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Hook - 30th Anniversary Double Vinyl from Mondo Records 2021


Jay

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58 minutes ago, crumbs said:

Bit of a red flag that Mike used transfers from 2011 to assemble this Mondo remaster. I would've thought, if any new expansion of Hook was in the works, that new high-resolution transfers would be commissioned (considering multiple reels were missing/lost in 2011, and it's unclear if the rest were even first-generation masters).

 

So... this news is pretty deflating to me.

 

The comment about Star Wars doesn't inspire confidence either. It feels like we've heard that sentiment ever since the license reverted to Disney, but it's been radio silence ever since. Every time I (naively) get my hopes up that an anniversary or a new film or the completion of a trilogy might trigger it... nothing happens.

 

We're stuck between rolling lockdowns in Australia and soundtrack expansions are one of the few things to look forward to. I'm eternally grateful to Mike and all the labels for their work behind the scenes, but it's so frustrating how these highly-coveted scores seem to be endlessly stuck in no-man's-land.

But you're assuming that the 2011 transfers were incomplete right? Do we have any proof of that, though? Who's to say that they didn't find everything in 2011 but that DD was simply too incompetent/couldn't be bothered to check everything properly?

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22 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

But you're assuming that the 2011 transfers were incomplete right? Do we have any proof of that, though? Who's to say that they didn't find everything in 2011 but that DD was simply too incompetent/couldn't be bothered to check everything properly?

 

You could well be right. Let's just say I'm giving DD the benefit of the doubt; surely he wouldn't be that incompetent and/or lazy when assembling the 2012 release.

 

Why would he lazily reuse the ancient album master for tracks ripped bleeding from the OST, if they had access to fresh new transfers of that same music?

 

I'm sure LLL themselves addressed the fact that film stems were required in places that scoring reels couldn't be located, but don't ask me to dredge up a quote! :lol:

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6 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

right, and I just remembered that the sessions leak apparently contained stuff in better quality than the LLL set: it was either missing or they used the film stems for it instead.

 

The urban legend goes that LLL were made aware of that leak before the set came out (when, apparently, the Ultimate War cue tapes couldn't be located).

 

But Sony had an internal policy of not using bootlegged material on official releases, which meant LLL couldn't use that leaked music on the set (forcing them to resort to film stems).

 

It's never been explained where those leaked tracks originated, but surely it's no coincidence that the so-called missing Ultimate War tapes (if that's even the case) showed up in pristine quality in those leaks.

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3 minutes ago, GlastoEls said:

Just for someone who missed out on the prior expanded Hook, what was the problems with it?

Compared to the standard MM set, it's a bad set. It reverts to isolated score material with film edits, is missing score material etc.

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7 minutes ago, GlastoEls said:

Just for someone who missed out on the prior expanded Hook, what was the problems with it?

 

It's incomplete (cues were removed because Williams found them repetitive), used poor quality sources for key cues (complete with volume dips and music dialed out), erroneous album tracks retained (Prologue running at the wrong speed like on the OST), lots of film inserts missing for no explicable reason.

 

I think they used a lot of incorrect takes as well (not the film versions).

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1 hour ago, Jay said:

I have a potentially really dumb question, but I've gotten in trouble lately for assuming I knew what someone meant, so now I'd rather look dumb for not understanding rather than looking dumb for having the wrong interpretation.

 

When Mike said this:

 

"Star Wars is not the reason, nor is there any news on that. But of course we all know it needs to happen. I'm busy with a release that I hope others will be as excited about as I am. Plus there's Star Trek TMP Director's Edition in the works."

 

Does "it" refer to a fixed Hook, or does "it" refer to Star Wars expansions?

 

I'm sure it's my own biases, but I read "it" as Star Wars.

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47 minutes ago, eitam said:

Or there are several expanded editions of Hook coming out on CD this year, not just one. 

One using the 2011 transfers which would actually be the same as the previous one (by Sony)

One using the 2021 transfers in a five 5CD by LLL

The Mondo vinyl

 

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21 hours ago, Jay said:

When Dan Wallin recorded The Last Crusade, he put walls up (acoustic separators) between instrument sections.  So even though the orchestra was the same size as Temple of Doom's (and many of the players were the same), the resulting recording sounds smaller because of this recording technique he chose to use.

 

On top of this recording technique, it seems that even if nice proper analog tape was running to capture every take of every cue (let's hope this is true!), he edited the score digitally, meaning 1989-era digital technology lost a lot of the clarity those theoretical analog tapes would have held.  Since the OST album and Concord expansion were both assembled from these 1989 digital mixes, we are hoping that analog tape will be uncovered and freshly transferred and a new Crusade album could be rebuilt from scratch from that.

 

But even if that happens, it's unclear just how much of an impact Wallin's recording technique would have no matter what original source material is used.

 

Thanks for this.  Very interesting.  It always had sort of a "Superman II" sound to me.  The snare percussion specifically sounds too pronounced and not at all like a Williams recording.

 

Dan was Wallin' it literally,

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Yep!

 

So that's a good example of perhaps being able to go back to the original multitrack could allow a new mix that makes the percussion now more audible when desired

 

Or maybe his acoustic walls deadened the sound of the percussion too much and the raw multitrack still sounds weird.

 

We'll hopefully find out some day!

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4 hours ago, Jay said:

 

- It isn't complete.  There is music you can hear in the film that isn't on it, as well as unused music that turned up in leaks that isn't on it...and even music on the original OST release that isn't on it!

- It isn't chronological.  This is subjective of course, and many may like the programming choices just fine, but many find it odd that some cues only appear as bonus tracks, or that album tracks that combined cues from two different parts of the movie were retained in the main program

- The sound quality isn't consistent.  The entire album fluctuates between 3 different sources: 2011 transfers of some sort of unearthed tapes, the album master, and the final film's music stem.  That source sounds noticeably worse than the other two, even to people who don't normally notice these types of things, and contains audio fluctuations and edited passages as needed for the film itself

- They didn't recreate the intended performance edits out of what they pulled from the 2011 transfers.  So if JW recorded a cue 5 times and his approved version used in the film used 40 seconds of take 5, 10 seconds from take 3, 20 seconds from take 2, and then the rest from take 5, the same cue on the LLL set might just be take 5 throughout.

 

That's a rough outline of it that hopefully gets the point across about why so many people desire a new edition done over from scratch by Mike.


You definitely hit the nail on the head with these facts, hence why I am so disappointed that a proper expanded release is not happening to commemorate the film’s 30th anniversary and why I am disappointed that Mike Matessino only remastered the OST exclusively for vinyl via Mondo Records.

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I think we're jumping to conclusions. Nobody has said MM hasn't assembled a set. The only thing he said is that he doesn't have any knowledge of a 2021 release. He might just be joking so we'll all be on top of the world on Black Friday.

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25 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

Nobody has said MM hasn't assembled a set. The only thing he said is that he doesn't have any knowledge of a 2021 release. He might just be joking so we'll all be on top of the world on Black Friday.


I’d like to believe that. I REALLY would, but… :crymore:

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Agreed, Mike isn't the type to play word games or make veiled hints. He's saying it as it is and it's pretty clear whatever Williams scores we might get later this year, Hook won't be among them.

 

Of course, we can speculate til the cows come home about the reasons why. 

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4 minutes ago, Goldfingers said:

Here some speculation for possible release date for new Hook expanded soundtrack.

 

Hook original soundtrack  > 26th November 1991
Hook USA Release  > 11th December 1991
Hook major European Releases > 26th March - 7th April 1992


Hook LLL expanded soundtrack > 28th March 2012 - 20th anniversary of the European releases

 

Hook Mondor 2LP Release > November 2021 - 30th anniversary of the original soundtrack release
Possible new Hook expanded soundtrack > March - April 2022 - 30th anniversary of the European release AND 10th anniversary of the LLL expanded soundtrack release.

 

A double occasion to see this coming around this date. Wait & See.

 

Michael Buble Flirting GIF by bubly

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Okay, fine, Hook isn't coming. That's pretty pathetic. Flawed expansion since 2012, fans asking for an MM set since 2012, 30th anniversary this year and no expansion but a vinyl release. If Harry Potter 4 is also not coming this year, I don't know what flood they were talking about.

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1 hour ago, Richard Penna said:

I'd rather know something wasn't coming, than get wrongly hyped up every time a flyer was coming.

 

This guy gets it. 

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4 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

Okay, fine, Hook isn't coming. That's pretty pathetic. Flawed expansion since 2012, fans asking for an MM set since 2012, 30th anniversary this year and no expansion but a vinyl release. If Harry Potter 4 is also not coming this year, I don't know what flood they were talking about.


 

I’m pretty sure that “flood” wasn’t only referring to John Williams. 
 

There’s been plenty of spectacular releases so far and we still have 4-1/2 months to go in 2021. 
 

If Hook could be released right now, it would. 

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Just now, Ollie said:


 

I’m pretty sure that “flood” wasn’t only referring to John Williams. 
 

There’s been plenty of spectacular releases so far and we still have 4-1/2 months to go in 2021. 
 

If Hook could be released right now, it would. 

I never said it was only referring to Williams. But for me, nothing that has come out this year could be defined as spectacular.

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Any true JWFan should have a good edit of Hook by this point using all the materials available. I mean, we have an expansion and several bootlegs to work with. Yes, the last expansion wasn't great, but you shouldn't be listening to that as-is anyway. Roll your own! Our biggest problem now is we're running out of important expansions to wish for!

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Well, I feel pretty good about my Star Wars OT edits, and at least the other 6 have had significant material released one way or another. But I do wait for the day when they #releasethestarwarsjohnwilliamscollection.

 

I can't complain about Indy 1 and 4, but certainly 2 and 3 do need help.

 

Post 2005, my personal favorites have leaks or FYC tracks. I still want all those complete as I love this era of Williams, but I enjoy the OSTs of Lincoln, Tintin, Book Thief, etc enough that I don't crave expansions as much as I used to for something like Harry Potter.

 

I have ennui about Oliver Stone and Sugarland. They should get a release as all JW should, but I won't listen to them often when they do come out. If these are top of our lists it's got to be because we've already got ET, Harry Potter, CE3K, AI, Jaws, and so many others. Hell, we even live in a world where we can listen to Botanicus anytime we want. I can hardly keep up!

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7 hours ago, Goldfingers said:

Here some speculation for possible release date for new Hook expanded soundtrack.

 

Hook original soundtrack  > 26th November 1991
Hook USA Release  > 11th December 1991
Hook major European Releases > 26th March - 7th April 1992


Hook LLL expanded soundtrack > 28th March 2012 - 20th anniversary of the European releases

 

Hook Mondor 2LP Release > November 2021 - 30th anniversary of the original soundtrack release
Possible new Hook expanded soundtrack > March - April 2022 - 30th anniversary of the European release AND 10th anniversary of the LLL expanded soundtrack release.

 

A double occasion to see this coming around this date. Wait & See.


I don’t think the labels care about most of the anniversaries you just listed, but we know for a fact that Mike does care about the anniversaries of a film’s original release. With that in mind, I’m sure Mike at the very least hoped he could do Hook for its 30th anniversary this year. Assuming he got the maestro’s approval, a new Hook has either been prevented or delayed by licensing or something along those lines. Let’s hope it’s just delayed.

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I can't wait to see what LLL has in store for September, October, November, and then Black Friday!

 

2 weeks from today we get the September flyer!

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The 'flood' phrase is indeed very subjective, and if you consider the spectrum across all labels (speciality and otherwise), I've had two grails in just the last few weeks (Sleepy Hollow and Ghostbusters 2), and several 'oh cool' releases (Hard Rain, HTTYD, Solo).

 

I personally have nothing left in the 'grail' category for JW (Potter and JP were my biggies), although I'd be delighted at a RotS expansion.

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