PR: The Hobbit The Desolation of Smaug (Howard Shore)

Things were just getting interesting.

I really appreciated your comments

I think I am getting inspired to create a heavily shortened, completely re-arranged playlist of Smaug, maybe about 45 minutes in length, for anyone who can't get into the full version but is willing to use their media software to create for themselves a more intelligently designed and listening-friendly album.

Why oh why do most of you complicate something that is meant to give joy? The act of listening to music! Don't get me wrong! It's very interesting to read all your comments and analyses and in former days I would have contributed enthousiastically advocating for or against the complexity or not of Shore's score. But insisting on some points that much it is actually boring for me. And I will agree with Franz on that. A thread's posts increasing rapidly means trouble most of the times. Arguing is healthy and by all means continue but do we have to stick to a specific point for so long?

It was not an answer to you Martijn! It was a comment on the whole thread. So I must perhpaps edit it to make it obvious.

It kinda saddens me that a good spirited discussion like this would bore or annoy people; certainly nobody is forcing anybody to join in, and we shouldn't stomp all over people who want to get into the grittier details of a discussion either.

I thought it was a healthy discussion? I actually enjoyed my interaction with Matt and Edmund. All this Hobbit talk actually has me interested in revisiting the first film and score again (two things I haven't gone back to in about a year) and to pay a bit more attention to Shore's latest offering. BTW, Matt's 45 minute playlist offering of Smaug would be most welcome.

Oh well...

-Erik-

Dear Edmund stomping over people is not my style. I'm too light anyway and Martijn who saw me recently can atest to that. Moreover, you can search my older posts and see that many times I discuss details too. Anyway, surely no one is stopping you. And by the way "good spirited discussions" many times have stopped being good spirited in the past and this is something not very nice.

Ok, ok if I got it wrong ignore me! I don't participate much anyway! I prefer reading your posts!

The 45 minute playlist will probably come in about a week, once I have finished my standard 4 listens...surprisingly, I do actually spend time on other things besides overanalyzing the latest film scores...though most of the other things aren't quite as fun

You might be interested to notice that I haven't actually expressed any particular love for the actual music in Smaug. Outside of a few isolated tracks, I'm not actually enjoying it that much. I suspect that's mainly because the film is rather dark and foreboding and, unfortunately, a bit plodding. Not much room for the kind of emotions I usually most enjoy in film music. But my inner Asperger's super-nerd is absolutely delighted with the complexity and thoughtfulness that I'm discovering in the construction of the score. Shore obviously feels exactly the same way about leitmotif that I do. Its like revisting a soulmate after a year of hanging out with extremely likeable but somehow emotionally disconnected people. There have been many beautiful scores in 2013 but outside of Man of Steel, none that I feel such an intimate connection with the composer's artistic decisions, in the sense that it makes me think, "yes, that's exactly the music you should have written!" So, at this point, my love for the score is 75% intellectual. Which to me is a completely valid type of attraction, but to others might seem utterly silly, to enjoy music for something other than its ability to make you feel positive emotions.

Interesting post there Matt. I can relate to an extent, although the intellectual element (such as it is, and Shore still feels a bit 'left-hand-right-hand' to me) isn't giving me nearly so much to power off with this score.

This has been really a lot of activity. Nice to see.
Tom

In Belgium big blockbuster movies always premiere a few days before the American release because it has been proven we are a very reliable people when it comes to movies. So my opinion will be a meta-fact, which is in fact a fact but with the meta prefix added for euphemistic reasons.

So yesterday I saw the movie . While the world of Tolkien is very undemocratic, there was a first mention of the word "election". I thought that moment was funny. Besides that, the movie is sometimes fun and sometimes boring. The difference between the LOTR films and the Hobbit films are that I just don't care what happens in the latter. Story goes, things happen, orcs come and go, elfs jump in, ... There's no glorious moments like the siege of Helm's Deep, the climb of Gandalf to the White Tree, the heroic moments of Aragorn, ... The story is not very interesting either. But it's very well done and often a joy to watch. I probably won't see it again unless perhaps it's on tv or when I want to see dwarfs in barrels.

However, I appreciate the music a little more now. I had heard the score one time before and I couldn't make a clue out of it. It's much clearer now what the big main themes are, and the one for the Kate-elf is the best one. Beautiful theme. But, similarly to my view on the movies, the music is also less recognizable and a bit lost in all the dark forests of Middle-Earth.

Smaug.

Hey, I never said that. I see what you did there!