Filmtracks: Godzilla (David Arnold)


Arnold

Godzilla: (David Arnold) TriStar Pictures spent several years trying to find the right production crew to tackle the Godzilla concept they had purchased the rights to in 1992. They found their duo in Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, whose hit parade was in full force by 1998 and were riding the fiscal and popular success from Independence Day and Stargate in the years prior. The first large-scale Americanized version of the Godzilla tale sent the giant lizard to New York City in what was supposed to be another Independence Day-sized extravaganza on the big screen. The hype for the film was based on the motto "Size Does Matter," though in the end it turned out that the size of both budgets and expectations mattered as well. The film did well at the box office at first, but fizzling popular demand for the traditionally Japanese franchise caused the film to lose audiences' interest long before the prior two collaborations had. A terrible plot and extremely harsh critical response to the film put a dent in Devlin and Emmerich's action film careers, and the project was noted by film music fans as the end (at least for a decade) of the working relationship between the two filmmakers and their friend and composer David Arnold. In the process of composing and producing the score for Godzilla, Arnold, Devlin, and Emmerich suffered a blow to their friendship, and they did not resume their collaboration thereafter. The exact reason for the parting has been hypothesized in many variations (despite being downplayed by Arnold himself in later years), with many people believing that the extreme cuts and eventual lack of commercial score album caused the problem. The significant changes in final film edits in post production, mostly due to special effects insertions, caused the mixing crew to rely on a series of generic cues recorded by Arnold in the event that the original recordings did not synch up with the final scenes. Arnold also had the difficulty of dealing with a title character that literally is not seen until late in the film, and even later for those involved in the production.

Not only was Arnold was writing music blind, but he also knew that several scenes in the film would be overwhelmed by sound effects to such an extent that subtleties in his music were unnecessary. Many of his admirably crafted themes, even for quieter situations, are lost in the film. Still, where the film's plot and acting failed to deliver even an adequate performance, David Arnold did. Drowned out by many of the sound effects and curious edits in the final product, the score for Godzilla didn't play as big a role in the film as all of the composers' prior efforts. Arnold's earlier scores had each blasted across the screen with glorious thematic intensity, but the themes of Godzilla failed in the film to much the same extent as Matthew Broderick's miscast role. While not as robust in scope as Stargate or Independence Day, and not as eclectic as Tomorrow Never Dies, the score for Godzilla remains a very strong entry in Arnold's career. It eclipses most concurrent action scores in its sheer noise and monstrous thematic statements. The score picks up some enormously entertaining and driving action music during the scenes as New York prepares for the arrival of Godzilla, with patriotic brass and snare-dominated cues of fully orchestral bombast of the best Arnold kind. The composer has mentioned that his favorite theme from the score is the one he wrote for the American military, and indeed, it's a stirring addition to the ideas of Independence Day with an elegantly noble interlude that highlights the entire score. In the central portion of the film and score, when the main character is taken off the case, Arnold kicks in a dramatic secondary love theme that prevails in several cues later in the score. The brooding theme for the lizard itself, heard most ominously in the opening credits of the film, is ironically the least interesting. It proves once again that Arnold is best at his patriotic and victorious action themes and lofty love themes with layers of strings. The composer does keenly adapt the monster's underwhelming theme into a largely choral and string-based statement as it is killed while protecting its young.

The concluding "The End" cue is a fantastic suite that wraps up both this positive variation on the title theme while also providing some air time to the love theme, a hint of the military theme, and the darker variant of the monster's idea. Several uses of scrappy, metallic instrumentation carry over from the popular Tomorrow Never Dies score in the previous year as well. Only a minimal use of a massive choir is employed, which is somewhat curious given the request by the filmmakers to make the monster into a creature of awe rather than pure fright. Arnold does unleash the voices at the monster's actual death scene in dramatic fashion, though. Some listeners may find the overall package to be somewhat derivative of Arnold's typical 1990's blockbuster sound, though while this criticism may have carried more weight at the time, the fact that the composer has not returned to that sound in the subsequent decade has caused an understandable amount of affinity for the score. Slight comparisons between some of the lesser motifs of this score and John Williams' music for the first two Jurassic Park films have also faded with time. One of the reasons why the score never achieved the status it deserved at the time was because of its album situation. The original plan was for Sony to release both the standard song compilation and the score on separate products; the score album was formally arranged and prepared for release. Sony had even leaked the news of a score-only album to be released later in 1998. But the failure of the film's performance in the weeks after its debut caused Sony to balk on that product. The song album was produced by Devlin and Emmerich themselves, and the blame for a horrendous outcome of its contents rests on their shoulders. Despite selling like hotcakes for a number of months, the album was slammed by rock and metal song critics in nearly every major publication. Even Entertainment Weekly, a publication not known for its detailed coverage of orchestral scores, stated that "it's telling when the best cut on this mostly pop soundtrack is an orchestral one." Mainstream listeners quickly changed their minds about the disappointing song performances and the album began filling used-CD bins by the many thousands.


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The commercial song album contained only about four minutes of Arnold's score, which obviously did not satisfy his growing fanbase. The composer had a promotional album pressed for Academy Award consideration in January of 1999, and the bootleg market in turn began pressing their own copies of that release almost immediately. Meanwhile, whereas Arnold's original promotional albums disappeared quickly, the bootlegs of Arnold's score continued to proliferate madly in the growing online marketplaces, often changing the material provided based on whatever extra music fans could adequately rip. The originally identical 49-minute promos and bootlegs will surprise many film score fans, making one wonder how such good music could become so lost in the film. The promo/bootleg is littered with grand performances of Arnold's typical bombast, making it very consistent in its elevated volume and major key resolution to every heroic measure. For some reason, Devlin and Emmerich decided to include the first two cues from the score (mixed together with several seconds overlapping) on their commercial album. Unfortunately, these two cues are among the weakest of Arnold's work for the project. In fact, the first three cues on the promo/bootleg are the only truly uninteresting entries on the entire album, making the choice of the first two for the commercial album even more curious. Had Devlin and Emmerich filled those four minutes with music from the evacuation sequence, the score might have experienced more demand from the start. The entire issue about the albums was rendered moot in 2007, however, when La-La Records released a 3,000-copy pressing of Arnold's complete score. This attractive product spans two CDs, with four alternative takes following the full score to provide a 110-minute listening experience. For general film music collectors, this set may seem like overkill, especially when the previous score albums offered a well-rounded presentation of the score. The sound quality is equal on all of the releases; it isn't spectacular, but its choral cues are clear and the acoustics are reasonable. With so much hype surrounding Arnold's successful move to the James Bond franchise at the time, it's partially understandable that this score was somewhat forgotten. But if you have any affinity for Arnold's large-scale efforts, then don't hesitate to pick up any of the versions of the score on album.

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Bias Check:

For David Arnold reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.21 (in 14 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.33 (in 37,463 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.