|
I've got the Two Towers and Return of the King Limited Editions and the regular-edition Fellowship score. I think the only thing extra on the TTT LE (aside from the deluxe book-like packaging, which is quite nice) is the short track "Leaving Lothlorien," which I didn't find to be as moving as most of the regular tracks, and which is placed after "Gollum's Song," which should by all rights be the last thing you hear on the album. TTT is a great soundtrack, though, and I like it much more than FOTR (too soon to tell on ROTK, which I just got after seeing the movie two weeks ago).
The Two Towers boasts the incredible Rohan theme, a good version of the Isengard/Uruk-Hai theme, and the great score of the Helm's Deep battle, among others. And "Gollum's Song" is one of the saddest things I've ever heard. Pound-for-pound, probably the best soundtrack.
Fellowship has great instances of the Shire/hobbit theme, especially the boys-choir rendition during "The Breaking of the Fellowship," the scary Nazgul theme from the Weathertop sequence, and the Fellowship theme, plus the intense Moria/Khazad-dum music. The Enya stuff doesn't really do it for me, though.
Return of the King has some great moments, including Billy Boyd's sad song (found in the track "The Steward of Gondor"), the Gondorian theme, "Shelob's Lair," "The Black Gate Opens," and "The Return of the King," which features the Fellowship, Gondor and hobbit themes, as well as a couple of lines sung by Viggo Mortensen. And Annie Lennox's "Into the West" is possibly even more moving than "Gollum's Song."
They're all worth buying, though ROTK is the only one for which I'd say you need to buy the LE (the DVD included has the Supertrailer and a featurette on the writing and recording of the score by Howard Shore). If you get stuck buying only one album, go for TTT.
|
