The Catch-Up: The House of the Dragon, Halo, and The Witcher

Unsurprisingly, the holidays are a particularly busy time in the realm of film trailers. For its brief window of opportunity before Omicron begins to dig into box office profits, Spiderman: No Way Home returns blockbuster revenue to heights not seen since 2019. It’s a somewhat surprising affirmation of the theatrical release: for all the hand-wringing about balancing exclusivity between premium-tier streaming platforms (such as Disney Plus Premier Access) and other alternate methods of windowing, it does appear that—variants be damned—people also just want to go to the movies. This being said, streaming television series with high production values are also clearly here to stay. Here are a few that caught our eye—and ear.

The House of the Dragon

A spinoff of Game of Thrones was as inevitable as, well, winter—and here it is. With series music by Ramin Djawadi (Iron Man, Eternals, entries from the Gears of War video game series, and more) and trailer music by Versus Music, the soundtrack continues to define and carry forward modern epic music without clearly referencing the GoT score. The first half leans more on vocalization, whereas the second half emphasizes percussion. It starts with a simple but effective synch between scene changes and the militant beating of a single drum on the downbeat, working in double time moments later as the action ramps up. A cello appears at the very end—while a stretch to suggest that it could refer to the Game of Thrones theme, a piece for strings, it’s certainly a hint at something more. The House of the Dragon premieres in 2022 on HBO Max.

Halo

Directed by Otto Bathurst (Black Mirror, Robin Hood), this TV series adaptation of the long-running Xbox series of video games continues the trend of television shows with production values indistinguishable from the silver screen. The teaser’s music really serves to presage Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori’s Halo theme, clearly inspired by Gregorian chant. Considering that the first few games were released during the peak of the “War on Terror”, it becomes especially understandable how the theme gained cultural significance and notoriety—both among gamers, and now with a public where being a gamer isn’t the subculture that it once was. As Mel Magazine notes, the theme’s inherent accessibility, with step-wise, slow melodies, and popular appeal have rendered it eminently imitable and performable across social media.

As for the trailer itself, it opens with piano at the extreme ends of the register, and the harmony in the brass between these extremes exhibit and elusive tonal centre: what we think should be the “home chord” shifts down a whole tone, and so on, exhibiting a sense of expansiveness and wonder appropriate to the series’ futurism. The high note in the piano acts as a pedal tone, which along with the narrator’s intermittent voice acts as a through line that assists greatly in weaving together the tonal arc. Moreover, the slow-moving resonance of the music also offers an emotional counterpoint to the on-screen action and synchs with the changes of shots. At 0:50, with the arrival of protagonist and series stalwart Master Chief, a glorious wordless choir emerges in the arrangement—none too subtly, but the audioviewer is certainly prepared for the moment. Of course, the aforementioned series theme rounds it out in male-choir, wordless chant style. Halo debuts on Amazon Prime in 2022.

The Witcher: Season Two

While The Witcher could be seen as Netflix’s answer to HBO’s premier fantasy franchise Game of Thrones, musically there is more to it: Joe Trapanese is the series’ composer for season two, and the in-universe bard, Jaskier (Joey Batey), has followed up “Toss A Coin To Your Witcher” with a new tune, “Burn, Butcher, Burn”. This makes it all the more bewildering, if the YouTube comment section is to be believed, as to why this trailer would instead opt for trailerized, rearranged rendition of “Monster” by Kanye West, featuring Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj, and Bon Iver, instead of the music for which this series is known—and acclaimed. One might even believe that maybe the track was placed in an effort to get more people to talk about it due to its perceived misplacement—there’s no such thing as bad publicity, after all. There is the high-energy overall feel to the track, and it at least thematically resonates on the surface (“everybody knows I’m a monster”, West raps, as the titles tell us that “destiny is a beast”). It also sets a tone that isn’t quite so self-serious as The House of the Dragon clearly is—and the trailer ends with a punchline, to reinforce setting that tone. The Witcher’s second season released on December 17th, on Netflix.

These are just a few recent and upcoming releases that caught our attention as of late. Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook for the latest observations and insights in trailer music and sound analysis, and we hope you have a safe holiday season!

— Curtis Perry