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SpaceCamp: (John Williams) When anybody in the summer
of 1986 thought about NASA and the American space shuttles, their memories
would become fixed on the sight of the Challenger exploding tragically
against a blue sky on a crisp morning earlier that year. And yet, in an
incredibly bad stroke of luck, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration was just finishing up its collaboration with ABC Motion
Pictures to release
SpaceCamp, a comedy thriller about a bunch of
bratty kids who are accidentally shot up into space aboard a real shuttle.
The real life summer camp teaches bright young kids everything about flying
a shuttle (supposedly this camp really existed) and claims that the best of
the lot could actually do it. The film spends over an hour trudging through
endlessly boring and predictable character conversations between the kids.
Kate Capshaw is the unfortunate leader of this group of twits, and she gets
propelled into space along with the group when a robot conveniently launches
them unexpectedly. Anybody who believes that NASA would actually allow a
group of these kids into a shuttle during a booster rocket test might find
some merit in this ridiculous movie. You almost wish that the shuttle had
blown up all over again and saved the country from the potential of these
kids spawning a future generation. At any rate, being a kiddie movie,
everything turns out fine in the end... except for audience reactions. The
studio delayed the film a few months because of the Challenger explosion,
but that didn't save the film from quietly slipping through theatres into
oblivion. As laughable as it is, one might wonder why composer John Williams
was so enthusiastic about his involvement with the project. This would be
his lone film score in the 1985-1986 years, and while the assignment may seem
like an odd choice when considering the low quality of the film, it makes
sense if you look at the direction Williams was taking with this career.
Since becoming involved with the Boston Pops at the start of the decade, and
achieving almost God-like status on the conductor's podium, he began writing
themes for concerts and special events that were all extensions of his
Star Wars-born orchestral bombast.
In the mid-1980's, Williams discovered this highly
patriotic style of concert writing that would eventually lead to specialty
themes such as "Liberty Fanfare," "Celebrate Discovery," "Jubilee 350," his
Olympics work, and even the "Mission" theme for NBC news. In his film
scores, this style of writing would debut in
SpaceCamp and forever be
best represented by that score. Between the concert track and the finale,
Williams' patriotic writing is at its very best. The grandeur and exuberance
of these fully orchestral statements of broad, hopeful themes are what
define Williams' career, and these two similarly-minded performances in
SpaceCamp save the score from its otherwise average underscore.
Despite Williams' best intentions, much of this score dwells in
non-description regions of Williams' writing that takes considerable pages
from his disaster scores of the early 1970's as well as some of the lesser
interesting underscore from the original
Star Wars. The suspense
presented in the latter half of the score ("White Sands" is very similar in
style to
Jurassic Park) fails to state itself with effectiveness,
with flat performances and poor recording quality hindering significant
portions of the score. Once spoiled by the brass fanfares of the title
theme, the training cues do their best to mute their heroism with
restrained, but still hopeful brass solos. The identity of the kids really
isn't addressed, even in the woodwind and string interludes over flowing
harp; Williams seems to have his sights set on the expanse of space and
little else. The only exception is the outrageously dated "Training Montage"
cue in which Williams poorly attempts a modern light rock rhythm with a drum
machine. The remainder of his score is pleasing, although we've heard every
element of the music rendered with better results in other works, on screen
or in concert. There are several outstanding moments in
SpaceCamp,
but a flat recording and lack of stylish performance are the ultimate
downfall. A CD album was never released until 1992, when a limited, 1,000
copy run was produced in Japan. This BMG/RCA "club" album escalated rapidly
in value and has sold in auction for over $200. While the score would be a
very strong find as a used-CD, or even at new CD bargain prices, its
outdated sound and lack of distinct ideas reduce its attractiveness. It's an
admirable effort from Williams, with two incredible cues, but you'll hear
everything in
SpaceCamp to a much finer degree in other places.
***
| Bias Check: | For John Williams reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.72 (in 63 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.67
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