The Gang of Five
The Land Before Time => General Land Before Time => Topic started by: action9000 on May 14, 2016, 02:49:13 AM
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Over the years I've realized that there's one key aspect of the LBT sequels that really takes them above-and-beyond for me - one thing that I truly love about the overall presentation of the LBT sequels more than anything else: Their soundtracks!
I'm honestly placing The LBT Sequels' musical scores among both my favorite orchestral pieces AND favorite film scores of all time. They're the kind of thing I wish I could have had a chance to play in Band class in school. They're the kind of music I can put in a playlist and they're always welcome. When I think of LBT sequels, my fondest emotions always seem to connect back to their soundtracks.
There was a fantastic amount of effort put in by Michael Tavera for the sequels' soundtracks and I deeply admire his work. I also have a massive shoutout to give to Tavera for letting the community enjoy his score outside the films by releasing them publically, free-of-charge to anyone who asks. Thank you Ludichris for discovering this and sharing your files with us once again!
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Ultimately, while I absolutely love the first film's soundtrack and admire it very much as the masterpieces they are by the late James Horner, it truly does come down to the soundtrack in the sequels that I have an undying love for. Those soundtracks make the sequels what they are to me. They turned a series of fine movies into something incredibly memorable to me and I just wanted to show them, and Mr. Tavera, the respect I feel they deserve.
I'm just curious: When thinking about the music from the series, what aspect of the music warms your heart and has the greatest impact on you? I set up a little poll in this topic to get an idea.
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While I do love the music in the first movie by the late James Horner and do like that they re-used it in the early sequels and wish they still did.
I mean to this day 20 year after I've seen the first movie, the whispering winds track still has me genuinely fighting back the tears.
I also like some of the sequel music too. E.G. Ali's theme, Sharptooth encounter and the long neck herd theme ( from LBT 4)
And I find it a shape that some sequel music as well as some of the music from the first movie was never released.
Something I noticed from re-watching the sequels is this. When they use music from the first movie it sometimes sounds a little different . I think they might have made covers of some of the James's Horner tracks as well as re-using the actually tracks. E.G. When they use the Whispering winds track (the part used were Littlefoot's mum died) in parts of LBT 5 6 7. It sounds more like it's been played on a harmonica.
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The musical aspect of the sequels is part of what drew me to The Land Before Time in the first place. The overall soundtrack is so beautiful it sometimes hides the unavoidable flaws that most of the sequels had.
As much as I love the score from the original movie, I find myself floating away towards blissful childhood memories every time I list to Michael Tavera's music.
Some of the songs from the sequels are also heartwarming and touching. When I was little, before falling asleep I always sang the songs from the sequels (the ones that I liked at least) in my head, and imagined Littlefoot and the gang singing them. On Monday I'd sing the songs from The Great Valley Adventure, and so on until Saturday where I'd sing the songs from Stone of Cold Fire. They were, and still are great lullabyes.
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The musical aspect of the sequels is part of what drew me to The Land Before Time in the first place. The overall soundtrack is so beautiful it sometimes hides the unavoidable flaws that most of the sequels had.
I think that sums it up perfectly for me. The music is SO good that I'll put up with some of the less-than-stellar aspects of the sequels just because of how beautifully the music compliments the series.
As much as I love the score from the original movie, I find myself floating away towards blissful childhood memories every time I list to Michael Tavera's music.
I'm with you there too. Tavera's score really holds a special place in my heart. :)
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There is not one single category of music in the LBT franchise that I could put over the others. Let me try to say a few things about each category...
- The instrumental soundtrack of the first movie: Well, what else could I say about this? It's a masterpiece through and through! I occasionally listen to it, either to fall asleep (I always listen to appropriate music when I go to sleep :exactly) or just when I'm working, studying, writing or just relaxing because it is simply so wonderful to listen to plus it wakes the nostalgia in me :p
- The instrumental soundtrack of the sequels: Well, I love Tavera's work! I probably listen to the sequel's soundtracks even more often, particularly to the soundtracks of LBT 8 & 12. In fact, I listened to them two days ago!
- If We Hold On Together: This song has a wonderful message. The melody is awesome and Diana Ross just performs the song very well. I also like that version Anndi and Aria sung though :)
- The songs: Well, I've talked about the songs in another thread (couldn't find that one, don't have time for a long search :p) already but let me summarize my opinion on them. A few songs are awesome (like Best Friends, Family, Things Change, Always There etc.), many songs are good and enjoyable and only very few songs (not counting the Tv-serues, that is...) aren't likable enough to include them into a playlist. Overall, the LBT songs are something I'm glad it has been made (I know there are people on here who generally dislike the songs, I generally approve of them!). If there are future movies to be made (wouldn't say that's very likely but possible :)) I hope they stick to including songs, though I hope they will be better than the ones in LBT 14 <_<
That's my two cents on it
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I thought the music was decent. I liked a lot of the sequel songs since they had a very good message in them. The melody in them where pretty good and decent. Not every song in the movies where good. Some made me wanna get my ears sowed shut. Some where horrible that shouldn't have been made at all. God those where painful to sit through. If We Hold On Together was amazing and the only song that actually made me very teary eyed. The beat was perfect and the lyrics where amazing and very well done. Diana Ross did a very good job singing the song. It fit the first movie perfectly. And this is my two cents on the subject.
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Horner's original soundtrack is just... perfect. While Tavera did a really good job with some of the later soundtracks but when you compare them to Whispering Winds, Great Migration or Discovery of the Great Valley... I cannot say there's really competition. The original LBT score is close to my favorite soundtrack, up there with Shore's LOTR music. :wow
If We Hold on Together is a phenomenal song, summarizing the franchise's main themes into a three-minute, very thoughtful song. However, it's only one song and I'd say it's pretty artificial to separate it from the soundtrack. No offense.
Tavera has done many memorable, nostalgic songs like Night Flowers, the "Cavern theme" in JOTB and the musical version of If We Hold on Together . Many of them are able to define the films but the music when Littlefoot receives the tree star, when he chases his own shadow, the ending and nearly every other part of the first soundtrack is just so emotional, so great... IMO, you can't really compete with it.
And the sequel songs. While some of them could be worthy of the first film, some of them like Girls and Dads and Mad Song... x(cera
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I actually had no idea Tavera's score was available until now, but it turns out YouTube is a wonderful thing! Thus far I've actually noticed some interesting parallels between his compositions and those of John Williams's Jurassic Park score. I suppose, given the time these were composed, this actually makes a lot of sense.
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Sadly only a few songs are on YT. It would be nice if all of the sequel scores were put into soundtrack formats and put to YouTube but to my knowledge, none of the sequel soundtracks were ever published. Without them, posting all of the songs there would be quite a task.
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They have all the songs from the movie on YouTube I found out and happy to see that as well.
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I was talking about the instrumental music, not the sung songs . Sorry if I failed to clarify.
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Ludicris has all of them available on his dropbox for free download. Just look around in the projects forum, the topic about it should be there :p
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Ah okay that's okay good to know someone has the Instmental songs available
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I voted for "The instrumental soundtrack of the first movie and the sequels equally". Since I grew up with the sequels as much as the first movie, I find all of the music an endearing piece of my childhood.
The "If We Hold On Together" song comes a close second, though.
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I voted for "The instrumental soundtrack of the first movie and the sequels equally". Since I grew up with the sequels as much as the first movie, I find all of the music an endearing piece of my childhood.
Well said. I couldn't agree more. It's both that sense of nostalgia and the true beauty of it all that just melts me. :angel
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I absolutely love James Horner's soundtrack, it is really awesome! But Michael Tavera's music is really good as well. I'd say I love them equally, due to the fact that I watched the first five sequels with the original movie at the same time.
"If We Hold On Together" is THE best song. It sounds really good. The sequel's songs don't do so well though. Some are amazing like the song of the original, particularly It Takes All Sorts, Always There, Beyond The Mysterious Beyond, and Things Change. Some of the others are just annoying to me.
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I agree about the music even if Horner's music is just too great for Tavera to match. I also like his music but when compared to the original soundtrack, there's no competition. Also, there's nothing than can match If We Hold on Together but I'd add Bestest Friends, Family and No One Has to Be Alone to your great songs list. There are very few songs in the series I really hate, the rest are just more or less harmless, imo.
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The Michael Tavera instrumental version of If We Hold On Together is amazing. I love that it played in LBT 2-6, and I think others too. It's also in the end credits of LBT 4 and 6. :) :cry
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You're right. That small piece of music always makes the scene one of the film's best and brings the emotional feeling by itself. That is easily Tavera's finest work even if it was based on Horner's score. That song is good enough for the original soundtrack! :DD
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He also did a version of 02:50 - 03:40, it's the first time that the Allosaurus chases the gang in LBT 6 in the Redwood Forest. It sounds a little bit different. I suggest you check out the scene and listen to that part in the soundtrack to hear the differences.
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Uh... 02:50 - 03:40 of which song? If We Hold on Together or Sharptooth and the Earthshake or...?
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Uh...whoops!
The Rescue/Discovery Of The Great Valley.
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Good spotting! Even if the difference is rather small, I wonder why Tavera wished to change the song a bit without really remaking it. Tavera's version seems a bit more simple than Horner's and somewhat slower as well? Anyway, I wonder what was behind these alterations. :unsure:
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Well, maybe he made it different the first time because the theme was going to be used again, when the Allosaurus attacked the gang the second time. That second attack plays the James Horner version. Maybe he changed it because he didn't want the exact same theme to play twice? That might make sense.
I take it you checked the scene and listened to the music?
The Michael Tavera version also has no drums early on like in the Horner version. At least I'm pretty sure they're drums. They go really fast in the Horner version.
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Yeah, I did check it. Even then, why would the same "sharptooth" theme be used twice in the same film? Apparently something interesting went on in the music department.
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I'll tell you how I noticed the difference. I had started listening to that part of The Rescue/Discovery of the Great Valley the same day I had to check LBT 6 to see if Petrie had called the Allosaurus a female, like it said on the article for the sharptooth on the wiki. I checked the first attack first, and I noticed a difference. So I started looking over it and listening, and now I can remember the difference.
Maybe they didn't have the time to compose new music? I don't know how long that takes.
Maybe we should make a topic for Michael Tavera versions and lost tracks together. We tend to get into those discussions, you and me :lol
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heh, speaking of this: I always wonder why Sharptooth's attack theme in original first film and in OST are different. And I don't mean cut parts. I mean, they sound quite different in some parts...
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Spotting these kinds of things is really interesting and, to be honest, I would have never found out the difference in the music. We could certainly discuss the Tavera tracks in more detail but I'm not sure what you mean by lost tracks? Perhaps the parts of the original soundtrack which weren't used in the film? And I've noticed it too that we often appear to be on the same threads. ;)
As for your, theory about the lack of time to make new music , Tavera had already made hew sharptooth music, why not use them instead of the same song twice?
And, Snik, I've noticed that several soundtracks sound different in the film than on the soundtrack. For example, the Southampton track in Horner's Titanic score sounds real different in the film than in the sold soundtrack. However, I'd like to know why.
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I can't see why he didn't use the LBT 3 and 5 sharptooth encounter theme. It seems LBT 6 has a LOT of James Horner music reused.
Sharptooth And The Earthquake is also used in the sharptooth encounters at the end of the movie.
There actually was Sharptooth music reused; the Swimming Sharptooth theme when the Allosaurus is on the log.
There was also a new short bit made for the movie; when the Allosaurus appears for the first time, following the twins.