Just popping in to say that I'm enjoying these as much as ever, although I'm not responding as much. It's a little different reflecting on scores from the past year: I've already written more than anyone wants to read about some of these, the one below in particular!

> Harry on the other hand had only one 2024 score, but it was the kind that
> demands singular dedication: Ridley Scott’s long-awaited follow-up to his
> 2000 hit Gladiator. That movie got one of the most iconic scores of
> the Media Ventures era, but while you’d think it would be a slam dunk for
> Hans to return to the franchise for Gladiator II he instead was
> apparently a pretty quick no, telling reporters that he felt he already
> did a good job and that he feared he wouldn’t be able to match himself.
> This may indeed have been the whole of it; Hans had scored plenty of
> sequels over the last 20 years but no legacy sequel (legacyquel) to a film
> he’d done the original score for, and while he had plenty of nice things
> to say publicly about working on Disney’s 2019 CGI remake of The Lion
> King it’s rumored that his time on that wasn’t wholly satisfying.
> Perhaps even the troubled experience of having another go at the Caped
> Crusader on Batman v Superman was still on his mind. Left unsaid
> was that Hans and Ridley hadn’t completed a score together in over 20
> years, as well as that Hans - often juggling many projects and frequently
> on the road for concerts - probably didn’t have the capacity to spend
> months focused on only one movie (which was why he’d backed out of Gore
> Verbinski’s A Cure for Wellness).

Without speculating too much, I think it seems pretty clear that there was a meaningful falling out way back, even if over time it's softened to using polite professional excuses. I imagine HGW taking this on was a best case scenario from Hans' perspective, given everything you mentioned.

> and also with a slurring sound for Denzel Washington’s “slippery” character that evoked
> the howl that Harry used for Adam Driver’s character in the earlier film.

I haven't mentioned it, but this comparison immediately jumped out at me too.

Also, I think the character's motives have been poorly analyzed in reviews. Everyone talks about him like a straightforward villain who wants power for himself, but what he wants is to see Rome burn, and with good reason. I don't think he ultimately cares about his personal power, or even life - he just wants to destroy the people who destroyed him. Lucius agrees with him to an extent, until he comes to terms with his family's history and sees the greater potential of Rome. But honestly, I didn't find Lucius' revelation or final speech that inspiring. It felt like "we can do better...as a conquering empire," which hardly made me stand up and cheer. I preferred the first film's resolution centering on the Maximus' personal trials, with his impact and legacy emphasized at the individual rather than the abstract societal level.

> Harry implied that in the early stages they tried to get closer to the
> anthemic sound Hans had provided for the earlier film, but “it really
> bogged things down. It would’ve been in advance of what the story actually
> was. [The main character] Lucius becomes the person we need him to be
> [only] near the end of the film.” Whereas the early scenes of
> Gladiator feature muscular battle music for Russell Crowe’s general
> that shifted to dreamier new age material by the film’s end, the story of
> Gladiator II required Harry to invert that progression and only
> elevate his new protagonist Lucius’ theme (often only performed in
> fragments throughout the movie) to rousing heights in the final scenes.
> That made for an appropriately subtle style that rewards repeat listening
> on its album, though for those who liked the obviousness and occasional
> bigness of Hans’ Gladiator music that was bound to be a
> disappointment.

Agree with all of this, and especially with the point that a musical emphasis on the Lucius' military background would've made little sense. There are practically no army/battle scenes, and Lucius spends the whole film effectively disowning his past (except for his wife) and cynically critiquing everything to do with empire and military might. The film didn't all work for me, and I think it's a bit convoluted at times, but it's strange how off some of the critiques of the film and score have been.