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Filmtracks Editorial Review:
The process of working with James Cameron for Aliens turned out to be one of the most exhaustive nightmares of James Horner's career. Horner assembled the London Symphony Orchestra in an effort that would tax even the best of their abilities, as the composer and director could not see eye to eye on practically every end result cue in the film. While Cameron did not dismiss Horner all together, the hacksaw methods by which Cameron seeks his directorial perfection causes the scoring of his films to be nearly impossible for any composer (except, perhaps, Brad Fiedel, whose scores are so simplistic that some massive editing doesn't particularly harm them to any great extent). As a result of Cameron's hair-raising editing techniques, all but the opening and closing cues of Horner's score were altered, cut, replaced with Goldsmith's original, moved to other scenes, or chopped beyond recognition. Horner did not have the time or frame of mind to keep up with all of these changes, and although he was excited to be part of such a large budget and potentially classic film, he walked off of the scoring stage a frustrated man. It was a bittersweet experience that would cause Horner and Cameron to dislike each other for nearly a decade, before some persuasiveness from Horner and some reluctant acceptance by Cameron would, of course, lead to Titanic. Between the two of them, the subject of Aliens has simply been dropped. Opinions about the merits of the Horner score vary widely. Some consider it a classic of all time in the horror genre. Others consider it too repetetive of his previous scores to warrant much attention. I belong to the latter crowd, although the repetitiveness of the score is only one of its flaws. As with the film itself, the score is a frightfully disjointed and spike prone experience. Aliens is a difficult listen unless you are aware of the surprise, sudden strikes of the orchestra and the lengthy sequences of nearly inaudible underscore. Such is the way of any horror score, but especially with Aliens; the hide and seek nature of the film leads to a score that is a very bumpy ride. The score also suffers from a complete lack of originality. Nearly every redeeming motif and instrumentation in Aliens can be heard --often in better forms-- in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and, especially, Brainstorm. The latter score contains some of the best uses of Horner's harsh brass and easily identifiable rhythms, and Aliens does little to move beyond them. Emphasizing brass and percussion to almost a fault, Horner produces a functional score that, for the mass of viewers, works well in the film. To the Horner fans, it is a score too highly derivative of his early 1980's efforts to be considered a stand-alone classic. The highlights of the score are those militaristic action sequences that Cameron mutilated the most in his editing of the score, but at the same time, those are the same sequences that are the most repetitive. Perhaps the most interesting is the interpretation of the Klingon music from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock into key action sequences such as "Futile Escape." Unlike Goldsmith's score for the original, the highlights of Horner's effort do not reside at the start and end, but rather during the non-horror action sequences of militaristic movement. The score for Aliens was one of the last to be released in the LP format. In fact, the Varèse Sarabande LP of Aliens was followed only one year later by the CD, which had the identical 40 minutes of content that existed on the LP. The "deluxe" edition of Aliens released on CD in 2001 presents over 75 minutes of Horner's music in its pre-cut form. So intead of simply remastering the music that had been previously available, or presenting the choppy result of the film, Varèse Sarabande has completely remixed the original tapes of the score and provides the score that Horner had intended for the film to have. Also included are a handful of alternate takes and a few samples of the percussion section before they were mixed with the other elements of the score (which really make no sense --I would have rather heard the brass on their own). Even with these flaws, the "deluxe" edition offers the best possible presentation of Horner's original intent. For casual fans of Horner, the music on the original CD is still the best he wrote for the film, although I suspect that an extra thirty minutes of score and remastered sound will be an appealing attraction nevertheless. Aliens represented the last of Horner's early career style, and as though signalled by the Academy Award nomination for An American Tail, he would adopt a more lush and string-inclusive style that would explode in Willow and The Land Before Time just eighteen months later. Maturing digital recording technologies would also vastly improve the sound quality of Horner's music during that time, making Aliens the last large scale Horner score to lack the trademark surround sound of Horner's soon to come, best known scores.
The 2001 Album: **** Overall: ***
* Previously Unreleased
The 2001 expanded re-release includes lengthy notes about the film and score. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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