Most composers spend just 10-12ish weeks working on a film’s music. John Williams spent around 14 weeks on each Star Wars movie, 40ish weeks total for the whole OT……but composing the LOTR trilogy’s soundtrack took four years
The vocals you hear in the soundtrack are usually in one of Tolkien’s languages (esp. Elvish). The English translations of the lyrics are all poems, or quotes from the book, or occasionally even quotes from other parts of the films that are relevant to the scene
When there were no finished scenes for him to score, Howard Shore would develop musical themes inspired by the scripts or passages from the book. That’s how he got all Middle-Earth locations have their own unique sound: he was able to compose drafts of “what Gondor would sound like” and “what Lorien would sound like” long before any scenes in those places were filmed
Shore has said his favorite parts to score were always the little heartfelt moments between Frodo and Sam
Shore wrote over 100 unique leitmotifs/musical themes to represent specific people, places, and things in Middle Earth (over 160 if you count The Hobbit)
The ones we all talk about are the Fellowship theme, the main Shire Theme, and the themes for places like Gondor, Mordor, Rohan, and Rivendell…but a lot of the more subtle ones get overlooked and underappreciated
Like Aragorn’s theme. It’s a lot less “obvious” than the others because, like Aragorn himself, it adapts to take on the color of whatever place Aragorn is in: it’s played on dramatic broody stringed instruments in Bree, on horns in battle scenes, softly on the flute with Arwen in Rivendell….
Eowyn has not just one but three different leitmotifs to represent her
Gollum and Smeagol both have their own leitmotifs! Whose theme music is playing in the scene can often tell you whether the Gollum or Smeagol side is “winning” at the moment
The melody for Gollum’s Song in the end credits of the The Two Towers is the Smeagol and Gollum themes smushed together (it’s Symbolic)
And then there’s the really obscure ones. Like there’s a melody that plays at Boromir’s death that shows up again in ROTK in scenes that foreshadow a major death or loss
Shore wanted the theme music to grow alongside the characters– so that as the characters changed, their theme music would change with them.
You can hear that most clearly in the Shire theme. Like the hobbits, it goes through A Lot
Like compare the childish lil penny whistle theme you hear in Concerning Hobbits/the beginning of FOTR with (throws a dart at random Beautiful Tragic Hobbit Character Development scene because there WAY TOO MANY to choose from) the scene when Pippin finds Merry on the battlefield, where you hear a kind of shattered and broken but more mature version of that same theme in the background
I could write you a book on how much I love the way the Shire theme grows across the course of these films
Unlike the hero’s themes, which constantly change and grow, the villain’s themes (The One Ring theme, the Isengard theme, etc) remain basically the same from the very beginning of FOTR to the end of ROTK. Shore said this was an intentional choice: to emphasize that evil is static, while good is capable of change
Shore has said that between all the music that made into the movies and the music that didn’t, he composed enough for “a month of continuous listening”……..where can I sign up
video game: here’s an adult female character with the mentality of an 8-year-old! me: i don’t want this video game: sorry, my mistake. here’s a 700-year-old female character with the appearance of a child! me: I DON’T WANT THIS EITHER
Alright, so. Coffee. I don’t drink coffee. I have no desire to drink coffee. I find people who enthusiastically go on about the flavor differences of lattes, espressos, and french press brews, both amusing and mildly baffling. All the coffee ads. Coffee jokes. Bustling coffee shops. To me, all coffee is similarly bitter and unpleasant. I have been through so many “Try this, it’s sweet! You can’t even taste the coffee!” Alas, I always can. And I’m sensitive to caffeine anyway. So, I don’t really think about drinking it when I wake up or am tired.
Yet I love the smell of coffee. I love the idea of coffee. The feeling of a warm cup taking the chill from my fingers, the cozy ritual of having a drink and chat.
I might try someone’s coffee. If they ask, if I want to please them and share in something they enjoy.
I am also perfectly capable of learning the preferences of those I care about and creating a cup for their pleasure.
But I don’t want coffee, generally speaking. I will probably make a face after trying their coffee and wash the taste out with something else. They may rush to reassure me that it is an acquired taste. And I’ll have to reply that it’s a taste I don’t particularly care about acquiring in the way they did. ‘Drink it till you like it’ will never work for me.
But that doesn’t mean I am against coffee or think people shouldn’t drink it. Doesn’t mean I’ve taken a vow to never drink any. And sure, maybe if you get one of those sugar and whipped cream disasters, more of a warm milkshake than a cup of coffee, I’ll probably be happier sipping it with you. But honestly? I’d rather smell someone else’s coffee and not be expected to drink it. I’d really rather have the heat and sweetness of my hot cocoa.
I love this
The best part is it works for ALLLL the ace spectrum! Maybe you like one specific type of coffee on rare occasions! Maybe you enjoy coffee when you’re sharing the drink with someone! Maybe you can’t even stand the smell of coffee!
This needs to be on my blog.
This is it exactly oh my god.
would also like to add – maybe you don’t even dislike coffee. but…you don’t like it either. you’ll drink it, you think it’s okay, sometimes even good, but you’ll never go out of your way to have some. you pass the aisle at the grocery store. you hang out at coffee shops for the atmosphere and you definitely get why people like it, can see the allure, but it’s just something you can live without.
me: “The entrance of my hometown has a shrimp boat sitting in the main street. At Christmas theres a shrimper Santa and alligators pulling him instead of reindeer.”
i love everything about this screenshot. i love the comedic composition of it. the original message sent at 4:11 AM. the typos. the yeehaw. the lack of response from anyone else in the chat. White Castle
and then, in perfect grammar and syntax, one hour and 23 minutes later, the realization of the mistake. the regret. the folly of man
i showed aujah this and she’s informed me that the event that triggered the second text was her accidentally ringing up a customer for 275 cheese sticks and the guy was also too high to notice until he had almost swiped his card and stopped and said “wait.”
Dude the kicker of this post is that she’s an employee
fat trans ppl deal with a lot of shit and its so sucky because some people will only support skinny trans ppl bc thats all they can conceptualize and accept when trans ppl in actuality come in all different types of bodies
if u dont support fat trans ppl the way u support skinny trans ppl u need to rethink what kind of “ally” u are.
As a fat trans woman this is so true even within the trans community. I’ve had so many other trans women invalidate me, be dismissive of my issues and experience, and so forth simply because of my size. It’s really fucking disappointing to run into.
Fat enby here- big same. Had people tell me I couldn’t possibly be trans because my body dysphoria must be because I’m fat.
Big Gay Dracula Does a Shitpost 