Several less important but sometimes equally compelling secondary themes exist throughout Hook. The cute woodwind-driven theme for Captain Hook and his sidekick Smee is a page taken directly from the Home Alone formula for bumbling villains. The slight waltz rhythm to this theme is very attractively fleshed out in the entirety of "Smee's Plan" with the kind of emphasis on instrumental creativity later heard in The Terminal. A faster and more robust announcement of this theme bursts with truly cartoonish exuberance at 1:55 in "Presenting the Hook," building to a frenzied ensemble crescendo, and the full version of "The Ultimate War" concludes with a glorious end to this idea. After a dedicated kidnapping theme is introduced in full late in "Hook-Napped," two subthemes for Hook and Smee's pirate gang exist in "Presenting the Hook." The first, heard at 0:20, is a jolly Irish jig that foreshadows Far and Away, while the second, starting at 1:20, is a sly bass woodwind rhythm accompanied by great viola or fiddle counterpoint and a touch of owl-like sound effects. Together, the pirate-related tracks on the Hook albums are something of a guilty pleasure because of their affable character and break of pace, guiding much of the middle third. A pretty theme for the film's other major character, Tinkerbell, is teased at the start of "We Don't Wanna Grow Up" before its usual xylophone likeness is presented at 1:55 into "The Arrival of Tink and Flight to Neverland" and at 5:20 into "Farewell Neverland." This theme truly does shamelessly rip a page from Home Alone. A less utilized theme for Wendy, her home, and the concept of redemption is introduced early and quietly on flute and bells in "Granny Wendy" and doesn't return in a major role until "Farewell Neverland." Likely a "redemption theme" more than one specifically for Wendy, this idea is heard in ensemble performances at 6:00, 8:25, and 9:15 in the finale cue, the last of which serving as the monumentally dramatic closing of the entire score. The snowy London setting seen during this cue is yet another reminder of Home Alone. Among the many lesser themes, the "lost boys theme" exists, understandably, throughout "The Lost Boy Chase" (starting immediately) and the "banquet/food theme" is a playful tune heard for full ensemble in "The Banquet" and at 1:15 in "The Never-Feast." The role of the brass in this theme is remarkable, including a delightful tuba solo at 1:50 into "The Banquet." Other motifs come and go, including Peter's action theme in "The Ultimate War," though none is particularly vital.

The action cues in Hook often extend these themes to forceful ranks, led by the 20-minute powerhouse "The Ultimate War" sequence, which had to be cut down to eight minutes to fit onto the original album. This rumbling, timpani-pounding action material moves with the same layered complexity and frantic pace that would prevail in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, though the perpetually unpredictable turns of events in Hook don't allow the themes in these cues many luxuries of extended performances. Other notable individual moments in the score include the sound effect of birds at 2:25 in "From Mermaids to Lost Boys" and other creative dubs of similar things in other places, aided by extensive flute fluttering in the almost humorous "Pan is Challenged." The French horn counterpoint in the early choral part of "You Are the Pan," featuring a subtheme for the concept of leadership, is extremely memorable. Less impressive is how the score begins. In the film, you don't hear any orchestral underscore for ten minutes, and it's not until the first flight cue that the music has an appreciable impact. The same can be said about the album releases, excepting the trailer music, of course. The Dave Grusin-like urban jazz in "Banning Back Home" is somewhat obnoxious and needs to be ignored despite the fact that it adds another theme to the list. Only when the Harry Potter-like mystery of "Hook-Napped" explores hints of the title and kidnapping themes does the score really start to cook. The conversational suspense cues involving Hook ("Hook Challenged Peter" and "Hook's Lesson") and the simmering development of his themes are rather tepid as well. Overall, however, the score for Hook is a hidden gem due to the sinking of the film after a short initial burst at the box office. Williams did not expect to win an Oscar for his nominations for JFK or Hook, understanding that Beauty and the Beast was an unstoppable force that year. ("Choosing Beauty and the Beast was closer to Hollywood tradition and less risky for all. I'm used to choices like that," he said at the time.) The original Epic Soundtrax album's first pressing was one of the most flawed endeavors ever to haunt a Williams score, failing to include technical or engineering information, credits, notes, or even track titles on the packaging because of its last-minute assembly. Fans unhappy with the 75-minute editing of the score, which really isn't that offensive in its musical offerings, treated themselves to bootlegs in the late 1990's that extended the music over several CDs, ranging in sound quality and completeness.

In 2012, La-La Land Records released a long-awaited and legitimate 2-CD set containing over 140 minutes of music from Hook, though the product did not come easily and without some controversy. The contents of this album, as well as its generally fine sound quality, will satisfy almost all collectors. It sold 3,500 of its 5,000 copies from the label in a single day, an impressive feat for a $30 offering. Three years of development went into the album, including painstaking efforts to resurrect and arrange all of Williams' many takes in the best possible quality of sound. The composer himself became involved and guided the production through its final arrangements as well, and with significant support from Sony, fans could rejoice over this long-awaited replacement for the various legacy bootlegs. Controversy and negative fanboy hysteria involving La-La Land's Hook arose almost immediately, however. The choice of what music to include and what to omit became a problem at the time of Williams' involvement; the composer insisted that music he deemed redundant or uncomplimentary of the whole (like "Take Me Out to the Ballgame") be dropped from the presentation. The entire slate of song demos that had been recorded for the earlier, musical version of the film remained undiscovered at the time as well. Additionally, to reflect the composer's preferred arrangements featured on the original 1990 album, several of the score's seemingly unnecessary merging of cues into non-chronological suites of like material were retained. Williams recorded a number of inserts for Hook, some of which quite memorable, and these were not included or mixed in to their surrounding cues like some fans had hoped. On top of that, the arrangements and some difficulty with the source used for this product (which was less than desirable, from several accounts) cause many cues to suffer abnormally abrupt beginnings or conclusions, most notably the dissatisfying start of "Farewell Neverland." The "Ultimate War" trio of cues, the last of which had not been available in really decent sound previously, experiences several obnoxious fluctuations in volume and unnecessary loops. For frustrated listeners, the only solution to some of these issues at the time was to revisit the 1990 product. Some of the default tracks on the 2012 album are worthy alternates, however, including the impressive addition of more choral accompaniment to "You Are the Pan." Some listeners claim that the "Prologue" track on both albums is still different from the trailer's version, featuring a different tempo and pitch applied in the editing process.

The 2012 La-La Land album for Hook served as a good intermediary improvement on the strength of its impressive additional cues, especially new "Exit Music" track, but the set was never comprehensive and annoyed purists with audio problems. Nevertheless, it sold out quickly and became a pricey collectible. In 2023, the label sought to rectify lingering dissatisfaction with the prior album by assembling what it deemed the "Ultimate Edition" of the score on a 3-CD set of another 5,000 copies. Several notable aspects of this outstanding expanded product were new, including better source tapes, the rearrangement of the score into a straight chronological ordering due to Williams' lesser involvement, and, most intriguingly, a bevy of demo recordings representing the songs that were once to comprise the musical version of the soundtrack. With the newly faithful presentation of the score proper, associated audio issues were cleaned up along the way, with extended film versions of cues preferred. The overall length of the score's primary ordering doesn't provide the kind of bevy of newly released material that the 2012 product had revealed, but it does provide greater satisfaction. Some of the Williams arrangements are retained along with the faster, re-pitched version of "Prologue" as bonus tracks. The third CD in the 2023 set is where enthusiasts of the score will find its true purpose, however; the album's producers took available demo recordings of the musical's songs and mingled them with additional alternate score cues to create a roughly 70-minute presentation of what the musical might have sounded if completed. The song recordings range from the 1980's trial runs to Bricusse's fruitless attempts years after Hook to revive Williams' songs for a stage play of Peter Pan, for which he recorded a handful of the more major songs. The legendary Julie Andrews was reportedly involved in one of these songs at some point, though no performance of hers appears on this album. Instead, stage veteran Bobbi Page performs the two most hearty character themes. A pair of variations on "When You're Alone," including a short vocal reprise of a sort, is redeeming. The "Low Below" pirate song is more fascinating than enjoyable. Clearly evident from all of these recordings is the extent to which these songs did indeed guide the various themes in the final score, yielding a surprisingly effective narrative on the third CD alone. That final CD also includes a few of its own bonus tracks aimed at the Hook and Smee material. It's a superb product for a score that remains one of the most thematically diverse, robust, and beautiful works of the 1990's and the final great children's score for Williams in the century.  *****   @Amazon.com: CD or Download