This is part of a series (a long-running series at this point).
- Here’s the last post on a bunch of sequels - https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=117220
- If you want the full set of links covering the Too Big To Fail era or earlier, click on my profile.

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Interstellar (2014) - ****½
Hans Zimmer; orchestrated by B&W Fowler/Moriarty, Kevin Kaska, Carl Rydlund, Elizabeth Finch &
Andrew Kinney; conducted by Gavin Greenaway & Richard Harvey; ambient music design Mario Reinsch;
sequencer programming Andrew Kawczynski & Steve Mazzaro; technical score engineers Chuck Choi &
Stephanie McNally; organ at Temple Church performed by Roger Sayer; Cynthia Park as Zimmer’s assistant

“I got to talk to a lot of scientists. There’s something really nice about reading as opposed to being on the internet. I remember as a kid sitting on the floor, looking at those Time Life books, amazing photos from NASA, etc. We were [sort of] doing that again.”

Christopher Nolan continued his seemingly unimpeded march to critical and commercial success with another time-manipulating movie, this one about deep space travelers looking for potentially hospitable worlds. The film received largely laudatory reviews and immense box office, though some audience members were a tad befuddled by a final act that finds Matthew McConaughey’s astronaut stuck in a four-dimensional bookshelf (built by…future humans?) communicating with his daughter in the past via morse code, a sequence the YouTube comedy series Honest Trailers would term “full blown M. Night Shyamalan.” Obviously Hans Zimmer was attached; arguably Nolan/Zimmer had become a director-composer partnership on par with famous pairings like Spielberg/Williams and Burton/Elfman. “People say, ‘Why do you write such scores for Chris Nolan?’ Well the answer is in the question, isn’t it? Because it’s Chris and I. We’re staying on story and just trying to figure this out.”

An oft-repeated story during the movie’s press tour would be how the music originated. Before production started, Nolan gave Zimmer a note about some of the themes of the movie without giving away any of the plot and asked Zimmer to get back to him in a day with some musical ideas. The resulting Day One piano demo was, in Zimmer’s words, “really just about what it meant to be a father.” Only later would Nolan explain to him that it was a big ol’ space opus. Zimmer would later claim he hid in London during production to expand on his ideas. “So much of it takes place with people in isolation. I locked myself away in [my] apartment and didn’t see anybody for a month.” The absence of any credited additional music composers gave rise to the impression that Zimmer wrote nearly all of the score himself, though given how music tends to be realized on Nolan’s movies (in some cases with music editors manipulating portions or even individual instrumental lines from Zimmer’s suites into passages that are then re-written as actual music) it’s more likely that programmers Andrew Kawczynski and Steve Mazzaro had a fairly active role in helping to realize Zimmer’s creative vision throughout the entire film.

If the BWAM was perhaps the easily identifiable sonic component of Inception, then that element for Interstellar would undeniably be the sound of an organ. “We sat down and made a list of everything we’d done and what we’re left with. We’ve done the big drums, we’ve done the synthesizer stuff. And Chris said ‘what about church organ?’ I thought it would sound like a Frankenstein horror movie. But by the 17th century it was the most complex machine ever built by man, and it was actually built to be in the creation of music, so that’s not so bad. I thought [I’d give it] a go, how to write something which is not gothic, try a new vocabulary for this amazing piece of technology.” Organist Roger Sayer would describe the composing process as creating “as we were going” once Zimmer started to understand what he could get out of the instrument. Zimmer for his part would unsurprisingly describe the organ as “really a huge, complicated synthesizer.” The organ lends an optimistic, almost heavenly sheen to the film, an effective shorthand for the grandeur and possibility of what’s out there without indulging in the usual scoring tropes of astronaut or science fiction films (all genre trappings that Nolan wanted to avoid).

The score is often at slow tempos, frequently contemplative, and on occasion fairly repetitive, but it largely pivoted away from the brooding heaviness that many of Zimmer’s blockbuster scores had provided over the past decade-plus. There are moments of extreme restraint, including some evocative dreamy soundscapes, yet also moments of gargantuan walls of sound, or perhaps waves of sound in one sequence involving a tidal threat. It possibly took “maximalist minimum” to a new extreme - Honest Trailers would also joke that Zimmer “fell asleep on his organ” - and it might have bored some listeners, but many others found it to be a striking accomplishment, if not in full at least in parts such as the magnificent spaceship rescue sequence covered by No Time For Caution, a TBTF era highlight for Zimmer which astonishingly wasn’t part of the original CD-length album release.

“The night before recording, we had a big dinner with all the principals in the orchestra to talk about our ideas. If you just write middle C onto a page, it means nothing if you don’t give it context [on] where these notes fit into the tapestry of this film.”


Skylanders: Trap Team (2014) - **½
Lorne Balfe; add’l music by Max Aruj, Gary Dworetsky & Thomas Farnon; digital instrument
design Mark Wherry; solo violin Christine Wu; technical assistant Joe Cho

Skylanders was covered here: https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=113090
Giants was covered here: https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=113153
SWAP Force was covered here: https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=117113

TBTF discovery #17. “I always start by seeing the drawings of characters and environments. The actual gameplay isn’t always finished when I start so you have to use your imagination!” This expansion would double down on legacy Media Ventures music mannerisms to the point that my wife thought Pirates of the Caribbean was on at one point. It was fine enough, but was also a world away from the wild sonic palette of the 2013 entry, and thus the least essential score of the series to date.


Penguins of Madagascar (2014) - ***½
Lorne Balfe; orchestrated by Oscar Senén & Joan Martorell; orchestra conducted by Gavin Greenaway;
choir conducted by David Hernando Rico; music programmer & score technical engineer Max Aruj;
Steffen Thum as Balfe’s assistant; ‘He Is Dave’ by Balfe & Antony Genn; thank you to Hans Zimmer

TBTF discovery #18.

Madagascar was covered here: https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=109055
Escape 2 Africa was covered here: https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=111646
Europe’s Most Wanted was covered here: https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=113153

“I didn’t feel I could write that type of big-band, swing music. It wasn’t something I [listened] to.”

This spinoff of the Madagascar franchise was an unfortunate box office disappointment given its daffy charm, physics-defying action, and ace vocal work; getting John Malkovich as an aggrieved octopus was an all-time casting coup. It was a significant career milestone for composer Lorne Balfe though. After spending nearly a decade writing additional music or getting co-composition credits for Dreamworks, going all the way back to Curse of the Were-Rabbit and including significant contributions to both Madagascar sequel scores, he was finally given the lead composer role on a Dreamworks gig. “Sometimes I’m brought in 2 weeks before because they’ve forgotten about the music. With Penguins I was brought in a year and a half [before]. The great thing about film is that you have ideas and you change. If I wrote a piece of music at the piano, that’s it, it’s ‘correct,’ [but] I rewrote my first track 30 times. Film composers are film composers because they like working as a team.”

The penguins had been backed by caper jazz in the Madagascar films, and Balfe would stay consistent with that approach while adding in some of the aggressive mixed-meter action energy he had brought to Megamind and Kung Fu Panda 2 and also finally giving the birds a memorable main theme. Retro rock for the North Wind organization and a charming theme for the penguin Private helped elevate this snazzy variation on the typical Dreamworks “house style” of music. Bonus points for riffing on the Batman Begins Latin bat name track titles by having Latin penguin names for this score’s album track titles.


Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014) - ***½
Mark Mancina; arranged & orchestrated by Dave Metzger; conducted by Don Harper

Planes was covered here: https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=117113

This sequel was seemingly rushed out only a year after the first Planes, though its production had actually been going on for four years, having been green-lit while the original was still being made. Middling reviews and lower box office earnings than its predecessor would bring the spin-off franchise in for an emergency landing, though at least it would provide another chance for Mark Mancina to revisit the awesome theme he had written for the 2013 movie. Funny enough, that theme would largely be underplayed this time, and the score would mostly abandon its predecessor’s retro rock feel for more of a straightforward orchestral romp. One new idea almost hilariously rips off of the whistling and pomp of the music from Chicken Run, and absent the wild regional interludes from the prior effort the score played more to genre expectations. A minor disappointment.


Big Hero 6 (2014) - ****
Henry Jackman; add’l music by Dominic Lewis & Paul Mounsey; orchestrated by
Stephen Coleman, Andrew Kinney & Gernot Wolfgang; conducted by Nick Glennie-Smith;
choir conducted by Jasper Randall; score technicians Victor Chaga, Vivian Aguiar-Buff & Antonio Andrade

Wreck-It Ralph was covered here: https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=113153

“I needed to write a big, old-fashioned theme on the piano. It isn’t a film where a textural score [works]. These days, live-action people want a reduced score. In animated films there’s this overt celebration of fun, and your music becomes reflective of that.”

This charming animated superhero film (loosely adapting a Marvel comic) would reunite Henry Jackman with Disney two years after Wreck-It Ralph and five years after he worked with director Don Hall on Winnie the Pooh. Jackman would get to indulge in both his symphonic side and his more production-oriented side, providing a often-thrilling multi-thematic adventure sound that would occasionally spill over into more hip-sounding electronics and keyboards. “By the time you get to a cue like Silent Sparrow, it’s more in the tradition of serious symphonic writing. We are well past Nerd School and into some heavy duty revelations. You’ve got real music for when it gets dramatic, not stuff that just sounds cool.” It lacked the more outlandish highlights of Ralph, but arguably made for a more consistent listening experience.

After a flurry of animated scores in the early part of his film career (many of them quite good), this would be the last one Jackman would work on until 2018, perhaps due to his schedule continuing to get packed with more and more high-profile live action gigs.


The Interview (2014) - ***
Henry Jackman; add’l music by Dominic Lewis; orchestrated by Stephen Coleman; conducted by Nick Glennie-Smith;
synth programmers Victor Chaga & Vivian Aguiar-Buff; score technical engineers Antonio Andrade & Ryan Robinson

This Is the End was covered here: https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=116843

In another universe, The Interview is perhaps seen as just a middling comedy with a great performance by Randall Park as North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. But in our universe, this movie became infamous for the North Korean government’s threats over its release and their later hacking of Sony that led to the cancellation of the movie’s theatrical release, the resignation of Sony’s co-chairperson Amy Pascal, and other scandals over the studio’s emails. Jackman would later recall, with astonishment, “reading a headline saying the North Korean government said there will be repercussions [and] thinking [they’re] always saying that, and then Obama’s on the phone with Sony. It was surreal. I couldn’t believe it was a matter of national security.”

As with his music for his last collaboration with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (This Is the End), the intent was to play serious music to bolster the comedy. “My pitch was music that Kim thinks ought to be played when he struts out with the fake medals he’s awarded himself. A cross between Beethoven and Shostakovich, something I could’ve shown to my music professor. Dead straight, strict, pompous as hell. The harmony is slanted so it feels like the imperial entry for a slightly off-kilter person.” The music largely plays like standard action thriller material, though the classically-inclined Kim pieces remain impressive.


Pixels (2015) - ***
Henry Jackman; add’l music by Halli Cauthery; orchestrated by Stephen Coleman, Andrew Kinney & Gernot Wolfgang;
conducted by Nick Glennie-Smith; synth programmers Victor Chaga, Maverick Dugger & Kevin Globerman

Were you as puzzled as I was when the famed 2010 short film about arcade characters running amok in the real world was adapted into an action comedy with Adam Sandler and Kevin James? Didn’t matter. The film still did decent business worldwide in spite of rancid reviews. Director Christopher Columbus, far from his heyday helming Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire, would have his composer omit any callbacks to the featured characters and even any obvious electronics. “Chris, who’s a great lover of adventure scores of the 80s, felt like since we have the iconic images and sound of those games, if we also do that with the score that’s a hat on a hat. It [was] more effective to play it straight, otherwise it gets goofy.” This mirrored the approach Jackman had taken for earlier Rogen/Goldberg comedies (“if the comedy is working, the score should take a backseat”). The music had several fun outbursts, but felt a tad workmanlike. Funny enough, after years of professing admiration for Alan Silvestri scores like Predator and Van Helsing, Jackman basically delivered an ersatz Silvestri work for Pixels.


Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015) - ****
Henry Jackman & Matthew Margeson; add’l arrangements by Dominic Lewis, Jason Soudah & Alex Belcher;
orchestrated by Stephen Coleman & Andrew Kinney; conducted by Gavin Greenaway;
score technical engineers Trevor Black, Victor Chaga, Antonio Andrade & Vivian Aguiar-Buff

X-Men: First Class was covered here: https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=113009

Released as Valentine’s Day counterprogramming, this kinetic, gleefully rude adaptation of Mark Millar’s spy comic was a surprise hit that produced two later (albeit inferior) follow-up films. It would unite Jackman with director Matthew Vaughn for the third time, and was also one of the first composer credits for Matthew Margeson, a longtime member of Jackman’s team whose first industry job was being Klaus Badelt’s assistant on Catwoman. “On additional music or orchestrating gigs with Henry, he’s already established what the scenes, colors, and instruments are. At that point it’s bringing manpower to get done by the deadline. With something like Kingsman or Kick-Ass 2, we’re both at the piano from the beginning, so there’s a respectful collaboration.”

Part of the process would mirror what Jackman went through with Vaughn on First Class, namely the tinkering with and simplifying of various musical ideas to meet the director’s specific vision. Jackman would claim “we had a Valentine theme, but it was posh, too Jerry Goldsmith” (Margeson would call it “Wagnerian”). “Matthew [Vaughn] was like ‘disco.’ I remember thinking…disco? To me, disco is kick drum, open hat, baselines. How the hell has disco got anything to do with adversary music? [But take] the baseline, distort it, forget drums, slow it to 90 beats per minute, and this sounds cool.”

That villain idea admittedly would be the score’s least interesting idea, though the composers still found ways to have its surrounding textures subtly harken back to the spy music of yesteryear - piercing flutes, brass chords straight out of John Barry’s Bond scores, and so on. And that speaks to a large part of this work’s charm. Sure, it was very much an extension of Jackman’s now-familiar mannerisms. But it also seamlessly integrated that 60s spy sound without coming off as haphazard, another testament to Jackman’s skill at weaving multiple genre influences into a cohesive whole (evident since Puss in Boots). Margeson said they didn’t “listen to Bond, the old Avengers show, or even Mission: Impossible or Bourne. However, we want to honor this genre, every once in a while bring in a vibraphone, or have an alto flute, [or] have the trumpets put in Harmon mutes and inject a little swank. We are still in a British spy film, but it’s our own take on it.” The result was by far the finest version of Jackman’s contemporary action style to date, an overachieving take on the concept that smartly synthesized old & new and was an immense asset in its film, especially with it being tied together by a very memorable main theme.

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Next time: “It feels like 15 years, but I think it’s only about four.”

> Interstellar (2014) - ****½

I adore this score. Ranks as among Zimmer's best, and frankly, it's a five-star top-20-EVAR score for me. One of the very few times that the Zimmer hype had a finished result that matched its publicity. The score and the film have both stuck with me, and that wall of organ sound remains thrilling. I think the No Time For Caution not making the album was because it didn't really exist as a cue at the time per se, but had a track overlaid with elements from Mountains (at least to what I understood). (Also, Coward was a far better take on the same ideas, in my opinion, so if you chose between the two for the album, that's the winner

What a mess this was on album though, and Clemmensen rightly dinged them for it. Cues exclusive to multiple platforms, deluxe editions, a popular cue with an unreleased film version, it was a mess and encouraged piracy, as he pointed out. I'm glad Zimmer's cut that out.

> Skylanders: Trap Team (2014) - **½

Like the others, not heard, but I definitely want to explore Skylanders, despite your diminishing ratings lol

> Penguins of Madagascar (2014) - ***½

Strongly underrated film, I just love these penguins. This was an early new score that came out when my score-listening was catching fire, but it took me several years to hear it. Zany, fun music, proving Balfe's versatility and skill. (Can't wait to hear what you think of Home!)

> Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014) - ***½

Apparently this film's better than the original, but I'm not really interested in seeing it to find out. Mancina's score suffices and occasionally excels, but isn't as strong as the original. I am due a re-listen though.

> Big Hero 6 (2014) - ****

Oh, what a film! This is a stunner that shows up the MCU without really trying, and has my favorite Stan Lee cameos. I think of First Flight and go FIVE STARS FIVE STARS FIVE STARS because oh, what a cue! I do remind myself that the rest of the score isn't *that* good, but it's all well done. I loved his comments about how animation lets you let loose like this, and it's a pity he doesn't do animations more, because it's always his best work. That main theme sticks in my heart, and defines the joy and melancholy in the story.

> The Interview (2014) - ***

I basically feel the same way about this as I do This Is The End, though I think this is a slightly stronger score. So yeah, I'd say this is a solid four-star effort, though I again see what you mean about "not in on the joke" parody music. What a debacle that situation was for the film. Side note, I saw it on DVD the next year and was left with a "...that's it?" feeling. It was occasionally clever, but talk about excessive publicity for a mediocre film!

> Pixels (2015) - ***

The music is good but not memorable. Say what you will about The Interview, but I do remember the rip-snorting action from the finale. The movie is rightfully forgotten. Poor, poor QBert...

> Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015) - ****

Wonderful score to a funny movie. I agree with everything you wrote, a fun genre effort that reproduces and sends up some classic genre tropes onscreen and in the music. I haven't seen or heard either of the follow-ups, but what I've read is basically what you said, so I'm not in a huge hurry.

> -----------------------

> Next time: “It feels like 15 years, but I think it’s only about
> four.”

Now if that ain't a pandemic mood, I don't know what is lol

I just love these series, and you're getting into music that was formative to my tastes, so I shall be gushing more!

> I think the No Time For Caution not making the album was because it didn't really exist as a cue at the time per se

Usually such passages are re-composed by Zimmer's team once Nolan's music editor has set up what they want; Steve Mazzaro explained this as part of the job of a 'sequence programmer.' That this WASN'T the case perhaps implies that they ran out of money or time. 99% of the time this probably isn't a big deal because these 'assembled' tracks are just minor material and not, like, the freakin' highlight of the score as heard in film.

> What a mess this was on album though, and Clemmensen rightly dinged them for it. Cues exclusive to multiple platforms, deluxe editions, a popular cue with an unreleased film version, it was a mess and encouraged piracy, as he pointed out. I'm glad Zimmer's cut that out.

It wasn't Tron: Legacy bad, but it was close!

> Like the others, not heard, but I definitely want to explore Skylanders, despite your diminishing ratings lol

They will keep diminishing (or, rather, staying this low), although the fifth game contains one of the strangest tracks I've ever heard. Every score fan owes it to themself to hear at least once. Someone must have spiked Lorne's hummus!

> I basically feel the same way about this as I do This Is The End, though I think this is a slightly stronger score. So yeah, I'd say this is a solid four-star effort, though I again see what you mean about 'not in on the joke' parody music. What a debacle that situation was for the film. Side note, I saw it on DVD the next year and was left with a '...that's it?' feeling. It was occasionally clever, but talk about excessive publicity for a mediocre film!

Yeah, my wife and I had a similar reaction when we watched it on VOD over the holidays when it came out.

I feel bad for Randall Park who gave an all-time great comedy villain performance (award-worthy!) and got next to no attention for it, though at least he got on Fresh Off the Boat shortly after.

> Wonderful score to a funny movie. I agree with everything you wrote, a fun genre effort that reproduces and sends up some classic genre tropes onscreen and in the music. I haven't seen or heard either of the follow-ups, but what I've read is basically what you said, so I'm not in a huge hurry.

Golden Circle is one of those 'let's run it back!' sequels that's fine enough but decidedly less inspired than its predecessor; there's even another climactic 'butt stuff' joke which is still good but not as funny as the first film's one.

The King's Man is even more odd, basically playing it straight and losing the saga's rude edge in the process. I didn't hate it like some reviewers did (that Entertainment Weekly review is really something though), but it's a shockingly nondescript movie, save for the Rasputin bits. About the only surprising thing it did was include a pop song variant on one of the score's themes in the end credits, something that didn't make the corresponding album (probably for the best).

Music's a different story. I called The King's Man 'John Powell writing a Medal of Honor' score the day it came out - when I couldn't sleep thanks to getting COVID. Rumble got a first listen in the wee hours of the morning as well, so being sick was a bit more tolerable that day!

And thanks to this rundown providing opportunities for some reevaluations I might like Golden Circle's music almost as much as Vikram does.

> Usually such passages are re-composed by Zimmer's team once Nolan's music
> editor has set up what they want; Steve Mazzaro explained this as part of
> the job of a 'sequence programmer.' That this WASN'T the case perhaps
> implies that they ran out of money or time. 99% of the time this probably
> isn't a big deal because these 'assembled' tracks are just minor material
> and not, like, the freakin' highlight of the score as heard in film.

Ahhhh, ok, I see what you mean. Thanks for explaining that. Talk about an absurd situation!

> It wasn't Tron: Legacy bad, but it was close!

Oh god, I had forgotten about that! It was before my time by just a hair, but I remember tracking down the bonus cues on YouTube. What a mess that was.

> They will keep diminishing (or, rather, staying this low), although the
> fifth game contains one of the strangest tracks I've ever heard. Every
> score fan owes it to themself to hear at least once. Someone must have
> spiked Lorne's hummus!

Ok, now I HAVE to know! XD

> I feel bad for Randall Park who gave an all-time great comedy villain
> performance (award-worthy!) and got next to no attention for it, though at
> least he got on Fresh Off the Boat shortly after.

Oh god yes, I remember enjoying it. Never thought I'd see such a nuanced performance from a Rogen/Franco film, and yet he balanced humor and seriousness. Really sold the seriousness of the journalists' situation and the absurdity of the scenario. I want to rewatch it now just for him!

> Golden Circle is one of those 'let's run it back!' sequels that's
> fine enough but decidedly less inspired than its predecessor; there's even
> another climactic 'butt stuff' joke which is still good but not as funny
> as the first film's one.

A reprise of my least favorite bit of the first film, oh joy

> Music's a different story. I called The King's Man 'John Powell
> writing a Medal of Honor' score the day it came out - when I
> couldn't sleep thanks to getting COVID. Rumble got a first listen
> in the wee hours of the morning as well, so being sick was a bit more
> tolerable that day!

That is a truly enticing description, I'm going to have to check this out! I hope it's not repetitive to say, but I just love love love this series. You're shining a light on a lot of little-discussed works (for better or worse) and have lots of interesting things to say, on top of the journalistic rundowns and quotes. I'm always hyped!

> They will keep diminishing (or, rather, staying this low), although the
> fifth game contains one of the strangest tracks I've ever heard. Every
> score fan owes it to themself to hear at least once. Someone must have
> spiked Lorne's hummus!
Please enlighten us, what is this cue!? You can't just tease that!

Interstellar is one of my favorite scores ever, perhaps my favorite score of all time. When I walked out of the theater, the score stayed with me for days. It was almost like they made the movie because of the score not the other way around. It really helped too that I work in the biomedical field and I love science and I really do think this is one of the best tributes to science ever done. I agree with the Jonesy that this is the one time where Zimmer's minimalist approach and his genre experimentation statements completely lived up to the hype. I still listen to this score on and off today.

> Interstellar (2014) - ****½

Really enjoy the film... up until the end. Personally think it would have been far better to keep it "show don't tell" similair to "2001" as opposed to having McConaughey constantly narrating what's going on. To be honest that felt like a studio note of needing to explain what's happening, but whatever. Everything up to that point is aces, though.

As for the score, I really enjoy it but still feel it's a firm 4/5. Even after watching the film several times it just doesn't quite click as a full-on masterpiece to me though this with TDK and Inception are easily the best of "minimalism in blockbuster writing" that Zimmer had done until "Dune" (controversial take, I know).

As usual, my take from back in 2014:
https://soundtrack-universe.blogspot.com/2015/01/interstellar-standard-edition-review.html?q=interstellar

> Big Hero 6 (2014) - ****

Really enjoyed the film and the score in context. Looking back at Soundtrack-Universe I never covered the soundtrack, though based purely on memory I'd probably agree with 4/5. Don't really remember any specifics but also don't remember anything heinously based, either.