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Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022) by James Newton Howard


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Harris and Gambon were great, personally, I found they both portrayed different aspects of Dumbledore well - whether it was Harris' calm demeanor and ability to use his eyes to pierce through anyone's soul or Gambon's ability to give this strong presence to the character that commanded both authority and respect, and a small bit of eccentricity.

Harris' Dumbledore reminds me of John Williams, in a way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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13 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

The film's 2hr 23 mins, so that means it will contain most of the score, assuming that it will have some unscored bits.

 

On par with the first I suppose?

The first had 2 suites and e few cues that were only partially used in the film.

This is only the score and 1 song by Gregory Porter

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19 minutes ago, JNHFan2000 said:

The first had 2 suites and e few cues that were only partially used in the film.

This is only the score and 1 song by Gregory Porter

 

How do we know if the album does not have any suites?

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Has something been changed about those re-use fees recently? Studios - or at least WB - have been weirdly generous with their score album offerings lately.

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28 minutes ago, TheUlyssesian said:

 

How do we know if the album does not have any suites?

 

I suppose because the album is already out in any country where it's already Friday

 

https://music.apple.com/nz/album/fantastic-beasts-the-secrets-of-dumbledore/1614938046

 

 

26 minutes ago, Drawgoon said:

Has something been changed about those re-use fees recently? Studios - or at least WB - have been weirdly generous with their score album offerings lately.

 

An original soundtrack album is not a "re-use", it's considering part of the original intention of recording the music in the first place (along with going into the film)

 

The re-use fees come into play when music that wasn't on the OST album (so, only used in the film) wants to be re-used for a new album, like an expansion from a specialty label.

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1 hour ago, Jay said:

An original soundtrack album is not a "re-use", it's considering part of the original intention of recording the music in the first place (along with going into the film)

 

The re-use fees come into play when music that wasn't on the OST album (so, only used in the film) wants to be re-used for a new album, like an expansion from a specialty label.

 

So it would be better to release complete scores upfront...? :D

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It's available on YouTube here in AU. Use a VPN and you'll be able to listen.

 

Playlist starts here:

 

I've skimmed through the entire soundtrack. Unless they omitted any tracks featuring JW material, excluding The Room We Require there's no JW material on this soundtrack.

 

So... yeah.

 

And it's disappointingly dull/restrained, overall. Probably more an indication of the film JNH had to score, rather than any shortcomings in JNH's accomplishments. The vast majority of this soundtrack is quiet, atmospheric underscore (think Nicholas Hooper's Half Blood Price, or any of the quiet suspense cues Desplat wrote for Deathly Hallows).

 

 

 

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21 minutes ago, Will said:

Very excited to hear this (much less excited for the film, which I may not even watch at all).

Exactly my opinion. I look forward to the album, but I have no desire to watch the movie. CoG was so awful, It basically killed my interest in the franchise. 

 

Maybe one day, when it's on HBOMax.

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First score was excellent, a masterful five-star effort from JNH. Second score was quite good but didn't reach the same heights.

 

UPDATE: From the portion I've listened to so far, there is a lot of pleasant but uninteresting underscore. That said, there are still some grander highlights. This track, from timestamp to end, is an early highlight: 

 

 

The use of synths is a tad overbearing, but the woodwinds are beautiful and accentuate the sense of fantasy and excitement.

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I’m gonna wait for someone to make a playlist for this. Tried to listen to it and about 15 tracks I’m starting to lose interest. There’s a lot of quiet moments in there. 

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1 hour ago, crocodile said:

JWFan is underwhelmed...which means in a couple of weeks this will be lauded as the best score of 2022. 😆

 

Karol

 

It will be simultaneously called the best score ever and a coaster, until the expansion in 5 years' time when it will suddenly become flawless :P

 

I'm four tracks in, and it's surprisingly subdued (and barely any full thematic content) but I'm enjoying it so far.

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I'd totally forgotten that Howard wrote a character theme for Dumbledore for the second movie. It was nice to hear it briefly during the Ceremony cue towards the end of the album. Kind of surprising it wasn't (seemingly) used at anywhere else though - considering the man's role was deemed significant enough to have his name in the tagline.

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There seems to be a lot of music re-used from films 1 and 2 of the Fantastic Beasts franchise here - The cue "Assassin!" is mostly taken from "The Demiguise and The Occamy", and there are similar examples all over the score :(

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Like i wrote in that other thread, it's another one of these baffling 'more is less' releases. 110 minutes of material that needs editorializing like a plant needs light. It's not enough to just whittle out tracks, you would need to edit tracks themselves. This is a good 45-50 minutes score.

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If this release had been 50 mins and everyone loved it, there would be complaints about why they couldn't do a longer release. You can't expect album producers to predict which scores will be popular enough to demand more music.

 

The only way they can win these days is to put out two albums. Personally, I'm rather liking this so far (9 tracks in)

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19 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

If this release had been 50 mins and everyone loved it, there would be complaints about why they couldn't do a longer release.

 

You have to be a purist on some matters. Let them complain!

 

PS: compiled this playlist on the go. It runs a bit over 60 and tries to weed out the most insubstantial stuff. There's still more you'd need to do, but for the moment that will do for me.

 

 

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I'm surprised you left off Kama' s Memory. I especially like that.

 

The Escape is really good - a bit of a hark back to the action from the first score.

 

I'm a little over halfway through, and if it remains this consistent (occasional brief patches of less interesting comedy/drama) then I'll likely keep the entire thing. Doesn't seem to be on 7Digital/Qobuz yet though.

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9 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

I'm surprised you left off Kama' s Memory. I especially like that.

 

The Escape is really good - a bit of a hark back to the action from the first score.

 

 

Both inessential cues that meander too much before making a real musical point and are too short to afford so much meandering. I will also say, categorically, that there's a real arbitrariness to it (long sections of vaguely pleasant children's chorus, long stretches of uniform awe and/or menace stuff that could belong to any Marvel film) a diffuse non-commitment to clear narrative statements that is very typical of current blockbuster scoring. Howard is an old pro who knows his way around some restrictions, but there's very little to recommend it, really.

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Problem is, I just looked over your playlist and found a handful of cues I'd drop and replace with others.

 

Hence, by releasing this much music, we're able to pick cues and debate which are the most interesting. I fail to see what is accomplished by complaining that a release is too long.

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47 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

Problem is, I just looked over your playlist and found a handful of cues I'd drop and replace with others.

 

Hence, by releasing this much music, we're able to pick cues and debate which are the most interesting. I fail to see what is accomplished by complaining that a release is too long.

 

That i don't care much for Richard Penna's selection or musical acumen, so why should i care what *your* preference is? Also (in stark contrast to you) i hardly think that lack of downsizing is the only problem of this score.

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I only wish that we were able to sensibly discuss which parts of the score we individually enjoyed, and welcome the fact that the length of the release allows us to do that.

 

My comments on your playlist were merely to highlight that our individual 'highlights' albums are different, not to imply that you should care about my preferences.

 

I'm near the end and I've rather enjoyed it.

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I think Kama's Memory is a terrific cue, because it is the only appearance of what might be my favorite theme Howard wrote for the series. Leta's Theme. I don't the context of the scene, but that this theme at least makes an appearance is something I am very happy with.

 

Also glad there's a bit of Jacob's theme back. I missed that in the 2nd.

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I'm quite enjoying it. I'm actually a big fan of Howard's soft meandering underscore-y stuff... and there's a fuck tonne of that here. I think it's rather lovely.

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Just saw the film, there are two unreleased Williams material, one big Hedwig's Theme appearance and some rerecorded parts of the Quidditch match including Nimbus 2000 but it is either an Insert or tracked because the original Version you can here in the Case Chase between 00.00-00.32.

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Just listened to the album.

 

It's not as boring as I was expecting, although I do like JNH's meandering writing. 

 

The problem with it is that there's a lot of sections where nothing interesting happens. And most of the best parts are reprises of material from FB1 and 2.

 

It's kinda like JNH's own Kingdom of Crystal Skull: there are some excellent moments, but you have to find them in amidst a lot of boring stuff.

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Yeah, most of my favorite parts of this score are simply re-orchestrated reprises of material from the first film.

 

Like, the (terrific) crescendo leading to the main title is a re-arrangement of "Newt Releases the Thunderbird":

 

 

Which does make the main title music a bit disappointing since I was expecting to instead hear the superior theme used in the cue above.

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2 minutes ago, Will said:

 

(Presumably) unintentional Schindler's List reference.

 

 

That is a reprisal from the first FB film. I think it's an intentional reference to Williams own Potter theme. 4:08 - 

 

 

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