> I don't mind it precisely because the themes are worked in so well.
> One of the things that makes Powell's zaniest animated scores so enjoyable
> to me is that you'll often hear the same theme done in like 10 different
> musical genres, take a score like Robots for instance. The melodic
> cohesion makes up for the lack of stylistic cohesion and then some.
> 'Forbidden Friendship' is a pretty mild diversion by those standards!

That's sort of the point, though. Robots or Horton Hears a Who or whatever can handle (arguably even cry for) that level of zaniness; HTTYD and films like it cannot. Which is why, to your point, the stylistic diversion they went with was comparatively mild.

> I really don't mind that much if a composer takes a distinct approach to a
> key scene to help make it stand out, especially if it's done as a montage;
> to keep it in the animated realm, nobody dinks Goldsmith for the
> anachronistic 'Haircut', because a) it uses the main theme and b) it
> fucking rules.

I think we're sort of in agreement that if it's good enough, then people will put up with and even enjoy stylistic inconsistency, but I don't think that means it works as an approach in most instances. Not only does it not tend to lead to as great and iconic a cue as the two we've used as examples, but also, in more films than not, it just won't make sense.

If a bunch of people reviewed Mulan for the first time today, I think you'd see a lot of comments along the lines of "'Short Hair' is loads of fun and works beautifully in its scene, but it is stylistically jarring in the context of the score/film as a whole."

> I generally think too much variety is by far the lesser ill
> compared to too much sameness/homogeneity in a score;

Riley and Edmund, meet at dawn.

> stay true to your themes and I don't really care where you take them.

This is truly a Powell fanatic's motto.