I do believe this issue underscores(
) a common flaw in the soundtrack releases of Hans Zimmer. His music is often quite wonderful(running the gamut from period music-DRIVING MISS DAISY-to Korngold swashbuckler to urban chaos)...yet the actual soundtrack releases tend to be awful.
He has a tendency to hide the lack of full 'song' concepts(ala Williams STAR WARS-SUPERMAN works or Elfman's own BATMAN stuff)with albums arranged in monsterous suites of themes. This, of course, plays havoc with continuity and can often damage the impact of the music when being appreciated on it's own.
PACIFIC HEIGHTS comes to mind. PEAR HARBOR, which has(despite the feelings about the film itself)a splendid theme also suffers on album..and even the rash of unofficial 'complete' PEARL scores that have burped up fail to impress. Even one of his best, CRIMSON TIDE, is a bit un-listener-friendly. The bat species names on the BEGINS score are a clever touch, but combined with the slapdash rearrangement of thematic material it(as can be noted in this thread) can be a score fan nightmare. On the other hand, with BEGINS there was very little 'theme' to speak of and the music had a more primordial feel(the idea of 'proto-theme' has already been mentioned around here) and as a film score it was pretty nebulous...a traditional score album would have been a bit difficult to sequence.
Maybe I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to film scores...
I'm in my mid thirties, love Herrmann, Waxman(even Prokofiev, Wagner and Respighi), was weaned on Williams(in his absolute peak phase!) and Goldsmith, have no gripes on Elfman at all and am one of the biggest Newton Howard fans around...but I always prefer a score that hugs the chronological concept of the film it comes from(though it doesn't have to
have the visuals to compliment it).
Shore's LOTR music shines on album, despite it's sprawling scope in the films themselves.
