Potter 5 will be the next big summer film I'm looking forward to.  I admit I've never seen anything by David Yates before, and in case you haven't heard, he's also signed on to direct Half-Blood Prince, which is due out Fall 2008.   I think one of the most interesting aspects of this series is tracking its progression with each new director, and all of them up to this point - from Columbus, Cuaron, to Newell - have done an admirable job with these adaptations.  You keep hoping that that the next director won't drop the ball with the next entry, and early word on Order of The Phoenix seems to point that that hasn't happened yet.

Likewise, you're hoping the same also applies to the music.  Hearing that Williams bowed out after Prisoner of Azkaban was a shock, but I was rather pleased with what Patrick Doyle brought to the table with Goblet of Fire.  There was an elegance to his score which was decidedly missing from Williams' works, and for me, it worked splendidly.  I'm not at all familiar with composer Nicholas Hooper, either, but Soundtrack.net's exclusive First Listen is encouraging.  I'm holding off on the samples, but I did read the write-up, and all signs point to another excellent Potter score.  (As usual, you'll want to be careful, as there are spoilers to be found in the write-up, even in the song titles themselves.)  On the other hand, I did give a listen to the four minute sample that the official website is offering, just to see what sort of musical flavor we're dealing with.  You can listen to it here:

http://www.harrypotterorderofthephoenix … icLoop.mp3

I know I'm in the minority here, but I think Cuaron dropped the ball.  While his cinematography was plently beautiful, he blitzed through the story, and I honestly have no idea how somehow who hadn't read the third book would have any clue as to what was going on in the third film.

On the trusted advise of a friend I have elected to never watch the third movie ever.

I suggest just sticking with the books. Of course, I love the three main actors in the movies, so I'll be going to see the films anyway.

I didn't really have problem with the third movie (which was beautifully shot, paced and scored). The fourth movie was a pacing nightmare though, completely rushed through. Then again, how else are you going to fit over 700 pages into a two-and-a-half hour movie?

That's exactly why I suggest just sticking with the books. One of my friends was pointing out some cuts that were made in the Azkaban film that could prove problematic later on, at least if the intent is to make a coherent story within the films alone.

Got back from seeing Order of The Phoenix, and I'm duly impressed.  As a book adaptation, it's solid enough, capturing just enough of the core story - but as a movie experience, it's utterly fantastic.  Most will agree that Book 5 would have been the hardest of the current six to translate to film - but know what?  Even if it's the longest in book form, yet the shortest in film length, I still found Phoenix to be the most effective adaptation.  Yates creates such excellent drama with Harry's internal struggles and psychological battle, something that's undoubtedly difficult to portray onscreen -- yet also doesn't holding back when the big action moments kick in.

New characters introduced to the series are handled with the usual casting excellence, with Evanna Lynch's Luna Lovegood and Imelda Staunton's Umbridge being the best of the bunch.   Bonham-Carter's Bellatrix chews up the scenery for what little time she's in them, and I suspect they'll utilize her more in Half Blood Prince, along with (hopefully) Natalia Tena's Tonks.  The returning cast are just as good, and it's always enjoyable watching all of them -- the good guys and bad -- and their developing chemistry with one another.

Also picked up the soundtrack, of course.  The first thing that struck me was how instrumentally-rich and beautifully mastered the score is; Hooper's choice of instruments and the actual recording is very clean and vibrant.  The compositional direction itself borders on, as Clemmensen coins it, "flightiness."  The score is practically grounded in this carefree, capricious sound, which, if nothing else, is a radical departure from the dark moodiness we've come to expect from a story that's clearly barreling toward that direction.  It makes for a decent standalone listen, but there were times when it just didn't feel right in the film.  Such cases would be "The Room of Requirement" and "Dumbledore's Army" - which, when taken into context, might have been better off with a somewhat more serious, militaristic styling of music.  Like Doyle's score for Goblet of Fire before it, Hooper uses Williams' Hedwig Main Theme for a number of key points in the film, which is the only thematic link to the series' musical world that preceded it.  But unlike Goblet, the number of memorable cues and pieces are shockingly sparse.

The soundtrack is absolute garbage compared to Williams' other scores.

Who the f--- is this guy anyway, I've never even heard of him.

It's definitely the least substantial of the five scores. "The Room of Requirements" is actually my favorite cue (although I haven't heard it in context yet). For a movie with such an intense climax (at least as presented in the book), there's a shocking lack of action music on the album. I suppose it's possible there's more in the movie. It would have served as a break from the relentless fluff and droning string pads that seem to comprise half of the album.

It's no Prisoner of Azkaban. Then again, it's pretty hard to beat John Williams in his prime.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0393781/
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He's a nobody and will continue to be a nobody. 

The bad news is, guess what?: It looks like he's coming back for the next HP film anyways.

I realize that Patrick Doyle has lost a few steps in recent years, but even his score was better than this and I was sadly unimpressed with that effort.

I miss the Patrick Doyle from the days of Needful Things and scores like that. You want to hear what a Harry Potter score from him really should have sounded more like? Listen to that!

They would have been better off just having this guy or someone else recyle Williams's stuff from the first two films and call it a day. 

That's basically what they did on part two anyways. They had William Ross do some filler music to connect and recyle Williams's themes from part one and a few new themes that Williams mailed in for part two. 
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They should have just done that again.

Heck, William Ross has orchestrated for a lot of the big boys for years now. I'll bet even he could have cruise controlled and come up with something better than what this was.

Otherwise composers that are still alive and not named Jerry Goldsmith (can you imagine a HP score from him?!), Basil Poledouris or even Micheal Kamen that I would have put on this: Bruce Broughton,  George Fenton (these two are woefully underappreciated and overlooked), Debbie Wiseman (listen to her score from Haunting.), David Arnold, James Newton Howard, Danny Elfman...you getting my drift? There's any number of vastly superior composers that are and aren't big name that could have hit a homerun on this thing.

Heck, if they really had some goal to stay all British and ran out of the film's budget to get a big name composer...how about Julian Nott from Wallace and Gromit. That guy is a hell of a good composer!

Anyways, I view this as a woefully lost and wasted oppurtunity on the film score front for this film. They had plenty of superior choices out there and they just didn't bother. Maybe someone wanted to be nice to a friend and try help them get a big break. It didn't happen. This wasn't James Horner on Star Trek II in 1982 all over again, that's for sure.

The movie itself was great but at the best this score did absolutely nothing for it. If anything, it might have hurt the film just a little bit. It certainly didn't elevate it like a good-great film score should.

All of the above is, of course, IMHO.

Actually, Williams wrote a lot more music for part two than you'd think. I'd say about eighty minutes is new music and the rest is music from the first film adapted by William Ross. Ross didn't write any new music for part two.

I saw it today.  I thought the film was an adequate adaptation of the novel.  I can forgive the mass cutting of material since this is a movie and the stuff they left in is the most important plot stuff, but I can't forgive the way they changed the tone.  They made it much too optimistic.  The book is nothing like that.  Book 5 is all about oppression, dread, descent, and sadism.  The movie would have been a lot better (if less kid-friendly) if it had tried to capture that.

Concerning the music, I agree with XO and others that this Hooper guy is nonsense.  His score is generic, terribly inapporiate, and damages the film as a whole.  What were they thinking?

You're right. It's just that my post was already damned long so I skimmed those details.

They were thinking something like this: "Damn! Look at how over the top our budget already is with visual special effects and this cast of ours! We don't have a lot of money left so let's finish her off as cheaply as we can."

9/10 times, the film score is one of those things that the producers just don't give a damn about. Too bad that's a decision that hurts the film at least as badly putting in cheap visuals.