J.K. Rowling didn't like JW because the music didn't sound English enough? Fact or fiction?

[JWFan Moderators 81]

1 hour ago, Bespin said:

JKR find that JW's music was not enough "binary".

 

1 hour ago, Jurassic Shark said:

It was too gay!

 

59 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

English people aren't welcome in Scotland, though, according to yesterday's news.

 

All these posts violate the current board rules.  

 

You all may discuss how she may or may feel about JW's music but leave politics out of it.

Thank you.

[Jurassic Shark 9303]

We need to know what definition of political that's being used by the mods on this forum. According to my dictionary, "gay" isn't political.

[bollemanneke 2867]

Also, I went out of my way to make it clear I was joking. I was not being political. It's not that difficult to understand the difference.

[Jurassic Shark 9303]

12 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

Also, I went out of my way to make it clear I was joking. I was not being political. It's not that difficult to understand the difference.

 

They clearly don't want to understand the difference. When I made my Taliban joke to one of your posts about two weeks ago, bolle, I got banned for a week...

[bollemanneke 2867]

That's insane. Should I give examples of political posts vs sarcastic politcal posts, or could that be the end of my tenure at JWfan?

[Bespin 6818]

Sorry!

[Jurassic Shark 9303]

Ban him!

 

(a joke)

[Edmilson 4472]

Let's go back to topic before this thread gets shut down.

 

Anyway, is JK still on Twitter? Maybe someone can ask her how she feels about Williams' scores. She tweeted weirdest stuff before, I don't think she'd have any problem answering that.

[bollemanneke 2867]

Didn't she stop using/reading Twitter after getting bombarded by people who don't have lives because she liked/followed something?

[Bespin 6818]

Just now, bollemanneke said:

Didn't she stop using/reading Twitter after getting bombarded by people who don't have lives because she liked/followed something?

 

POLITICAL!

[bollemanneke 2867]

Okay, sorry, they do have lives. And the right to free speech.

[Edmilson 4472]

This thread will be getting closed in 3... 2... 1...

 

[Bespin 6818]

"J.K. Rowling" is a subject we globally should avoid on JWfan.

 

She's "problematic"!

[Tallguy 1486]

I'm only asking about her taste in music.

[Bespin 6818]

Just now, Tallguy said:

I'm only asking about her taste in music.

 

Stop this now!

[Tom 3363]

16 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

Since she wanted the whole thing to be English, I wouldn't be surprised if she did say this. And she's right. Then again, the sound he created for HP1 is perfect in every way, so I don't see the problem.

Funny that the director hired to oversee that whole thing was not English but an American named after an Italian.  I think she had bigger problems than with a guy named "Williams."  

[zoltan_902 141]

Followed by music from two Brits and a Frenchman, all of which paled in comparison to JW's contribution.

[Nick1Ø66 3373]

I'd never heard this story before. So I asked a few of my English friends if they thought the Harry Potter theme sounded Russian. They either said something like "yes" or "I can see that".

 

And having lived in Russia for a few years, I have several Russian friends, and I asked a few of them if they thought the Harry Potter themed sounded "Russian". Every one of them said no. One laughed. Well, not actually laughed, this was a text, so to quote her it was . Another thought Williams sounded more like Holst. Mentioning Tchaikovsky's influence on JW didn't move the needle.

 

So there it is. As for me, I think it sounds vaguely Russian the way non-Russians imagine Russian music to sound. Or more specifically, I find vaguely suggestive of old Russia. But then again, I'm not Russian.

[Marian Schedenig 6213]

Williams Potter scores as a whole of course span various styles, and Williams himself also has his roster of general influences. But Harry's Wondrous World in particular always had a distinctly British touch to me.

[bollemanneke 2867]

I never even tried to determine any influences on the music. For me, HP1-2 just sound like children's scores.

[ZackR 77]

There's nothing I associate with Harry Potter more than the music Williams wrote for it...including the books/films themselves. 

 

It's like Superman for me. I can't imagine the source material without the corresponding music at this point.

[Michael Grigorowitsch 366]

So I would say Williams' score sounds more like winter than Russia. It might be somehow related, but I don't think Rowling wasn't ultimately responsible for Williams leaving. I also think that John Williams was perhaps not entirely right musically for the following films, especially those, which we're scored by Nicolas Hooper. This melancholic, but also youthful (sometimes guitar-) sound by him is very well made and fits the mood of the film perfectly. Maybe Williams Initial themes and general sytle wouldn't have worked that good, bot of course we don't know.

In the matter of why he did not come back for DH2, simply schedule problems are given. But here it is said that Yates was communicating tardily with Williams. There's room for conspiracy theories, of course, but I wouldn't think very much about this. Desplats Score isn't perfect, but I think it makes a good job although.

https://www.harrypotterfanzone.com/david-heyman-david-yates-on-alexandre-desplats-deathly-hallows-music-john-williams-returning/

https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/28710/what-is-the-reason-john-williams-did-not-compose-more-for-the-harry-potter-movie

+jwfan is not considered a safe source here!  Let's start a forum fight! 😂+

[bollemanneke 2867]

Yates has no taste, so it makes sense he wouldn't work with JW. 

[Michael Grigorowitsch 366]

2 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

Yates has no taste, so it makes sense he wouldn't work with JW. 

Was very surprised that he got Phantastics Beasts (btw I don't get warm with the music for the films by J.N. Howard, I think Desplat would have done it better!?)

[bollemanneke 2867]

I prefer JNH.

[Michael Grigorowitsch 366]

I think it could have been good if Williams had written the theme like with SOLO - A Star Wars Story...

[Smaug The Iron 436]

JNH did a really good job with the theme's for FBWT so I don't think Williams was neaded. 

[Naïve Old Fart 7496]

There are two reasons why JW did not score GOF:

1/ Newell had worked with Doyle before, and wanted him on the project, and

2/ at the time, it was well known around Tinseltown that Newell disliked JW's music.

Sadly, the filmmakers seriously underestimated the kudos that JW had brought to the series, and caved. Shame. If they'd said: "No JW, no direct", the film world could have had five more world-class scores, instead of three.

[Josh500 1608]

On 9/4/2021 at 12:07 AM, Datameister said:

 

Lots of Stravinsky, too.

 

Oh, definitely!

 

And Prokofiev and Shostakovich and Borodin... In fact John Williams even recorded an entire album paying homage to the classic Russian masters.

 

[Michael Grigorowitsch 366]

In my opinion, Doyle did the worst job of all. Of course he had John Williams behind him, which is generally a burden for a composer, but unfortunately his score generates zero emotions for me and hardly has a good moment in the film.

1 minute ago, Josh500 said:

 

Oh, definitely!

 

And Prokofiev and Shostakovich and Borodin... In fact John Williams even recorded an entire album paying homage to the classic Russian masters.

 

Wow! Didn't knew that one. Thanks!

[bollemanneke 2867]

Well, Doyle's score is world-class for me and one of the things that the HP3 LLL set revealed to me is that, if you go with the alternate firebolt in the main program, this, too, is a HP score that only repreises Hedwig's Theme. I'm very happy JW never touched GOF as Doyle provided some truly outstanding music that I can't imagine JW composing.

[Holko 8006]

I love Doyle's score.

[Michael Grigorowitsch 366]

 

11 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

 I'm very happy JW never touched GOF as Doyle provided some truly outstanding music that I can't imagine JW composing.

Provocant saying that on jwfan.com😂, but you can see that everyone like something else to Harry Potter and it should be like that. 

Hedwig's Theme is, I believe, the only snippet from Williams' score that is used in the movies after him "prominently". (Except for the Voldemort "Semi" Theme, which is later used by Desplat. Doyle just forgot it completely and made something else, but well)

 

[Nick1Ø66 3373]

3 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

2/ at the time, it was well known around Tinseltown that Newell disliked JW's music.

Sadly, the filmmakers seriously underestimated the kudos that JW had brought to the series, and caved. Shame. If they'd said: "No JW, no direct", the film world could have had five more world-class scores, instead of three.

 

If this is true, it's a real pity. What a loss. I mean, I can see maybe letting a big time director with clout choose his own composer. But Mike Newell? Really? As it is GOF is one of the weakest entries in the film series, which is a shame because it's one of the best books.

 

Not that there's anything wrong with Doyle, I like his work. But not having JW score that entire series is a monumental loss to film music civilization.

[Richard Penna 2486]

4 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

If they'd said: "No JW, no direct", the film world could have had five more world-class scores, instead of three.

 

There's an assumption there that JW would've stuck around for all 8 movies, with all the director and tonal changes. I'm not sure he had the same dedication to Potter that he's clarly displayed for SW.

 

For me, CoS is the biggest 'could have' of the series, as it's very clear that given the two simultaneous scores he did, CMIYC got his proper attention. There is far too much tracking and general reuse to argue that he was able to dedicate the required time to CoS.

 

Now it doesn't mean I'm singing the praises of all the subsequent scores. Desplat's and Hooper's entries have some of the dullest scoring I've heard in the franchise (although I find far more to like in Hooper's), but it doesn't automatically mean that JW would 'obviously' have provided more interesting scores.  I think the final two films are boring as hell.

[Holko 8006]

4 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Sadly, the filmmakers seriously underestimated the kudos that JW had brought to the series, and caved. Shame. If they'd said: "No JW, no direct", the film world could have had five more world-class scores, instead of three.

Would he have given up Geisha or Munich? I don't think he would have.

[Josh500 1608]

On 9/4/2021 at 6:13 PM, Nick1Ø66 said:

I'd never heard this story before. So I asked a few of my English friends if they thought the Harry Potter theme sounded Russian. They either said something like "yes" or "I can see that".

 

And having lived in Russia for a few years, I have several Russian friends, and I asked a few of them if they thought the Harry Potter themed sounded "Russian". Every one of them said no. One laughed. Well, not actually laughed, this was a text, so to quote her it was . Another thought Williams sounded more like Holst. Mentioning Tchaikovsky's influence on JW didn't move the needle.

 

So there it is. As for me, I think it sounds vaguely Russian the way non-Russians imagine Russian music to sound. Or more specifically, I find vaguely suggestive of old Russia. But then again, I'm not Russian.

 

The Harry Potter theme doesn't sound Russian anymore than it does American. In fact, strictly speaking, it doesn't even sound British...

 

That's because JW wasn't aiming to make this sound a specific country. It's not typical "national" music, it has no cultural identifying marks. If anything, it only sounds like Hogwarts--like magic, academics, and a sense childlike wonder and awe. And those things are pretty much universal.

[Nick1Ø66 3373]

3 minutes ago, Josh500 said:

The Harry Potter theme doesn't sound Russian anymore than it does American. In fact, strictly speaking, it doesn't even sound British...

 

 

Music is in the ear of the listener.

 

 

[Michael Grigorowitsch 366]

21 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

 

Now it doesn't mean I'm singing the praises of all the subsequent scores. Desplat's and Hooper's entries have some of the dullest scoring I've heard in the franchise (although I find far more to like in Hooper's), but it doesn't automatically mean that JW would 'obviously' have provided more interesting scores.  I think the final two films are boring as hell.

I don't agree at all that Hooper is boring. The mood of the films called for a rather simple, less orchestral score. Whether it's the guitars for the relationship with Ginny or the fresh theme of Dumbledore's Army, it fits almost perfectly. It completely captures the mood of the film. And aside. Dumbledore's Farewell is a true masterpiece. Williams couldn't have done it better. In the scene in Deathly Hallows 2 about the unraveling of the whole Snape-Potter-Dumbledore complex, the farewell is used again and there it is, in my opinion, the most intense musical experience of all the Harry Potter films.

 

[Richard Penna 2486]

I worded that badly for Hooper's - I was just pointing out that I think his contains some of the dullest material, but it's surrounded by, as you say, some really interesting material. I should focus on the positives

[bollemanneke 2867]

1 hour ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

 

If this is true, it's a real pity. What a loss. I mean, I can see maybe letting a big time director with clout choose his own composer. But Mike Newell? Really? As it is GOF is one of the weakest entries in the film series, which is a shame because it's one of the best books.

 

Not that there's anything wrong with Doyle, I like his work. But not having JW score that entire series is a monumental loss to film music civilization.

I think GOF is one of the better ones. My current order is 1, 4, 3, 2, 7, 6, 8, 5.

[Richard Penna 2486]

My order is something along these lines: 1, 3, 2, 4, 6, 5, ......... ,7, 8

 

GoF, CoS and OOTP/HPB are a bit interchangeable for me. Lots of strengths and weaknesses.

[Nick1Ø66 3373]

The last four Harry Potter films are my favourites, and Yates happened to be at the helm for those.  Not that Yates is some kind of stellar director, but I like how his Harry Potter movies turned out.

 

 

[Richard Penna 2486]

I found the last two films really boring. I actually only really found the films Hooper scored particularly interesting to me. They feel more grown up than the first load of films, but before everything just gets really dark and apocalyptic.

[Nick1Ø66 3373]

1. Order of the Phoenix
2. Deathly Hallows    
3. Half-Blood Prince
4. Prisoner of Azkaban
5. Philosopher's Stone
6. Goblet of Fire
7. Chamber of Secrets

Yeah, I put Deathly Hallows as one film, b/c that's how I think of it. The first part taken alone would admittedly be further down this list. I also put the LOTR as one film in my movie Top Ten. Yeah, I know it's sort of a cheat, but there it is.

 

POA clearly has the most style, and objectively might be the best film of the lot. I just like it when they're older and the stakes are higher.

[Tom 3363]

Hogwarts Forever has a very British feel to it.  Quite frankly, more traditional British than anything found in the non-Williams scores.  

[Edmilson 4472]

WB execs in the mid-2000s:

 

"John Williams can not score the next Potter movies! They're going to be very dark, gritty, violent, disturbing and sinister, and Williams never wrote music as dark as we need. He just write cute stuff for Ewoks and kid protagonists. This is why we should hire a newcomer who never wrote anything for a blockbuster before!"

 

"Agreed. Also, we can pay him one tenth of what we'd have to pay if Williams was the composer. We won't be wasting money with music so we can spend more in digital effects and famous English actors!"

[Michael Grigorowitsch 366]

btw: How much money does John Williams actually get for a film? Are there any known amounts?

@Jay

[Tallguy 1486]

Are we ordering the films or the scores?

 

My film order is 3, and then the rest of them.

My score order is 1 and 3 in nearly a tie, 4 (I like Doyle) and then I haven't paid attention.

 

It's interesting that Williams was even interested in closing out the series. I can never tell the difference between what he's actually interested in, what he's famous for, and what he gets paid for. That needle drop at the end of 8 felt simultaneously self indulgent but paradoxically necessary.

 

To be clear when I hear "sounds Russian rather than English" I'm thinking "Sounds like something a Russian classical composer would write" not "Sounds like furry hats and vodka" (although I suppose there is overlap). Obviously Harry Potter doesn't sound like an establishing shot of the Kremlin.

[Chen G. 2931]

4 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

1. Order of the Phoenix

 

Bruder! Mein Bruder!
Siegmund, ha!

 

I will say, Order of the Phoenix wasn't my favourite until a rewatch when that ending suddenly hit real hard. All the camera inventiveness Cuaron could throw into Prisoner of Azkaban couldn't surpass that.