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Restored Isolated Scores: Home Alone Anniversary Advent Aextravaganza


Holko

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There's something timelessly warm and meaningful about the Somewhere In My Memory melody that simultaneously tugs on my heartstrings and makes me smile. 

 

Having it play as the main title words appear 'Home Alone 2' works so perfectly. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for making these, Holko, great work as always!

 

I just watched the HA1 ones, haven't seen the HA2 ones yet.

 

I think a lot of your comments to do with having the "split" tracks is just a case of long pauses being written into the music, and then Mike shortening those pauses for album listening.

 

I always forget how fun Rock and Roll Riff is, so glad we finally got that eventually

 

I always loved how the music is timed to the lights turning on in Lights On

 

I never picked up before that Follow That Kid opens with a stinger for Harry's gold tooth, which parallels the unreleased stinger JW recorded for the gold tooth in the opening scene (click here to hear that)

 

It's interesting to track the scenes the "Star of Bethlehem" melody is used for through these videos - it effectively functions as Marley's theme in Introducing Marley and The Man Of The House, but then when Kevin hides from the Wet Bandits in Follow That Kid, you realize it's really more of a "fear" theme.  Then when Marley sits down next to Kevin and begins talking to him, the melody is turned into the full song (Star of Bethlehem), transforming Kevin's fear into a new understanding.  Then right after during Setting The Trap, it highlights his new determination to protect his house from the Wet Bandits, despite his fears.  Brilliant!


Also interesting to note Jingle Bells is in the film twice (once within "Miracle on 34th St" on the TV, and once a JW recorded arrangement in an airport) and so is Deck The Hall (once the JW arrangement in an airport, once what John Candy's polka band is playing in the van)

 

Nice job with the alternates too.  I dunno what they were thinking with that original O Holy NIght ending, the revised cue is way better!

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27 minutes ago, Jay said:

I think a lot of your comments to do with having the "split" tracks is just a case of long pauses being written into the music, and then Mike shortening those pauses for album listening.

Yes, that's definitely what I was thinking and meaning.

 

27 minutes ago, Jay said:

I dunno what they were thinking with that original O Holy NIght ending, the revised cue is way better!

I love love love it! But of course the revised one works way better.

 

27 minutes ago, Jay said:

I never picked up before that Follow That Kid opens with a stinger for Harry's gold tooth, which parallels the unreleased stinger JW recorded for the gold tooth in the opening scene

Also in Paint Cans when Marv realises it's missing and Harry looks for it!

 

27 minutes ago, Jay said:

It's interesting to track the scenes the "Star of Bethlehem" melody is used for through these videos - it effectively functions as Marley's theme in Introducing Marley and The Man Of The House, but then when Kevin hides from the Wet Bandits in Follow That Kid, you realize it's really more of a "fear" theme.  Then when Marley sits down next to Kevin and begins talking to him, the melody is turned into the full song (Star of Bethlehem), transforming Kevin's fear into a new understanding.  Then right after during Setting The Trap, it highlights his new determination to protect his house from the Wet Bandits, despite his fears.  Brilliant!

The other day I was thinking that many Home Alone motifs are the usual external, descriptive ones - Holiday Flight, Kevin's theme (gaining confidence with every new rendition), the burglars, the House - but Somewhere in my Memory and Star of Betlehem are more like Kevin's introspective themes, the first representing at first the jolly holiday feeling, then the melancholy, then the joy of everyone reunited at home, the second as you said Kevin's fears and later, after it's reevaluated, his determination. SimM standing for "Home", SoB for "Alone", if you will! From the home being a normal home, to it not really being a home without everyone in it, back to being home again; and from Kevin being alone and afraid, to making peace with being alone and having to defend his house himself.

 

I also really like how by the end SimM fuses with Kevin's theme, foreshadowed in the main title too: first phrase (out of 4) of SimM + second (of 2) of Kevin! This is also present in the end credits and therefore the concert piece, making it extra nice that JW asked Mike to move the concert piece away from the overture position for the newer LLL.

 

Mike mentions in the booklet how Old Man Marley's Dies Irae (Introducing Marley, Man of the House, Drug Store) gets "revealed" to be Carol of the Bells - I think I'm hearing more similar shapes elsewhere too, a rythmically jumbled one recurring for the scary basement furnace (4th note quickly overtaken by the first one again), and the twisted stabs after the tooth stinger in Follow that Kid, first 3 brass notes loud, the 4th coming later quietly on strings.

 

Too bad 2 barely makes any use of its new themes and uses the old ones messily. Kevin's theme gets the most consistent continuation, still being confident but getting multiple fun variations.

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23 minutes ago, Jay said:

Nice job with the alternates too.  I dunno what they were thinking with that original O Holy NIght ending, the revised cue is way better!

Its tying the scene of Marley seeing his granddaughter (?) at a distance in the church with the him hugging her.

25 minutes ago, Jay said:

It's interesting to track the scenes the "Star of Bethlehem" melody is used for through these videos - it effectively functions as Marley's theme in Introducing Marley and The Man Of The House, but then when Kevin hides from the Wet Bandits in Follow That Kid, you realize it's really more of a "fear" theme.  Then when Marley sits down next to Kevin and begins talking to him, the melody is turned into the full song (Star of Bethlehem), transforming Kevin's fear into a new understanding.  Then right after during Setting The Trap, it highlights his new determination to protect his house from the Wet Bandits, despite his fears.  Brilliant!

Dies Irae pretty much does the same thing as well, with Setting the Trap and Carol of the Bells.

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34 minutes ago, Holko said:

Also in Paint Cans when Marv realises it's missing and Harry looks for it!

 

Oh snap I must have looked away at that point!

 

Quote

SimM standing for "Home", SoB for "Alone", if you will!

 

Woah

 

Quote

This is also present in the end credits and therefore the concert piece, making it extra nice that JW asked Mike to move the concert piece away from the overture position for the newer LLL.

 

Has it been mentioned on JWFan that "Somewhere In My Memory" is just the same exact End Credits section recording, with a newly recorded intro added to the front?  Kind of like Theme for Jurassic Park

 

22 minutes ago, Spider-Fal said:

Its tying the scene of Marley seeing his granddaughter (?) at a distance in the church with the him hugging her.

 

Well yea obviously (and yea, it's his granddaughter), but I should have been more clear to mean that I meant the particular arrangement of Silent Night JW crafted for the original finale cue, it just sounds weird to me.  Maybe it's because he runs it for the whole almost 2 minute cue instead of just a smaller reprise for the shots of the all the hugging.

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Oh and Holko, I'm surprised your alternates video doesn't continue on from the alternate finale into the alternate end credits opening with "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" choir

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Well, there's nothing to see under it and I think it ends just fine this way.

 

Also about 2 months ago I tried phasing them out to get the choir cleanly but they're a different take with different speeds. Then I decided it was probably just an intro pickup for the album.

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I don't know if the choir was recorded only with album use in mind or intended for the film but Columbus rejected it, but the choir in both Walking Home and We Wish You A Merry Christmas was recorded separately from the orchestra

 

Funny how the film used the Walking Home choir but not the We Wish You A Merry Christmas choir, then the OST didn't use the Walking Home choir but did use the We Wish You A Merry Christmas choir

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48 minutes ago, Holko said:

Well, there's nothing to see under it and I think it ends just fine this way.

 

Also about 2 months ago I tried phasing them out to get the choir cleanly but they're a different take with different speeds. Then I decided it was probably just an intro pickup for the album.

They are not, I was able to phase it out with one of the other tracks (Holiday Flight?)

 

Edit: actually maybe I just phased out the segue into Holiday flight theme....

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If Holiday Flight is mastered identically to the end credits you should be able to phase them out to get a clean ending of We Wish You A Merry Christmas. 

 

Incidentally, the ending of that OST track is taken from Making The Plane

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6 hours ago, Jay said:

I never picked up before that Follow That Kid opens with a stinger for Harry's gold tooth, which parallels the unreleased stinger JW recorded for the gold tooth in the opening scene (click here to hear that)


Wow! I never knew that the sound of Harry’s gold tooth gleaming a few moments prior to “In Good Hands” was by John Williams. All these years I thought it was just a sound effect made by the sound department. Next I suppose that the sound of the doorbell a few moments before “We Slept In” was recorded by the Maestro too, LOL.

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  • 10 months later...
On 29/11/2020 at 3:27 AM, Holko said:

 

5M5 Ice Skating - Restored how it's in the movie, even if the long camera move being unscored until we see Harry is a bit strange.

 

Unless I'm wrong and hearing things, the opening is in the film. It covered up by the fading out 'It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas'. I have the films 5.1 audio tracks open at the moment. Listen for the horn i think it is? I'm not familiar with instruments, however there is what sounds like a horn that is in that section that is not in the song but you can hear it as its fading out. So it looks like they overlaid the ending of the song over the opening of the cue. It blends in very well, and i couldn't quite make out a difference until I noticed the horn.

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  • 2 years later...

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