What If... John Williams Scored LOTR & The Hobbit

MartyB

MartyB

Rivendell
No one can doubt the brilliance of Howards Shore's work in the LOTR and hopefully The Hobbit but, I wonder what a John Williams soundtrack would have been like? IMO here is the greatest film composer of all time. Do you think it would have worked as well?
 
he has the range that Howard Shore has.
He is no doubt a phenomenal composer, but so many themes and tones had to be created for something this vast.
I always say, the reason that these films are so good is because everything came together perfectly.
'The stars aligned'
Howard Shore was on this project because he was the perfect man for the job!
 
I agree that Williams is the best, but his scores are a little more...bombastic. Not that he hasn't succeeded with more reserved films, but I feel Williams would be held back by LOTR as it doesn't call for the kind of music he is famous for.
 
and Horner is far too repetitive I find. As much as I love Williams Shore's achievement with the trilogy was monumental and in my opinion could not be topped.
 
John Williams' style would have been a bad fit.
I don't know . . . Horner could have worked . . . Desplat would have been intreging . . . I'd think John Barry would have been a great choice.
 
... by the time LOTR was made. His best stuff was scored in the 70's and 80's, I think his LOTR would've sounded too much like Harry Potter, too "fantasy" and not enough epic.

The saga needed a younger, hungrier composer who could bring new ideas to the table, Shore was the right guy for the job.
 
Howard Shore is the perfect match with any music connected to Middle-earth. John Williams is a good composer who has composed many iconic themes like Harry Potter and Star Wars, but I don't think it would have matched Shore's LOTR score.
 
. . . like . . . but I'd have preferred something else . . . mostly a mix of Celtic and Germanic folk music blended with more gentle orchestration . . . that would have fit the vision I have in my head . . .

And, yes, I know John Barry passed last year . . . sad . . . such wonderful scores.
 
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.. about the way Howard Shore has thrown himself into writing music for Tolkien. Chemistry, if you like. His involvement has gone far beyond writing routine film music and the work he produced has taken on a life of its own.

Could another composer have done the job? Yes, but perhaps not in the same way. Other composers, other styles, could have been tried and could have been fine, but the fact is, they weren't.
 
I would recognize his sound everywhere, anyone can, it is so signature. But I still think there's something in Shore' music which reflects Peter's views clearly.
 
You barely notice the score because it's just in the background, and for me that's a negative thing ( depending on what type of movie it is of course).

A fantasy epic should have an equally epic score. I want to be able to walk out of the cinema and hum the score. For example, the Rohirrim charge in ROTK gives me goosebumps because the score is so fantastic.I want it to be memorable, which I don't find Desplat's work to be at all.

For example, in the lates HP movies only Courtyard Apocalypse stood out to me.
 
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His score is highly noticeable in films like, for example, Tree of Life. He has an excellent ability to work with the needs and desires of a director.

Plus, I think his greater level of subtlety would have served to balance PJ's operatic and melodramatic style (rather than amping it up even further).

If a film is epic and "big" in every other way, it might be a good idea to have the score be a little less bombastic.
 
I love Williams, he's put up more memorable movie scores than any other composer I know. He'd have done a marvelous job, I've never been disappointed with anything he's composed.

That said, I love Shore's music for LOTR and I love how it evolved over the three films. There's not anything I'd change, really.
 
You've said David Lean might have been a good director for LotR, and I agree that he could have done a good job. But Lawrence of Arabia's soundtrack is pretty bombastic. At times the score draws more attention itself to itself than Shore's (and I don't have a problem with that).
 
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...in fact, quite a few great composers and musicians have experienced sounds as colours (Messiaen's studies of his own synaesthetic experiences, for example, are really interesting). But then again, even people without synaesthesia sometimes refer to "orchestral colour" - it's just, um, a colourful turn of phrase, I suppose :)
 
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