Buy it... if you've always loved the themes from the original Back to the Future score but were discouraged by the simple regurgitation of them in the first sequel; they are explored more intelligently in the final entry.

Avoid it... if you seek the tight cohesion, overwhelming sense of wonder, and full thematic spectrum of the first score, for Alan Silvestri does lose some of its magic in his attempt to explore new thematic territory.

Silvestri

Back to the Future Part III: (Alan Silvestri) Written and partially produced at the same time as Back to the Future Part II, the final installment of the Back to the Future franchise in 1990 was afforded an identical budget to its predecessor (about $40 million) but returned by far the least in grosses of the three films. Still popular enough with critics and audiences to produce a decent profit, though, Back to the Future Part III features a solidified storyline that avoided the potentially confusing level of time paradox pitfalls of the second entry. After preserving the proper timelines in the past, present, and future at the end of Back to the Future Part II, Doc Brown and his time-traveling DeLorean are hit by lightning, forcing him back to 1885 and disabling the car. Upon recovering the hidden vehicle in 1955 with that version of Brown, Marty McFly has to travel back in time once again to save Doc from an untimely death. With the majority of Back to the Future Part III set in 1885, the film enjoys a consistent plot with pithy parallels to the 1950's part of the trilogy, and it culminates in one of the most exhilarated train sequences to ever be shot for the screen. Composer Alan Silvestri had received countless accolades for his work for Back to the Future, and much of its music was reprised in the 1989 sequel. Before production got far with Back to the Future Part III, the composer did write a short, Elmer Bernstein-inspired Western theme to accompany a teaser of the third film contained at the end of the cliffhanging second one. It overshadowed a score for Back to the Future Part II that was technically adept and contained a few interesting alterations to the first film's material, but on the whole wasn't original enough to really extend the music's own narrative. Entire sequences of the score for Back to the Future were seemingly copied and pasted into the sequel, with only one new, forceful suspense theme explored in the altered realities of that story. Finally breathing new life into the Silvestri's music for the franchise was Back to the Future Part III, which not only offered a few memorable new themes to the mix, but also relied less upon the straight reprises of previous thematic incarnations that plagued Back to the Future Part II. The downside to that equation is that some of the more integral secondary thematic elements of the first two films are underplayed in Back to the Future Part III.

Returning to close out the trilogy, of course, is Silvestri's primary theme for the franchise, split as usual into its triumphant fanfare and adventurous rhythmic halves. Because the last moments in the 1955 period of the first film are briefly recounted, the composer opens Back to the Future Part III with restatement of his standard finale, segueing it to a short burst of the fanfare for the official title of the third film. Thereafter, Silvestri's employment of the theme's two parts is more fragmentary than before, adapting it smartly into the new theme for the train and other surviving elements from the prior scores. Even in the finale of the third film, Silvestri alters the pacing of the conclusive phrases of the theme's two parts to signal the definite end to the overarching story. The performances of the adventurous half of the theme sound far more inspired in this score than in Back to the Future Part II, played with genuine excitement during the lengthy train sequence and with striking beauty in its mingling with the love theme for the film as well. The fanfare receives a compelling translation to redemptive strings early in "It's Clara (The Train Part II)." Diminished from the picture (and practically absent from the score's album release) are the wholesome theme for Marty and the bubbly, frantic rhythmic theme for Brown. The only remnant from the positive side of Back to the Future that doesn't completely fade from relevance is the series of tingling, percussive triads that are using as descending stingers for magical moments on screen. Its most prominent usage is at the start and end of the film; the motif opens the score with three sets of pairs and is intriguingly merged into a longer descending figure of similar tone at the opening of "Doc Returns," the dying embers of the car's life. The rambling danger motif that represented the troublesome Biff Tannen in the first two films is once again broadened in its application to action scenes in Back to the Future Part III (just as it extended to the "Clocktower" sequence in the original), though it's mostly confined to background depth. The suspenseful preparation rhythm from the mall (and Libyan gunmen) sequence in Back to the Future Part and "The Future" in Back to the Future Part II is heard briefly in "It's Clara (The Train Part II)." Of these evolutions of theme, the lack of bigger role for the original Marty and Doc themes seems odd, especially since the timeline of the films suggests that each story takes place immediately after the previous one.

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Although the primary theme of time alteration from Back to the Future Part II wasn't particularly memorable, it is incorporated into moments in the third film that suggest that the timeline could be changed for the worse. On album, this menacing material is most notably heard in the first half of "The Hanging," a few seconds in "Point of No Return (The Train Part III)," and, with a lighter touch, in the first half of "The Future Isn't Written" (the last actually making use of the full theme as heard in "My Father!" in the previous score, but in a much different tone). The new themes in Back to the Future Part III include the Bernstein-styled Western idea previewed at the end of the prior film and a love theme for Doc and a woman he saves in 1885. The former doesn't really have much of a place in Back to the Future Part III outside of comedy usage, foreshadowed in "Hill Valley," bursting suddenly in "We're Out of Gas," and anchoring part of "End Credits." The love theme, reminiscent of some of Jerry Goldsmith's character themes of the 1990's, is heard extensively throughout the score, gorgeously flowing in "Main Title" and several later conversational cues before impressive full ensemble performances in "Doc Returns" and "End Credits." These latter two cues fully expose the fact that the theme's closing phrase mirrors "When You Wish Upon a Star" a bit too closely for comfort. The reference does hit the right sense of innocent wonder, however, so it works. Somewhat more nebulous, but figuring heavily in the climactic closing to "Doc Returns," is the theme for the train, a three-note motif that gains momentum along with the doomed engine. Accompanying it is a secondary six-note phrase, a series of two-note stingers, and puffing snare rhythm obviously meant to mimic the sounds of the locomotive. So much of the action material from all three scores is passionately merged into the two later train cues that Silvestri almost creates an all-new atmosphere of adventure for just this fantastic scene. The singular "Indians" cue offers that chase scene its own parody of stereotypes. The album includes the ZZ Top source piece "Doubleback" as well, rounding out 45 minutes of music on the product. Unfortunately, the presentation of Back to the Future Part III is completely and nonsensically out of order on that album. On some CDs, the rearrangement is nothing more than awkward, but here it's extremely irritating. Nevertheless, you can't fault much with Silvestri's conclusive score. It may not have the overwhelming cohesion or sense of wonder as the original, but it is an intelligent exploration of new territory that adapts the existing themes with far more satisfaction than its predecessor. ****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Alan Silvestri reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.34 (in 32 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.27 (in 30,725 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.