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Posted: |
Aug 21, 2014 - 7:06 AM
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By: |
DeputyRiley
(Member)
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James Newton Howard's score to the first of the two-part final chapter of the tremendously successful Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay, is my most anticipated score of the year.
When it was first released, despite a few stellar epic tracks, JNH's first score to the series didn't do to much for me. It was more low-key than I expected, but that was my fault; the fallacy of going into a new film score with preconceived notions. I should have known better...known that JNH would know what he was doing, apparently from the very start. Slowly it grew on me, however, the somber and delicate melodies and themes taking shape and coalescing, seeing and hearing them work in the film, and only when I heard the score to the second film did I fully appreciate the first score. The score to Hunger Games: Catching Fire exploded out of the gate for me and I loved it immediately and gave me a breathtaking new appreciation for the first score, and I have since come to regard JNH's work for the series (so far) as my favorite of his entire career. That is saying a lot, as the man is one of my top 5 favorite composers.
JNH's Hunger Games music has it all for me: contemplative, plaintive sensitivity; brutal action moments; thrilling adventure passages; astute and charming regional District moments (few as they are); grand epic orchestral sweep; brilliant and dexterous themes; evocative and mysterious ambience and textures; cutting-edge contemporary electronic supplementation, integrated superbly. JNH is able to weave all these elements together in the franchise in a serial manner and have it work, and work fluidly; there is an organic growth to his scores that mirror the evolution of the narrative within the film series. Most of all, his music has heart that gives the characters, most of all Katniss, and the fully realized worlds of Panem, the districts, and the arenas a soul and identity to accompany anything the production comes up with.
I love to go hiking with this music.
It is with great anticipation and giddiness then that I look forward to Hunger Games: Mockingjay Pt. 1 (and Pt. 2 next year). Having read the final book, I am eager to find out how JNH will approach the final themes, emotional discoveries, set-pieces, and concluding chapter of the series. The film opens Nov. 21, no word yet on a score release. Here's hoping for a nice lengthy release like the second film, and not a short release like the first!
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I don't know, I still feel like he's asleep at the wheel with this series, even if the second score is marginally better than the first.
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I agree with you, Deputy. It's unfair that James finally has his own solo franchise and people don't give him credit because he didn't went full Harry Potter when it's a dystopian sci-fi franchise that mixes social and war critiques with a futuristic reimagining of greek and roman mythology . Also, what's generic in it? I don't remember lots of JNH scores where he uses fiddles, writes orchestral and choral anthems (Even though he didn't wrote the melodies itself, he adapted them for orchestra and choir), unique electronic sounds, action pieces inspired by I Am Legend/Shyamalan scores with middle eastern influences, and emotional passages that only JNH can write (not just Rue's Farewell, but also the love theme for Peeta and Katniss, the choral variation of the Games motif in Monkey Mutts, or the heroic rendition of the Katniss theme in Arena Crumbles). That's unique compared with the way franchises have being scored in the past decades (Except for the second half of the Potter franchise), and JNH's action output (Except for Vertical Limit, King Kong, the Disney scores and a couple others, JNH's action/fantasy were nothing but changeable bombastic scores).
The franchise is for James what the Bourne trilogy was for Powell (And that one besides the Bourne theme, the Marie theme and the Tangiers piece, it sounded the same). Both Powell and JNH wrote a replacement score in 3 weeks, and with the sequel they expanded their themes and signature sounds. And they made themselves known to a new generation of people who are fans of the franchises (everyone can recognize Rue's Farewell and Arena Crumbles when it was played in the last Academy Awards, or Bourne's signature percussions and string runs).
And what's worst is that JNH kept the themes for the second movie and expanded them, and people complained, even though they always complained about lack of continuity in musical franchises. And the score was much more orchestral than the first one. It's not fair.
For the new movie, JNH expanded the orchestra with boys choir, viola da gamba and baroque cello, so he'll wrap what he did.
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