07-29-2017, 10:09 PM
Well, like I said Howard Shore definitely knows what he's doing. I'm just not a big fan of his music. Yes, the Fellowship theme is magnificent. I particularly like The Ring Goes South (which is where the theme is first introduced IIRC) but also later variations of it. There are also other memorable bits, like the Rohan theme, and I remember thinking the Isengard theme with its 5/4 signature and sparse instrumentation was really cool at the time.
That said, a lot of the trilogy's music is over-reliant on dissonance and big choral parts, at least the dramatic bits. The more cheery parts sound like something anyone could have come up with in 10 minutes (like The Shire theme). I simply think Shore doesn't have a knack for strong melodies, his strength seems to be textures and chordal structures, which abound in LotR. And I simply get bored with that after a while.
And I agree, the "making of" stuff from the extended editions is equally (if not more) enjoyable than the films themselves! It just seems like everyone involved had one heck of a time. As Peter Jackson himself said, LotR is probably the most expensive B-movie ever made
That said, a lot of the trilogy's music is over-reliant on dissonance and big choral parts, at least the dramatic bits. The more cheery parts sound like something anyone could have come up with in 10 minutes (like The Shire theme). I simply think Shore doesn't have a knack for strong melodies, his strength seems to be textures and chordal structures, which abound in LotR. And I simply get bored with that after a while.
And I agree, the "making of" stuff from the extended editions is equally (if not more) enjoyable than the films themselves! It just seems like everyone involved had one heck of a time. As Peter Jackson himself said, LotR is probably the most expensive B-movie ever made
