Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you seek a transitional score that leads you from the early days of atmospheric suspense music in the series to the later years of harmonic romanticism. Avoid it... if you expect a score that truly embodies the electronic spirit and soul of the episodic scores that Mark Snow provided for the series on television. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
The X-Files: Fight the Future: (Mark Snow) Rare is it that a feature film based on a television series is released right in the middle of that series' lifespan on the small screen, but producer/creator Chris Carter and his regular The X-Files crew managed to pull it off. Even more remarkable is that the film not only fit into the storyline of the show perfectly, but it also was a success on its own. Generating positive buzz from people who had never seen a single episode on TV, The X-Files: Fight the Future intelligently satisfied both avid fans and the regular mainstream... a rare feat. Directed by one of the show's regulars, the film's successful run promised of the possibility of another film in the future, though none has come in the following ten years. The plotline of the film runs like an extended episode, with larger production budgets for locations, sets, soundtrack, and guest stars. The fact that the film leads fans to an alien spacecraft in Antarctica is no surprise to aficionados of the series, and the script even opened several new plotlines for future episodes to reference. Composer Mark Snow had been writing music for the series for all of its five seasons to the date of the film, and had his own cult following as a result. He had received six Emmy nominations spanning work for The X-Files and Millennium and had begun to venture into television and video films with varying success. His work for the The X-Files episodes was typically dominated by synthesizers, for the weekly television schedule never afforded him the time to work with an orchestra. With two months and a significant number of re-cuts to work around in producing the score for the feature film, Snow was given a large enough budget to hire a studio orchestra to create a beefed-up, more complex version of his weekly X-Files music. In the early days of the show --and the film came at the end of that period-- Snow's music was not really that listenable outside the show. Only in later years of the series did he explore more harmonic ideas for the growing romantic aspect of the show's overarching plotline. The feature film score serves as an interesting transitional score for the two sounds. As expected, the electronically whistled title theme for the show is translated to Fight the Future, and its incarnations are among the highlights of the score. In "Threnody in X," Snow provides the theme over masculine, synthetic rhythms reminiscent of the Terminator films. In its favor are those rhythms and harmonic bass accompaniment, though fans will immediately note the absence of some of the elements of the theme in the show that truly make it what it is. Gone from the theme (and the entire album) is the trademark echoing effect that is almost as famous at the whistling... a serious omission. This performance would be heard during a helicopter-shot driving scene in the middle of the film, curiously. The theme rarely makes subsequent appearances, with its fragments finally put together once again for the finale's "Crater Hug" cue. The action and suspense cues seem like an odd combination of Snow's non-X-Files efforts and the dissonant experimentation of Elliot Goldenthal. The Goldenthal influence is clear in several places where Snow plants incongruous layers of shrieking strings and brass, in some cases mirroring what Goldenthal did the same year in Sphere. The resemblance to some of Snow's superior feature efforts is best heard in the back-to-back "Crossroads" and "Corn Hives" cues, which introduce the composer's trademark synthetic choir from the era. The driving orchestral rhythms in "Crossroads," led by timpani and largely absent of the murky electronics, produce the single best cue of the score. A few pieces later in the score will remind of other composers, including James Horner's Aliens in "Corn Copters" and an adaptation of the title theme into James Bond fashion in "Cargo Hold." The more ambient cues are highlighted by the translation of the solo piano into the film. Many of the motifs heard regularly in the show are not featured in the film, however. Fans of the show will find considerable merit in the score, though coming on the heals of his simply spectacular score for the television production of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea only months earlier, Snow is capable of better. Traditional orchestral film score fans will find parts of it tedious, with only ten of the 67 minutes on album worthy of compilation. Snow has, quite sadly, slipped from mainstream view in the years since The X-Files concluded on television. *** Track Listings:
Total Time: 67:50
(total and track times not listed on the packaging) All artwork and sound clips from The X-Files: Fight the Future are Copyright © 1998, Elektra Entertainment. The reviews and notes contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Filmtracks Publications. Audio clips can be heard using RealPlayer but cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 6/2/98, updated 7/22/07. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 1998-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
