The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power - Amazon Series starts on September 2nd.

[Romier S]

New teaser released. The show has a reported overall budget of nearly 1 billion dollars. Yes, BILLION. The first season alone has a reported budget of $462 million.

 

 

[Angry the Clown]

It has that Hobbit looking sheen to it which I’m not sure I like.

[Angry the Clown]

It's been a badly kept secret in film music circles for many months now, but in case anyone was wondering:

 

 

Allegedly he's collaborating with Bear McCreary. 

[dienekes96]

That’s some pretty great news.

[JoeyN]

1 hour ago, Angry the Clown said:

Allegedly he's collaborating with Bear McCreary. 

That’s some team.

[Angry the Clown]

23 minutes ago, JoeyN said:

That’s some team.

 

It would make sense as Shore committing for all the music for five seasons would likely be more time than he'd want to give up, so I would imagine that he will write core new thematic material that a regular series composer can be left to adapt, and if it is McCreary then he's certainly up to that kind of task in this instance. 

[Romier S]

Well, that's just super exciting!

[Romier S]

Speaking of lavish productions….

 

 

[Brandon H]

I thought this was not a direct prequel to the films, and yet the sets and art direction look like carbon copies.

[Angry the Clown]

1 hour ago, Brandon H said:

I thought this was not a direct prequel to the films, and yet the sets and art direction look like carbon copies.

 

It's co-produced by New Line, so I think the plan was always to keep it visually consistent (and musically if the, bizarrely still unconfirmed, reports of Howard Shore having some involvement are true). I think there is still some silly legal issue, despite New Line's involvement, that prevents it from being canonically in step with the two film trilogies though.

[foogledricks]

I watched the trailer, thinking this was a live action show. Then began to think that it was CG show like that Final Fantasy movie based on the environments and the characters I was seeing -- all looked cartoony. Then at 30 seconds, having seen nothing real, I was very sure this was a cartoon. Then at the 43 second mark they show a character that was obviously shot with a camera. She's real!

 

A funny thing to be confused about for such a huge franchise.

 

So is this story based entirely on that one monolog from LOTR? This is a prequel, right?

[Angry the Clown]

2 hours ago, foogledricks said:

So is this story based entirely on that one monolog from LOTR? This is a prequel, right?

It’s based on what Tolkien wrote about the Second Age in the appendices to LOTR, which yes that monologue culled from slightly, but he wrote down a lot more detail for them to work from for the show.
 

That said, they don’t have the rights to The Silmarillion, The History of Middle Earth or Unfinished Tales however, so they are canonically constrained somewhat and consequently free to embellish and create things on their own terms.

[Romier S]

 

[Angry the Clown]

Two cues, his Sauron and Galadriel themes, have been released (officially to Amazon Music):

 

 

 

[Romier S]

I really rather like that Galadriel theme.

[Angry the Clown]

Yes, that's my favourite of the two. The Sauron one lacks some impact. I'm thrilled McCreary is heading this though. He's a terrific composer and I can't think of a better choice. It's a shame Shore's contribution only seems to extend to the main title theme, and not any other new themes, but I'm excited to hear what he's written nevertheless.

[Angry the Clown]

Comic Con trailer:

 

 

[Romier S]

Hype is building for me. That looked quite good. Thank goodness the Balrog design is intact.

[kelley]

On 7/22/2022 at 3:37 PM, Romier S said:

Hype is building for me. That looked quite good. Thank goodness the Balrog design is intact.

Agreed. I’ve been trying to not get my hopes up but that is quickly giving way. 

[Angry the Clown]

The score album has been available for several days now on streaming platforms (with an ever so slightly longer extended album on Amazon Music).

 

McCreary's done a magnificent job. Arguably a career best. There's been some suggestion that we might be getting weekly score albums too ON TOP of the current 2.5 hr release which would be amazing as we could be looking at the release of well over 100hrs of music in which case. The current album feels like it's largely made up of concert arrangements (certainly for all the character pieces).

 

 

 

 

 

It's tough to pick so early, but this might be my favourite from the album:

 

 

 

 

Shore's main titles contribution is, of course, lovely.

 

 

[Romier S]

I ordered the 2 CD set from Mondo.

[iainl]

And in news I’m disappointed but not surprised by, Amazon have neglected to stock either the CD or Vinyl releases of the soundtrack to their own TV show. Damn. 

[Angry the Clown]

The Album release is quite messy in terms of variants. The CD release drops three tracks available in the digital editions, but adds four different ones in its place including one of the exclusive tracks from the Amazon stream (where there still remains an additional exclusive).

 

Amazon have confirmed weekly episode score releases and additional Amazon exclusive music.

[JoeyN]

25 minutes ago, iainl said:

And in news I’m disappointed but not surprised by, Amazon have neglected to stock either the CD or Vinyl releases of the soundtrack to their own TV show. Damn. 

 Mondo stuff never goes up right away on amazon

[Angry the Clown]

Here's how the versions differ.

 

Amazon Streaming:

 

01) “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Main Title” (by Howard Shore) 

02) “Galadriel” 

03) “Khazad-dûm” 

04) “Nori Brandyfoot” 

05) “The Stranger” 

06) “Númenor”

07) “Sauron” 

08) “Valinor” 

09) “In the Beginning” 

10) “Elrond Half-Elven” 

11) “Durin IV” 

12) “Harfoot Life” 

13) “Bronwyn and Arondir” 

14) “Halbrand” 

15) “The Boat”

16) “Sundering Seas” 

17) “Nobody Goes Off Trail” 

18) “Elendil and Isildur”

19) “White Leaves”

20) “The Secrets of the Mountain” 

21) “Nolwa Mahtar”  

22) “Nampat”

23) “A Plea to the Rocks” (feat. Sophia Nomvete) 

24) “This Wandering Day” (feat. Megan Richards) 

25) “Scherzo for Violin and Swords” 

26) “Sailing into Dawn” 

27) “Find the Light” (Amazon Music Exclusive)

28) “For the Southlands”

29) “Cavalry” 

30) “The Promised King” (Amazon Music Exclusive) 

31) “Water and Flame”

32) “In the Mines” 

33) “The Veil of Smoke” 

34) “The Mystics” 

35) “Perilous Whisperings” 

36) “The Broken Line” 

37) “Wise One” 

38) “True Creation Requires Sacrifice” 

39) “Where the Shadows Lie” (Instrumental) 

 

The Apple/Spotify editions are 37 tracks after dropping the two Amazon Exclusive cues.

 

The CD will be missing "Cavalry, "The Broken Line" and "Where The Shadows Lie" but in their place has tracks titled "The Promised King" (from the Amazon stream), "In Defiance of Death", "Riding at Dawn" and "The Breaking of the First Silence".

 

It's quite possible those three CD exclusive tracks will show up amongst the weekly episode score album releases.