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Harry Potter vs Prequels and Sequels


Tom

Harry Potter, Prequels, and Sequels  

48 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you prefer Harry Potter 1-3 or the Prequel Trilogy?

    • Harry Potter 1-3
    • Star Wars I-III
  2. 2. Do you prefer Harry Potter 1-3 or the Sequel Trilogy

    • Harry Potter 1-3
    • Star Wars VII-IX


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All three SW trilogies of scores, and the HP trilogy of scores by Williams, are all excellent.  I listen to all 12 of these scores regularly and enjoy them all.

 

So it's just picking between different groups of scores that are all great.

 

The only thing that could rival the OT SW trilogy for me is the IJ trilogy, that's a tough choice.  It's much easier to say I prefer it over the HP tril.

 

The prequel scores are full of so many great moments, but also have a lot of meandering underscore, and I just don't get what's so great about many parts of ROTS, so HP wins.

 

The sequel scores are harder to appreciate and understand, because we only have portions of the whole thing Williams conceived, cobbled together across multiple sources, etc.  But as great as those scores are, especially compared to any other scores that came out in the 2010s, I don't think they overall give the same feeling of greatness than his first two trilogies did.  But do I like them more than the Harry Potter trilogy?  That's the hardest to decide.

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STAR WARS wins over everything and anything that has to do with the HARRY POTTER films (I mean, I kinda enjoy a few of them, but they're not even in the same ballpark).

 

In terms of scores, however, I prefer the HARRY POTTERs over the STAR WARS sequel scores (but not the prequels).

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I've had a thought that had Williams scored all the Harry Potter films, he would have been close to twice as popular with the current generations as he is now.

 

In the same way The Lord of the Rings music benefits from the story & execution quality more than Star Wars does - through evoking all the deeper reactions people had with the films, in contrast to the reactions to the ever shallower and shallower Star Wars - a vast body of Harry Potter films scored by the same John Williams would have resulted in this sort of profundity that makes many perceive LOTR music as actually technically superior to Star Wars. 

 

Edit, while I still can: a notable factor with LOTR is also all the choral music [compare: Duel of the Fates], but I am sure so many Potters would have amassed a bit of that as well.

 

The biggest missed [through no fault of his own] opportunity of his career?

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17 hours ago, Fabulin said:

I've had a thought that had Williams scored all the Harry Potter films, he would have been close to twice as popular with the current generations as he is now.

 

In the same way The Lord of the Rings music benefits from the story & execution quality more than Star Wars does - through evoking all the deeper reactions people had with the films, in contrast to the reactions to the ever shallower and shallower Star Wars - a vast body of Harry Potter films scored by the same John Williams would have resulted in this sort of profundity that makes many perceive LOTR music as actually technically superior to Star Wars. 

 

Edit, while I still can: a notable factor with LOTR is also all the choral music [compare: Duel of the Fates], but I am sure so many Potters would have amassed a bit of that as well.

 

The biggest missed [through no fault of his own] opportunity of his career?

 

I simply don't think this workload was  possible in his semi  retired stage. And it my have meant skipping star wars  and  Spielberg projects.

 

Would have liked to have more  music from JW every year? You bet I would. But the  schedule would have been too hectic for an old man.

 

Sure if you have technology at your disposal and dozens of ghost writers you could do it. But  having  an old man write the  score with his pencil on the piano and  crank them out at furious speed etc  would have been difficult.

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1 hour ago, TheUlyssesian said:

I simply don't think this workload was  possible in his semi  retired stage. And it my have meant skipping star wars and Spielberg projects.

Williams does whopping 5 Potters instead of those Spielberg films, and the only price is that Lucas has to hire someone else for ROTS?

 

Deal.

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7 hours ago, TheUlyssesian said:

That's a bad deal. The 9 film saga stands as Williams primary achievement. He himself seems to think so. Why would you take that away from him.

 

It's unprecedented in the history of cinema as this scale.

 

There's no reasoning with these Potheads.

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Williams is aware of the extraordinary longevity of the SW franchise and the important role he (and it) played in helping to revive orchestral music. It's one of the landmark pop culture entities that is inseparable from the music he composed and the average Joe will recognize its iconic themes well into the future. 

 

Compared to HP, which came and went for mainly millennials and doesn't even have a creator.

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My election is unpopular: Sequels > Harry Potter > Prequels. Although I'll say that HP and the prequels come very, very close but Prisoner of Azkaban is one of the best Williams' score. The sequels, for me have something truly special, the 3 scores are very consistent, their themes are strong and the action material is excellent.

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This is a tough one. I'll say this... between the 3 trilogies... the most lasting and culturally significant music was debuted by the HP series. It is the most far reaching composition of the 3.

Hedwig's Theme has achieved more fame and ubiquity than anything in the prequel scores or the sequel scores. That's not a measure of merit but says something about accessibility.

 

In terms of complexity, I guess and technical virtuosity I guess you have to hand it to the prequels. 

 

But the musical storytelling suffers tremendously between in both the prequels and sequels due to non-stop chopping up of the music to pieces.

 

All in all, the 3 HP scores best demonstrate Williams' creativity within their respective films.

 

Side note: I was on a snorkeling trip with a fairly knowledgeable film fan friend of mine who also listens to film scores. I played Rey's theme for him in the car and he had no idea what it was - this was after the release of Ep 7 and 8 and he had seen both films in Imax. I felt so disappointed. I think on this forum and as Star Wars fans we might have internalized Rey's theme but even Rey's theme - the indubitable single breakout theme of the sequel trilogy - does not stand a chance of 100% recognition anywhere. It is something to do with either the mix or how films are structured or what not, but great themes simply do not seem to take root in the audience's mind these days.

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1 hour ago, Fabulin said:

Suddenly Azkaban is not the best thing since sliced bread?

 

It has its moments, but it doesn't come together for me. The expanded version was a slog to get through. 

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5 hours ago, Fabulin said:

Rey's theme is massively overrated on this forum.

 

And btw. I'm supposedly a Potterhead here, whereas in the other thread I am a Hook reactionary. One more layer and I swear I will get identity issues.

 

I don't know what sort of music would you expect from another 5 Potters. Suddenly Azkaban is not the best thing since sliced bread?


In my experience, Rey’s theme is a piece of music that is popular even for people who haven’t any seen any SW film.

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5 hours ago, Fabulin said:

Rey's theme is massively overrated on this forum.

 

And btw. I'm supposedly a Potterhead here, whereas in the other thread I am a Hook reactionary. One more layer and I swear I will get identity issues.

 

I don't know what sort of music would you expect from another 5 Potters. Suddenly Azkaban is not the best thing since sliced bread?

 

The Star Wars sequel scores sound like Williams is desperately searching for a musical hook and identity that he never really finds. Rey's theme sounds obligatory. 

 

He's throwing stuff at the wall and nothing ever really sticks. 

With "Rise of Skywalker", I feel he wrote a theme just to have a theme for people to listen to, because the film offers so little. 

 

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9 hours ago, gkgyver said:

With "Rise of Skywalker", I feel he wrote a theme just to have a theme for people to listen to, because the film offers so little. 

 

 

I agree, but that's a problem of the movie, not the score. Maybe I misunderstood the poll, I voted just according to Williams "intended" music. According to how the music is treated in the movie HP wins by a very big margin hahahaha

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Hope is kinda restored, but I think SW fanboyism is sort of unrealistically clashing when it comes to the Disney Scores v Harry Potter. They're similar enough, I guess. Stronger first act, slapped-together meandering middle one, third one slightly better, I guess, but not my bag.

 

HP is far more listenable. TLJ is a horrible OST and COS is perhaps the best of the HP OSTs. TFA is a good album, the only one that can compete, but still needs trimming. HP is a stronger complete score, even it it's still too much. ROS and POA are similarly uninteresting to me. In fact, I don't really care about either one and I think my opinion will just clash with too many people here.

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Score-wise, they're all preeeetty close for me.  They each have one all-timer (TPM, TFA, PoA) and two others that I have mixed feelings on.  I really like the AOTC and TLJ scores, like but don't love ROTS and TROS.  Below those, I'm pretty ambivalent about the first two HP scores.

 

Keeping in mind that any of the 9 scores individually would likely win head-to-head against any other randomized score in my collection.

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HP wins over the Disney Wars scores, but not the prequels. It could've won if Williams was more involved with Chamber of Secrets (instead of just writing 40 minutes of music and leaving the rest to Bill Ross). 

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