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Originally Posted by Beanamir
I would argue that we also got to hear this in Zimmer's work with the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean films.
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Oh yes, I agree that Zimmer did just as good a job mixing various themes together as Shore did. Zimmer seems to have a "theme and variations" type of approach to PotC 2 and 3 and he's quite brilliant at it. It was a surprise to me how little there is new stuff, and how a huge part of the score comes from a few main themes and their different orchestrations.
I think scoring PotC comes closest to scoring LotR from Zimmer's works, so while trying to find a way to compare these two composers, maybe concentrating on the Pirates series is easiest. It's true that PotC 2 and 3 together lasted something like 5 hours - less than half of LotR's duration, but I'd say that the pirate trilogy did have quite a big and versatile bunch of characters for which to score, too. There were sea monsters, goddesses, soldiers, pirates, the crew of Flying Dutchman, tribe of cannibals and a good selection of different locations on top of that - and what does Zimmer do? Mostly the same as Shore; we hear the themes of these characters over and over again. While there are some new tunes that don't so clearly refer to any certain character or location, they are recycled quite efficiently as well: for example the theme "Hoist the Colors" which came along in PotC 3 is all over the score.
It's a good observation that Shore seems to build his score on characters and locations instead of feelings, although of course he has arranged the themes to fit the emotions on screen. I wonder how much that was the director and producer's choice, too. For someone who's not familiar with the books, it might be quite a relief to get some help from the music to figure out where something's happening and who's involved. I guess "Shelob's Lair" is one of the few tracks that I'd consider to be purely based on the general atmosphere on screen, and therefore quite anxious. Since LotR is oftentimes pretty glum when none of the main bunch of people is on screen, the score represents that, too, which makes it at times a bit uneasy to listen to on its own. Zimmer's score, on the other hand, covers a whole range of emotions: it had its tear-jerking moments and some tracks made me laugh out loud.
In terms of arranging the score for musicians, though, I'm more impressed about Shore's ability to use different instruments and voices in his pieces than Zimmer's. Also, it might be just me, but there are a few parts in PotC 3's soundtrack that sound like Zimmer just dug up his old King Arthur score and did some copying and pasting, but I'm digressing, back to the instruments. Zimmer used some electric cellos and guitars, but that seems pretty conservative compared to how Shore wrote some amazing stuff for most peculiar instruments that really contributed to creating the feeling of a fantasy world. But again, the movies were different, so the scores are bound to be as well. Both composers, however, are skilled with a full symphony orchestra.