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Starship Troopers: (Basil Poledouris) Anyone who
has actually read Robert Heinlein's 1959 novel "Starship Troopers" knows
that director Paul Verhoeven's 1997 adaptation of the classic
science-fiction tale was never meant to be completely loyal to the
concept. Verhoeven took the premise and the characters of Heinlein's
story and created a satirical parody of both it and the ridiculous
television teenie soap operas of the 1990's. Throw in some glancing
blows at the idea of a fascist utopia, the usual gratuitous voilence and
nudity necessary for any Verhoeven film, and a poke at the news media in
the Internet age... and you eventually get a film that simply can't be
taken seriously on any point. It exists at a level far below the already
questionable intelligence of Verhoeven's
Robocop and
Total
Recall, and no attempt is made to hide that fact. For his
soundtracks, Verhoeven worked regularly with Jerry Goldsmith and Basil
Poledouris, both providing outstanding music for his previous films.
While either could likely have written appropriately frenetic military
bombast for
Starship Troopers, the raw side of Poledouris' brutal
sound for similar films of immense violence, going all the way back to
Conan the Barbarian, made him the better choice. Because of the
extensive post-production and special effects work necessary to bring
the alien bugs of
Starship Troopers to life, Poledouris was given
an astounding six months in which to write and adapt his music for the
film, consulting with Verhoeven frequently along the way. The director
demanded rousing music of such a bombastic nature that Poledouris
commented on the fact that each cue began taking on the characteristics
of a separate title theme. As the process of lining up these monumental
cues continued, Verhoeven identified the theme that he considered to be
the primary idea of the score, and Poledouris adapted it for full
statements throughout the film. A slightly altered version of this title
theme is a curious aspect of a few key cues in the score, too. The
finished music for
Starship Troopers constituted a soundtrack
that very much resembles the film: wildly hyperactive and lacking
centralized development. It's the definition of a "thrill of the moment"
score.
Poledouris' ballsy recording for
Starship
Troopers, explosively powerful and extremely heavy on the brass, is
mixed in a very straight foward, in-your-face manner. The very flat
recording accentuates the score's tendency to reach out and punch you in
the face, though it understandably detracts from whatever elegance the
music might have mustered. The orchestral ensemble is standard as well,
with practically no instrumental or synthetic color. In fact, notable
solos are difficult to come by as well. The "wall of sound" approach
differs from David Arnold's
Independence Day, with which
Starship Troopers was often compared at the time, because Arnold
made much more flamboyant use out his themes. Poledouris' music, rather,
only maintains an idea for as long as a cue continues, rarely lending
ideas that would pop up with greater development later on. Thus, the
score's strengths are those individual cues that really knock you out
with their propulsive, harmonic ruckus. On Varèse Sarabande's
commercial album, Poledouris' only major recurring ideas would be
presented at the outset. For the ridiculous faux-fascist Federation
Network and its propaganda, Poledouris writes an extremely trite
military march for rolling snare and high brass heroicism straight from
the newsreels of the 1940's, with even a slight Western genre wink of
the eye to make fun of the perceived innocence of the call to arms. The
album immediately seques into the infamous "Klendathu Drop" cue,
accompanying the opening to the human invasion of the bugs' world. This
main theme for
Starship Troopers opens the cue on harsh brass
tones, and while the brash, patriotic nature of this theme feels
sincere, it's too structurally simplistic to be taken really seriously.
It's a theme meant for popcorn, disposing of any notion of complex
design in favor of brute force. Still, the theme is satisfying enough in
context, and equally robust performances of this idea would extend into
the opening of "Destruction of the Roger Young" and the conclusion of
"Brainbug." Despite the use of this theme and the "Fed Net March,"
Starship Troopers could likely have benefitted from further
exploration of those ideas.
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In "Klendathu Drop," Poledouris systematically alters
the theme for an interesting variant. At 1:45 into the cue, he changes
the second note in the theme so that it forms a distinct precursor for
the dramatic progressions of
Les Misérables the following
year. This more ominous version of the theme's opening bar provides a
more serious edge to the remainder of "Klendathu Drop," aided also by
frantic violin counterpoint that lends another dimension to the work.
Rattling percussion in this cue sets up a premise of using the
percussion as representation for the bugs, and while Poledouris does
indeed do this in subsequent tracks, he bypasses the use of creative
layers in a cue like "Bugs!!" with a more simplistic bed of timpani,
stylistically similar to Goldsmith's use in
L.A. Confidential and
other heavy suspense work. This "Bugs!!" cue in particular is yet
another example of Poledouris' choice to overwhelm the listener with
noise rather than give the him or her any intelligent musical idea to
associate with the nasty aliens. A few plucks on strings here and there
are largely washed away. Among other singular moments of note, the
string section provides relief in "Dizzy's Funeral" (after likely an
accidental reference to John Williams' catchy
Close Encounter of the
Third Kind fanfare at 0:10 into the cue, started on violin and
finished by horn) and "Brainbug," which treats the massively ruthless
and ugly creature with an almost religious, organ-aided crescendo.
Overall, however,
Starship Troopers is ear candy, taking the
heroic style from
Robocop and magnifying it to nearly silly
degrees that are, on the surface, engaging in their volume. But the
score lacks much development and its album unfortunately contains one of
the two grungy songs performed by Poledouris' daughter, Zoë. Fans of
the score have often criticized the half-hour length of the album, and
even Varèse Sarabande laments the circumstances that caused it.
Double-CD bootlegs based on the isolated DVD score for the film offer
extensive additional material, including the film versions of all the
cues that were remixed or rearranged for the Varèse album.
Devoted fans have long since ditched the commercial album for these
bootlegs, though rumors about expanded official treatment for
Starship Troopers have persisted for over a decade.
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| Bias Check: | For Basil Poledouris reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.47 (in 33 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.27
(in 32,977 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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