

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I just nicked this page from Howard Shore's house, in a notebook entitled "How I came up with all of the themes for The Hobbit". The first line is a sketch of the map theme as heard in The Fellowship of the Ring.

post-21857-0-44076000-1418850398.jpg

Incontrovertible proof!

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Well gentlemen, there is this thing called temp-tracking which might have also played a role in this production. At least the "Elven healing theme" (AKA Arwen's theme as it really is a connecting passage in her theme) and the appearance of Sauron's theme at his reveal in DoS sound both like cases of film makers putting in a certain piece or version of a theme they liked and stuck to it.

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