The Hobbit

How dare the Music Mod be so wrong! We demand punishment!

 

Uh-huh.

 

Dang I am getting some serious Senny Syndrome™ lately...

 

The Desolation of Smaug samples!

http://www.watertower-music.com/releases_spotlight.php?search=WTM39486

 

"I see the Fire" Song, i can see that being in the end credits like "Song of the Lonely Mountain" was

 

I got the TDoS soundtrack . . . my initial impression is that it's nice, but missing any really standout new themes. I could change my mind as I continue to listen to it, though.

One oddity . . . the final track, "Beyond the Forest," has this repeating 5 note statement that I swear is taken directly from Shore's "Silence of the Lambs" soundtrack. You really hear the similarity at about 2:36. It's the same opening statement you hear here, only on a flute instead of an oboe (I think?):



A friend of mine was telling me that composers re-use themes all the time, and Shore probably just liked the sound of it. Nothing more to it than that. I'm still going to be thinking of Hannibal Lecter when I hear it in the theater, though!

 

This belongs here IMO

 

For anyone who seen the movie and has the soundtrack, what's the track called when in Laketown?

 

I've listened through TDOS's track now a few times, and I have to agree -- I'm just not feeling it. There are some good parts to tracks, but usually only a 10-15 second string of notes and that's about it. There's no single track I'd listen to over and over again, which I could do with the other films. Even AUJ -- I loved the new heroic theme in that one.

Here's a comparison of TDOS to TTT -- just TTT. TDOS isn't bad, but TTT just blows it out of the ballpark.

 

I'm overall unimpressed with The Hobbit trilogy. It's incredibly well-made; but as a follow-up to the success of LOTR, these movies fall way short in almost every aspect- the music score notwithstanding. Shore seems to be going more for function than style, especially on Smaug. I also noticed that he did not conduct the scoring sessions- Conrad Pope did that duty. Is Shore still sore over the King Kong thing? Is there a bigger rift there than is generally thought? He's doing a professional job, but doesn't seem to be putting the creative attention to detail on these movies like he did on LOTR. He's not 'phoning it in' or just going through the motions, but there is a noticeable loss of quality in comparison to LOTR, or even the first Hobbit for that matter.

 

I love the hobbit movies, but I must say I was somewhat unimpressed with the soundtrack for the desolation of Smaug. I felt that the score for An Unexpected Journey was spot on, and very reminiscent of the Lord of the rings.

I don't know if it was because there was just so much going on in Desolation of Smaug and I was unable to focus on the score very much while seeing it in theaters, but nothing stood out for me in that one. I didn't notice anything specific in the way of main themes, and they didn't utilize the trademark solo vocalist sound, (as far as I remember) as has been heard throughout all these other middle earth movies to date.

No memorable melodies, just jumbles of typical action scene music. At least that's all I remember…

 

The Laketown song was cool

 

I'm going to have to disagree on the score not being up to par - I feel it's just as good as LOTR. For me, I like the Dol Guldur theme, Smaug's theme, the Dwarf charge, Lake-town theme, and Thranduil's theme. I also enjoyed hearing the different variations of Misty Mountains Cold in AUJ - I thought it showed how differently the different clans of dwarves viewed themselves.

Also, the Goblin-town and Orc stuff is spot on. I just love how Shore was able to maintain a familiar feeling, while at the same time giving us something completely different to what we've heard in LOTR.

Just my 2 cents

 

Okay, true – I will acknowledge that the theme for Laketown was pretty good. But I maintain, it was no hobbit theme, Evenstar, Rivendell or Rohan theme-hell, even Misty Mountains cold is much more memorable…

Also it is true that the theme for dol Guldur is interesting, but in my opinion that one can't really be counted – since it is simply a reworked version of the melody for Mordor/Barad-Dur, from what I remember...

 

My favourite of DOS is this one:

 

I'm curious as to what do you all think of the BOFA soundtrack

 

I loved it and all the Hobbit scores. I'd really like to see them do Complete Recordings of these scores as well, in the next few years.

 

Still waiting for those Complete Recordings to be announced.