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WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005) 2CD edition from Intrada Records 2020


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8 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

The only thing from the presentation which I do not understand is: Why did MM join Bodies in the Water with Ray and Rachel - these are two pieces which simply do not belong together, no matter how short the first one is.

 

I think Mike (or JW) just has a preference to avoid short cues as standalone tracks (in this case, 41 seconds), especially if it can be combined with the following or preceding cue with sufficient silence in between.

 

He did that very effectively on POA to avoid the film score having 60+ tracks.

 

The implication in the recent WOTW interview was that JW reviews the tracklist for these expansions and certain things trigger "red flags." Mike said too many alternates in a row would be flagged (so those were mixed all around the album). I'm guessing lots of short tracks (or an excessive number of tracks for the film score) would be another.

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13 hours ago, Jay said:

"The Entrance To Boston (Alternate)" = the original 6M2 Entrance to Boston {this is how Williams first wrote and recorded this cue}

I also believe this track contains an alternate performance of the ending (starting at 3:15).

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7 hours ago, crumbs said:

I think Mike (or JW) just has a preference to avoid short cues as standalone tracks (in this case, 41 seconds), especially if it can be combined with the following or preceding cue with sufficient silence in between.

I understand that, but sometimes it seems like, when there are four short cues one after another, MM just makes two pairs even if there's a better, more musical solution - Surveying Wreckage / Watch the Lighting / Bodies in the Water would have been a coherent track of almost three minutes that would end on a shockingly high note. It just seems like these would have had a more natural flow, given that you find the right spot for a transition. At the same time, Ray and Rachel could have been a standalone track which it is definitely designed to.

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I was never really aware of how great The Ferry Scene was, and when I saw the film it really didn't leave much of an impression on me. Back when the film came out I really wasn't in the mood for the oppressive, percussion and brass but nowadays (whether the world has shaped me in this way?) I find it's such a great track that has more going on than I previously thought. It's not mindless chaotic noise, it's layered and has a great structure to it with sync points and some really score-defining moments. The choir crescendo and then that dark fanfare that follows are amazing.

 

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4 hours ago, Chewy said:

I also believe this track contains an alternate performance of the ending (starting at 3:15).

That's right, I forgot! I believe Mike heard a different enough performance when listening to every take and thought it made sense to include it in the alt for us to hear too. 

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3 minutes ago, Jay said:

That's right, I forgot! I believe Mike heard a different enough performance when listening to every take and thought it made sense to include it in the alt for us to hear too. 

Great decision in my opinion! I love this alternate take.

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So my CD still hasn't arrived after 3 weeks. No tracking updates at all in that time on either side of the Atlantic. I e-mailed Intrada and they'll send me a replacement along with my next order that I'll be placing tonight/tomorrow. Hope this works! I'm absolutely dying to hear this album. It is one of my grails.

 

Karol

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I am finally about to listen to this. Can't express how excited I am. I purposefully did not pull out the original album to let the expansion be what it is. Is it weird that the alternates are the biggest draw for me? The original album was great.

 

LATER: I forgot how adult this score made me feel for listening to it in 2005. Was not what I expected at all the same year as Sith and Memoirs, both of which I adored. I self-congratulated so much about it :blush2: It's really taking me back

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First round; listened to the OST since I really don't know this score well, only seen the movie 1.5 times (that first watch on HBO GO with my Internet is the half, it was so bad and low quality) and heard the OST a couple years ago on Spotify in one of those terrible regional warbly shit quality variants.

 

So, I didn't hate it! I actually even liked the big Escape from the Basket assembly. However I did think it was weird to include it after Return to Boston which already arrives on an almost triumphant tone. And I think the opening really stumbles too - Ferry Scene's fine as a bang action opener, but Reaching the Country so obviously feels like a second act escalation cue, why is that at track 3? It so obviously doesn't belong there and we haven't even had a proper tone establisher yet. It's like putting The Old Death Star at track 4 and Destiny of a Jedi at 6. They weren't written to fit for that early a stage, they're not establishers but push in new directions, why put them in the first third?

 

The booklet is printed nicely, the case is good, disc 1 is unscratched and seemed to rip just fine (even if EAC said it can't find it in the AccurateRip database but that was the case for httyd too), and the surface of the discs is very nicely printed too, shiny with the letters rising out of it, not just a matte coat over the whole thing like it often happens, the green tinted Minority Report discs being the worst example I can think of.

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4 hours ago, Holko said:

 

 

Ferry Scene's fine as a bang action opener, but Reaching the Country so obviously feels like a second act escalation cue, why is that at track 3? It so obviously doesn't belong there and we haven't even had a proper tone establisher yet. It's like putting The Old Death Star at track 4 and Destiny of a Jedi at 6. They weren't written to fit for that early a stage, they're not establishers but push in new directions, why put them in the first third?

 

 

Put your best material first.

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7 minutes ago, Smeltington said:

@Jay Do you plan on updating your spreadsheet soon? Just so I can decide whether or not to hold off on making my personal edit for now.

Request seconded! Not knowing this score well, it'd be a great help in wrapping my head around the alternates, comparing and picking, and doing my edit.

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25 minutes ago, Jay said:

That leaves "Before The Escape", which is something Williams wrote specifically for the album to lead into "Driving Away From Trouble", and does so in OST track "Escape From The City"

 

In "Escape from the City", I do hear the material from "Before the Escape", but it segues into a passage that's different from the material in the opening of "Driving Away from Trouble." Is that segment tracked in from somewhere else on the OST?

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15 minutes ago, Smeltington said:

 

In "Escape from the City", I do hear the material from "Before the Escape", but it segues into a passage that's different from the material in the opening of "Driving Away from Trouble." Is that segment tracked in from somewhere else on the OST?

Isn't that just the same segment as what we hear towards the end of that cue? In other words, 0:29-0:59 being exactly the same as 2:25-3:08?

 

Karol

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It is actually. I just checked. Ignoring the fact we hear it twice, it is actually a pretty neat edit.

 

My replacement copy has shipped, by the way (along with two new releases). Hope it gets here this time!

 

Karol

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I just realized it was an edit the other day, and was dumbfounded because it’s so clever. Normally I’d hate repeating music like that, but it works so damn well. Makes an otherwise schizophrenic cue into a functional concert piece.

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On 10/27/2020 at 10:01 PM, Jay said:

There's only 4 cues with alternates in the whole score.

The ending of Probing the Basement definitely has a different take on the OST, and I wonder if there are more similar minor differences between film version takes and the ones chosen for the OST.

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12 hours ago, Jay said:
  • "Defeat and Reunion" [0:00-0:39] main program {partial} / "The Separation of The Family" OST program {complete}
  • "Boston Street Finale (Alternate No. 1)"
  • "Boston Street Finale (Alternate No. 2)"
  • "Boston Street Finale"
  • "Defeat and Reunion" [0:39-end]

Lining them all up one after the other is quite interesting!

 

"This piano is too sad, try strings."

"Not emotional enough, go bigger."

"Actually this is too cheesy, let's add the piano back and tone it down a bit".

"You know what, just go back to the solo piano."

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On 10/28/2020 at 3:12 AM, Chewy said:

The ending of Probing the Basement 

definitely has a different take on the OST, and I wonder if there are more similar minor differences between film version takes and the ones chosen for the OST.

IIRC, the OST version is just edited down at the end.  I remember comparing both after I got the new edition and thinking the main program ending sounds sooo much better than the OST ending.

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5 hours ago, Holko said:

Lining them all up one after the other is quite interesting!

 

"This piano is too sad, try strings."

"Not emotional enough, go bigger."

"Actually this is too cheesy, let's add the piano back and tone it down a bit".

"You know what, just go back to the solo piano."

 

You can see why things apparently got a little tense and people cleared the room 😂

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15 hours ago, Taikomochi said:

I just realized it was an edit the other day, and was dumbfounded because it’s so clever. Normally I’d hate repeating music like that, but it works so damn well. Makes an otherwise schizophrenic cue into a functional concert piece.

 

Maybe it would make sense to use the OST track in the main program of my edit, then. I guess we have to assume that the album intro was written with the intention that it would be used the way it ended up on the OST, seguing into that edited material, instead of seguing into the opening of "Driving Away from Trouble"?

 

Anyone else figured out a good way to add "Before the Escape" back in?

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On 10/28/2020 at 11:15 AM, crumbs said:

Do we know what order the 5 versions were recorded in? 

 

I listed them in the recorded order.  There would have been no reason for me to list them in any other order

 

 

On 10/28/2020 at 11:22 AM, Smeltington said:

 

Maybe it would make sense to use the OST track in the main program of my edit, then. I guess we have to assume that the album intro was written with the intention that it would be used the way it ended up on the OST, seguing into that edited material, instead of seguing into the opening of "Driving Away from Trouble"?

 

Anyone else figured out a good way to add "Before the Escape" back in?

 

Nah, it sounds fine  edited into into beginning of Driving Away From Trouble and that was definitely the intention:

 

image.png

 

I dunno why he altered his intentions for the OST album and made that weird edited/tracked/looped suite instead.

 

Personally I think the intro (either alone, or edited into the cue) is prime bonus track material, not main program material. In the actual film, The Intersection Scene -> What Happened -> Driving Away From Trouble is one continuous 11 1/2 minutes of music (which is Williams intention too, as far as we know)

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On 10/25/2020 at 7:39 AM, Brundlefly said:

It's here - minor ripping issues. Does anyone else find the bass too beefed up and the recording very hissy?

 

Have just received this CD, and I must admit I'm finding some tracks are so hissy that it's incredibly distracting, and is making the whole experience a bit of a let-down. It seems to come and go, but notable examples come very early on, e.g. suddenly from 00:22 in CD1, Track 1 (Prologue), stopping around 00:41 but then coming back between 01:18-01:28.

 

Similarly, track 4 (What happened?) is almost unlistenable, with very loud hiss from 02:27, dropping off a bit around 02:33 but then coming back at 02:46. 

 

I haven't got much further than this as it's somewhat spoiling the experience. As nobody else seems to have commented on it, I wonder if it means I have one of the defective discs that some have mentioned, although I can't see any particularly obvious scratches. 

 

Anybody else hearing this hiss? No doubt I'm not allowed to post my ripped FLAC file here, but if there were some permitted way for someone to listen to my ripped file, that would be much appreciated...

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I just listened to the timestamps you pointed out with the volume cranked and do not hear "hissing" or anything else unusual.  There are some synth sounds in most of your timestamps, that are supposed to be there.

 

So either you're confusing synth music with "hiss", you received a defective disc, or your ripping software is screwed up

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5 minutes ago, UK_Tubist said:

I haven't got much further than this as it's somewhat spoiling the experience. As nobody else seems to have commented on it, I wonder if it means I have one of the defective discs that some have mentioned, although I can't see any particularly obvious scratches. 

It's maybe your headphones, mine are very precise in the higher frequencies, so the hiss is only noticable, when I use them instead of my stereo system.

 

The transition between Bodies in the Water and Ray and Rachel is particularly odd, because the hiss of the former cue suddenly stops, which is very jarring.

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12 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

It's maybe your headphones, mine are very precise in the higher frequencies, so the hiss is only noticable, when I use them instead of my stereo system.

 

The transition between Bodies in the Water and Ray and Rachel is particularly odd, because the hiss of the former cue suddenly stops, which is very jarring.

 

I wasn't listening through headphones, so I don't think it is that, although when I did switch to headphones it seemed worse! I have listened to the sound clip of track 1 on the Intrada website and notice the same kind of hiss, and so on reflection maybe it isn't a problem with either my ripped file or my copy; I guess it is just there in the source. 

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