> That's got to be LOTR, no? Unless the extra decade pushes it into a new generation?

The literal language they used was 'How the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy wound up with the most thrilling music since Star Wars', which was perhaps some power-tagged headline work on their part (i.e., an intentional overstatement).

> I see a lot of debate between 1 and 2, but not many claiming 3 to be the best. For me, 3 sits unambiguously in third place, and 2 is the best complete score, even if 1 has some of the greatest highlight moments.

I have no scientific evidence to support this, just my hazy memories from a few years ago.

> We'll see how you feel about Polar Bear, but I think I'd rank PB and Penguins about even (3.5-ish) and Monkey Kingdom a step below (3). Penguins has the best themes, personality, and highlights, while PB is the most consistent.

I seem to be trending 1 to 1.5 stars above you on these. I went back and forth between what rating to give Penguins, though funny enough I liked Monkey Kingdom a tad more. But there's a sense of adventure, lyricism, and occasional harmonic sophistication in the HGW nature scores that seems to get me every time and that tends to be lacking in the Bleeding Fingers nature works. They're not, like, Planet Earth or Tale of a Lake, but they're only a tier or so below those.

> Putting this and MK a half-star below the magnum opus that is Narnia is...well, I have to guess there's some star-rating nuance pulling them further apart than that.

Low-end 4 star vs. high-end 4.5 star. If I didn't use half stars, the first Narnia would probably get the full 5.