Final Score
HoW To Train Your draGon: The hidden World John Powell hits the high notes for Toothless’ farewell tour…
On a balmy day in late October, Teasers is fighting back the tears in Abbey Road Studios as a 100-piece orchestra plays a soaringly emotional cue from a climactic scene in How To Train Your Dragon trilogycapper The Hidden World. But here’s the kicker: Teasers can’t even see the screen, such is the power of John Powell’s dazzling score.
Bafta and Oscar-nominated for his work on the first film, Powell has composed more than 70 feature soundtracks across his 25-year career, including Face/Off, the Bourne series and, most recently, Solo: A Star Wars Story. But the popularity of his work on the Dragon movies still takes him by surprise. “People have come up and said, ‘I really enjoyed the music to Dragons ever since I was four,’” Powell says in a soundproof room just outside the orchestra pit. “Somebody described it as
the music of their youth. I’m like, ‘How did that happen?!’”
As well as the stunning cue for [redacted] sequence, The Hidden World contains “a whole sevenminute beach scene” and “a beautiful romantic flight” that director Dean DeBlois claims are “carried completely by the music and the visuals”. As with the second film, The Hidden World will feature new themes alongside returning favourites, which Powell is deploying for maximum emotional impact. “A lot of this film is about separation,” Powell explains. “As you get to the end of the movie, that’s when stuff starts coming back, because it has a reason to.”
Though Powell has plenty of high-profile live-action work on his CV, his heart lies in animation because “the style of what’s required [for live action] has changed”, a change he admits “I was partly guilty of with Bourne”. Not so in the animated space, where luscious melodies and hummable themes are encouraged. “With animation, I get to write music that is going to bloom in a way that I enjoy myself.”
ETA | 1 FEbruAry / How To TrAin your DrAgon: THE HiDDEn worlD opEns nExT monTH.