MELO Round 1 - Into the West

The next song for round 1 of the 2014-2015 MELO was Into the West, the closing credit song from Return of the King. Can I go off on a little bit of a rant here? There is no way that this song, or any closing credit song - or, a more proper name would be "music to leave the theater by" - should ever be considered for best song Oscar. It's simply lazy for the director to get some great songwriter/performer to come up with some great song and then do the easy layup and get an oscar. IMO for a movie to be "best song" it should actually be part of the movie proper (i.e. the movie before it fades to dark and credits start rolling). Another nominee that year, A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow, from A Mighty Wind. If you've seen that movie (and if not, you should), you'll know that that song was an integral part of the story of that movie, and perfectly fit its role. Also that year, the Triplets of Belville was driven by the music rather than dialogue, and the key song from that was another one better worthy of "best original song". Okay, rant over, Into the West is certainly a beautiful song and the lyrics point to the final journey of Frodo. Three different builders gave us Grey Havens scenes. Sadly, no one was gutsy enough to build a scene from the TNT miniseries Into the West set on the American frontier during the late 1800's.

Joseph Olsen built this excellent Grey Havens scene and sailed into round 2.


Jacob Syrups built the same scene, but did not score quite as well and so his ship has sailed away.


Tomsche Murrath took a micro approach to the Last Ship's sailing, but also did not advance.