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What is your favorite James Newton Howard fantasy score for Disney?


Edmilson

JNH Disney scores  

43 members have voted

  1. 1. What is your favorite James Newton Howard score for Disney?

    • Dinosaur
    • Atlantis: The Lost Empire
    • Treasure Planet
    • Maleficent
    • The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
    • Raya and the Last Dragon
      0
    • Jungle Cruise


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Crap, it's an exact tie between Atlantis and Treasure Planet. Wtf am I supposed to vote for?!

 

I guess I'll have to go with Atlantis. A bit more "grand" and thematic I suppose. It's very, very, very close for me though.

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No it isn't Disney, although I believe they play his Flying music in the Peter Pan area. At least, the last time I was there they did. I was very surprised but it was one of my favorite cues so I just jammed and didn't worry about it too much.

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1 hour ago, blondheim said:

No it isn't Disney, although I believe they play his Flying music in the Peter Pan area. At least, the last time I was there they did. I was very surprised but it was one of my favorite cues so I just jammed and didn't worry about it too much.

 

It's been in official Disney commercials as well:

 

 

As for the poll itself, I really only have watching Raya to go off of in terms of his Disney entries, plus all the times I've tried clicking with Maleficent to no avail. Definitely would love to answer once I get more familiar.

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3 minutes ago, HunterTech said:

 

It's been in official Disney commercials as well:

 

 

As for the poll itself, I really only have watching Raya to go off of in terms of his Disney entries, plus all the times I've tried clicking with Maleficent to no avail. Definitely would love to answer once I get more familiar.

Very bizarre that Disney is using music from a Universal Studio's movie....I'm genuinely perplexed that this exists and that somehow someone got permission. You'd think Universal wouldn't let Disney use anything of theirs's. 

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Fun fact: JNH brings poor luck to Disney because, aside from Maleficent and maybe Dinosaur, all of the fantasy movies he scored for the Mouse were various degrees of box office bomb. 

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I'm not sure why, but I could never really get into Dinosaur that much. The music fits beautifully in the film (although I haven't seen it in some time), but on it's own I just can't connect with it enough to listen to it that often. Granted there are some incredible pieces and sections throughout. Just my personal opinion though, not that I'm arguing with anyone who thinks it should be first. :P

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All of the scores in the poll have some great highlights, including MALEFICENT, but for me, they don't come together as a whole and as a consistently good listening experience. The only ones that I consider super through and through are DINOSAUR and to a certain degree ATLANTIS.

 

In fact, I would rank them pretty much in the sequence you see them in the poll.

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Dinosaur is indeed a great score, but I always enjoyed Atlantis just a bit more. They are both excellent and I don't actually think there's all that much to pick between them quality wise, but I just connected with Atlantis better. I think the variations on the amazing swimming music from Waterworld seal it for me too. That stuff is just terrific. If all of Treasure Planet was as good as 12 years later (the main theme is one of his best) it would probably be up there but it never quite lives up to the early promise, good though it is.

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No love for Raya?

 

Not that I myself would vote for it, but... I really like the main theme. It's catchy, captivating and works really well with the movie. 

 

This performance on the beginning of the album is very touching:

 

 

Here it is in celebratory mode:

 

 

Also celebratory:

 

 

Sure, the electronic parts of the score are a little hard to get through, but I think this theme is one of JNH's best creations in a while.

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DINOSAUR will always be top for me as it was one of the first JNH scores I discovered. ATLANTIS and TREASURE PLANET come next; I think they are really great and return to them regularly.

 

As for the more recent entries, MALEFICENT probably tops the rest.

 

I'm still 'digesting' RAYA and JUNGLE CRUISE but have found lots to like.

 

NUTCRACKER is nice but I've only listened through once. I will need to give it another go soon. 

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Maleficent is easily my favorite, especially in complete form.

 

Dinosaur is second. It has several brilliant tracks, a couple of which I play more than anything else JNH has ever written.

 

After that my ranking goes like this:

 

Treasure Planet

Atlantis

Everything else

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Dinosaur is definitely my favorite, although Maleficent gets quite a few plays as well.  I haven't heard Raya, Jungle Cruise, or Nutcracker yet.  I know there is a lot of love for Atlantis, but I have never gotten into that one.  That said this is a good excuse to give it another spin.  I haven't listened to Treasure Planet in years, so I need to revisit that one as well.

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