This is part of a series (a long-running series at this point).
- The “whole Man of Steel business” is here - https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=116951
- If you want the full set of links, click on my profile.
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Skylanders: SWAP Force (2013) - ***
Lorne Balfe; add’l music by Max Aruj, Andrew Christie & Gary Dworetsky; digital instrument design Mark Wherry;
electronic programmer Stephen Hilton; technical assistants Joe Cho & Nathan Stornetta
TBTF discovery #6. At 45 minutes, this was the longest Skylanders album to date. Thankfully, it had the most satisfying sonic palette of the series, with a lot of fun new elements - atmospheric vocals, bubbly electronics, Eastern instruments, harmonica and whips for a Western passage, and so on. Even the fat synths made for a nice dose of style. Best Skylanders yet.
Beyond: Two Souls (2013) - ***½
Lorne Balfe; produced by Hans Zimmer; add’l music by Max Aruj, Andrew Christie, Gary Dworetsky & Dieter Hartmann;
orchestrated & conducted by Matt Dunkley; add’l orchestration by Tony Blondal, Dave Foster & Jake Parker;
digital instrument Design Mark Wherry; score coordinator Kelly Johnson; technical assistant Joe Cho
TBTF discovery #7.
Zimmer: “This was more interesting than other [games] we had done. We are always looking for that next immersive thing.”
This interactive game about a girl’s psychic link won attention for its cast (Elliot Page and Willem Dafoe!) and praise for its graphics but got more of a mixed reception for its gameplay and storyline. Director David Cage reached out to Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe in early 2012 about doing the game music, though per Balfe “the last thing he wanted was ‘game music!’ Getting a theme for Jodie was hard.” Balfe would in some ways deliver a typical work for the brand, with plenty of churning low strings and several progressions prompting memories of earlier Media Ventures moments of tortured drama (though, with Remote Contorl’s history of strip mining its action music legacy for video game purposes, perhaps it was nice to have one of their game scores be slightly derivative of something else for a change). But, as he had demonstrated in recent scores like Ironclad and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Balfe could add some intriguing wrinkles to somewhat transcend that familiarity: haunting solo vocals, a lullaby, and a stylish sense of aching mystery that arguably drifts into Craig Amstrong territory at times.
Planes (2013) - ****½
Mark Mancina; add’l music, orchestrations & arrangements by Dave Metzger; conducted by Don Harper
“One of the reasons why I don’t do as many film scores is because themes seem to have gone away in a lot of areas. Part of being a composer is being able to write melodic material and knowing how to use it. Wallpaper just doesn’t intrigue me.”
Originally planned as a direct-to-DVD release, this spin-off of Pixar’s Cars franchise ended up being a solid earner at the summer box office despite rancid reviews. Its composer was originally Englishman James Seymour Brett, who’d had a variety of scoring roles over the year (many as part of Michael Kamen’s team) and whose most well-known lead credit at the time was probably the animated film Planet 51, but for whatever reason it didn’t work out and Mark Mancina got a call. “The head of Disney Music called and said ‘John Lasseter has a project he’s doing, he’s really unhappy with the music, his favorite song in The Lion King is He Lives In You.’” Mancina had been largely out of the limelight since the 2007 film August Rush, with his most prominent efforts being episodes of the CBS show Criminal Minds (a show he eventually quit due to its grisly subject matter) and the middling Sony game Sorcery, with side projects including trying to turn August Rush into a musical and recording classical guitar pieces.
“They said, ‘We need themes! We want people to hum the tune.’ The day of playing the theme for John, I passed out over stress and went to the hospital. John played it over and over again and said ‘it’s the best theme anyone’s ever written for me in any movie.’” Lasseter wasn’t kidding. Mancina had written a knockout theme drenched in Americana and sports movie feel that also gave nostalgic joy to the many fans who had loved when Mancina regularly delivered strong themes in the 90s and early aughts. Sure, the score had a solid bench of secondary themes, a number of standout sequences for countries featured in the film’s race (namely a gorgeous Indian interlude), and a delightful mix that balanced orchestra with retro rock. But it’s the main theme that really elevated the musical proceedings from standard adventure fare into something more special.
If you had ever wondered what would happen if Mancina’s Twister was turned into kiddie music, then this is the work for you.
African Safari (2013) - ***
Ramin Djawadi; add’l music & arrangements by Pierre Lebecque,
Brandon Campbell, Jean-Marc Lederman & Quentin Halloy
TBTF discovery #8. This 3D documentary was produced in part by Belgian studio nWave, which perhaps explains Ramin Djawadi’s appearance since he had already done several scores for them. He created a more energetic cousin of the understated music he created for Beat the Drum a decade earlier. It’s a short but sweet listen, one worth visiting at least once to understand the versatility the composer was demonstrating at this point in his career despite perhaps only being widely known at the time for Thrones (or perhaps to hear the embryonic beginnings of the style he would realize more fully in 2020’s Elephant).
Game of Thrones Season 3 (2013) - ***½
Ramin Djawadi; orchestrated by Stephen Coleman & Tony Blondal;
technical score advisors Brandon Campbell & William Marriott
“They shoot all the episodes ahead of time, then [in] post work on all the episodes at the same time, whereas on any other TV show that I’ve ever worked on they’re only a couple of episodes ahead of you, still shooting. On Person of Interest I just get a week to work on an episode. With Thrones, it’s been amazing to have a little bit more time.”
Djawadi would introduce a few new elements, including a brutal repeated figure for the Unsullied army and a lovely slow-moving idea for the budding relationship between Jon and Ygritte. But what will likely stick in most listeners’ minds from this season are the many variations on existing themes for Houses Stark, Lannister, and Greyjoy, Dany, Stannis, the White Walkers, and the Wall, as well as the main theme and its associated rhythm. Some moments still felt a bit too sampled, namely the cheap-sounding thriller tones for the all-time plot twist in the penultimate episode. Still, it was a reliable extension of the franchise’s musical style, and the climactic choral piece Mhysa was the best track from the series so far.
Pacific Rim (2013) - ****½
Ramin Djawadi; orchestrated by Stephen Coleman, Tony Blondal & Andrew Kinney; ambient music design
Mel Wesson; conducted by Nick Glennie-Smith & Jasper Randall; technical score advisor/coordinator
Brandon Campbell & William Marriott; guitars by Tom Morello, George Doering & Ramin Djawadi;
flutes by Pedro Eustache; ‘Drift’ by Djawadi, Blake Perlman & RZA; thank you to Hans Zimmer
“We wanted it orchestral. [Guillermo] wanted an adventure score. But because Guillermo said the rangers are not really military people, they’re more like cowboys, it’s [got] rock and roll. People realized, ‘this makes it cool’, but not too modern.”
“Giant effing robots fighting giant effing monsters” was how I described this Guillermo del Toro love letter to Japanese mecha and kaiju flicks when it came out (I may or may not have also used Pacific Rim Job as my team’s bar trivia team name that week, second in tastelessness only to the later-used Lick-Ass 2: The Jesse Jackson Jr. Jail Story). The film had its moments of silliness for sure, but also featured del Toro’s usual flair for creature design and dark visuals, resulting in solid reviews and decent worldwide box office. Djawadi was a surprise choice to do the film’s music, as del Toro had tended to use Marco Beltrami for his English-language features, but it would end up being an inspired choice. He expanded on the jagged rhythmic style of his Iron Man and Clash of Titans music to realize impressive orchestral volumes without trading off with the desired sense of coolness. A dense thematic bench, including an imposing anthem for the Russian robot crew and an alluring female vocal for the Mako character, helped the work overachieve, even in spite of the Inception foghorn showing up a few times.
”With [the monsters] we decided to go completely traditional, and pretty much like an homage to Godzilla monsters - big drums with trombones leading the thematic stuff. They needed to be [as] equally strong as the robots.”
Not making the original album: a song using Djawadi’s theme that featured the RZA and…actor Ron Perlman’s daughter???
Pain & Gain (2013) - **
Steve Jablonsky; ambient music design Clay Duncan; thank you to Bob Badami
TBTF discovery #9.
“Michael wanted to convey that Wahlberg’s character is in his own fantasy that [he] was never going to attain.”
An extra year between Transformers sequels meant Michael Bay finally got to make another movie about guys punching guys instead of robots punching robots. It also meant a return to the kind of music Bay tended to want from his movies before Transformers (The Island and Bad Boys II in particular) - cool-sounding, reliant on attitude more than melody, maintaining a general vibe for the scene without hitting particular sync points. Steve Jablonsky would claim Bay demanded “full electronic, no orchestra or anything,” leading to experiments with “weird noises” and resulting in a score wholly attuned to the world of its protagonists but an outright chore to enjoy on its lengthy album program.
Ender’s Game (2013) - **
Steve Jablonsky; add’l arrangements Jacob Shea; orchestrated by Penka Kouneva, Larry Rench,
Philip Klein & Alain Mayrand; conducted by Gavin Greenaway; technical score engineer Lori Castro
TBTF discovery #10.
“[At] first there was a U2 song. U2 is awesome, but there was no song anywhere and then all of a sudden ‘Beautiful Day’. It felt wrong. They said, ‘that needs to be huge, and this is the only thing that works.’ So I said, ‘alright, let me try something.’”
The long-gestating adaptation of homophobic author Orson Scott Card’s classic sci fi novel finally started filming in 2012. Respected composer James Horner was aligned to it in early 2013, but after some reshuffling of the post-production team that summer he was out and Steve Jablonsky was in. The filmmakers weren’t looking for music that was “flowery or complicated,” so what he ended up having to write was a sufficient extension of a somewhat stale style. Sure, he put a good amount of thought into his sonic landscape, even recording new drum sounds so that he didn’t feel he was duplicating his Transformers vibe, but for many listeners the epic chord shifts and walls of sound amidst relentlessly chugging strings will still feel akin to that brand. A violin solo in The Battle Room was a nice touch but also evocative of the Game of Thrones title theme. Much of the long album blurred the line between sound design and music, though thankfully no MRI machines were featured this time.
300: Rise of an Empire (2014) - *½
Tom Holkenborg; add’l programming Christian Vorländer, Stephen Perone & Emad Borjian;
orchestrated by B&W Fowler/Moriarty, Kevin Kaska & Carl Rydlund; woodwinds Pedro Eustache;
conducted by Nick Glennie-Smith; thank you to Hans Zimmer & Bob Badami
TBTF discovery #11.
“There was a lot of hobbying. With Artemisia I wanted to play an instrument that had a sexy groove to it. I took the inside of a piano and built a whole closet with it. The only way to play it is with a riot protection helmet. The Greeks had a very interesting flute back in the day called the aulos that sounds like a thin bagpipe; Pedro made something like it in the studio out of straws.”
This prequel / sequel to the commercially successful adaptation by Zack Snyder of Frank Miller’s graphic novel about Spartan warriors ultimately came and went in early 2014 with little fanfare. Snyder was originally only involved as a producer, but rumors of some behind-the-scenes production shake-ups in 2013 were seemingly confirmed by the jettisoning of Spanish composer Federico Jusid in favor of Tom Holkenborg. Per Hans Zimmer, “Tom was noticed in a favorable light by Zack when we were working on Man of Steel. He asked Tom right after, ‘Can you go and quickly do 300: Rise of an Empire for me?’”
Holkenborg only had three weeks. You’d think bludgeoning Superman drums, standard MV/RC chord shifts, and seemingly every stereotypical post-Gladiator Middle Eastern film scoring trope would be all he needed to pull it off in such a short time frame, but Holkenborg would also put his own stamp on the work with stretches of anachronistic guitar, electronica, and even dance music vibes (“this is not like your typical historical drama; the music needed to be modern and almost out of context”). It’s not like Holkenborg put no thought into his rush job; he took up the time to look up the two scales common in ancient Persia and tried to base his melodies and harmonies around those, among other things. But the resulting assault on the ears was bereft even of the guilty pleasures that Ramin Djawadi and team had provided in their last-minute replacement efforts for Clash of the TItans.
Divergent (2014) - **½
Tom Holkenborg; produced by Hans Zimmer; add’l music by Christian Vorländer &
Dave Fleming; conducted by Gavin Greenaway; percussion by Satnam Ramgotra
TBTF discovery #12.
“I hadn’t seen the movie. I had long talks with the producers and the director Neil Burger about what this movie was all about. Based on the script, I wrote 40 minutes of music just inside my head and I sent it out to them. ‘Does this work?’“
Holkernborg’s next effort, the score for this Hunger Games-adjacent book series adaptation, arrived via Zimmer, seemingly as one of his patented “I can’t fit it in my schedule, and may secretly not want to do it, but you should check out this guy” recommendations. Junkie’s drumming and atmospheres definitely dominated the long album runtime (nearly 90 minutes on the digital version), but he also dabbled in some soft rock tones (complete with the vocals of English pop singer-songwriter Ellie Goulding) and sorrowful orchestral laments which were an intriguing deviation from his output to date. The end result still averaged out to being about as derivative as Rise of an Empire, but in a less obnoxious fashion. Baby steps, I suppose.
The Equalizer (2014) - **½
Harry Gregson-Williams; programming by Hybrid, Justin Burnett & Philip Klein; orchestrated by Ladd McIntosh;
electric guitars George Doering & Peter DiStefano; electric cello Martin Tillman; electric violin Hugh Marsh
TBTF discovery #13.
“I stopped scoring for a year because I wanted to do something else I valued, which was teaching music. Unleash[ing] myself from my studio was a good way to recharge my batteries. The first film I [did] when I came back was The Equalizer.”
This reboot of the hit 1980s TV series about a retired intelligence agent overcame mixed reviews to perform decently at the box office (casting Denzel Washington helped). Director Antoine Fuqua had toggled through composers over the years but for this movie returned to the guy who scored his first feature film: Harry Gregson-Williams. The request seemed to be for Harry to provide something akin to the sonic universes of his scores for director Tony Scott and Ben Affleck - largely electronic, decidedly modern, edgy and occasionally aggressive, with a heavy prevalence of loops and thumps. “Antoine wanted sound effects to play a large part in the action – for the music to stand out on occasion, but not always.” One could be forgiven for thinking they’d heard this bag of tricks before, and the score falls somewhere between the caliber of The Town and The Taking of Pelham 123 - sufficient for the film but largely bland on album (largely because the final track had some gloriously badass moments).
During a promotional interview for this movie, Gregson-Wiliams mentioned he was already working on the score for Fuqua’s next movie Southpaw, though his music ended up being tossed in favor of surprisingly gritty material by James Horner. One gets the sense there were no hard feelings as Harry and the director still worked together a few more times.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (2014) - **½
Original music by Paul Dinletir and Kevin Rix; title theme and
add’l music by Harry Gregson-Williams, Justin Burnett & Philip Klein
TBTF discovery #14.
Harry would also return to games with this latest installment of Call of Duty, though apparently only on the condition that he didn’t have to provide music for any of the action (“I’m not a fan of shoot 'em up games”). The resulting 30+ minutes largely played like a less experimental extension of his Tony Scott scores, blended with throwbacks to the Media Ventures heyday and some noble orchestral tones that wouldn’t have been out of place in Prince of Persia. It was serviceable and occasionally quite fun, but not terribly distinctive. It would take until the following year for Harry’s sabbatical to start paying greater creative dividends.
The music production duo Audiomachine created a separate slate of tracks independent of Gregson-Williams’ efforts that I elected not to cover. But going off of James Southall’s review it seems I didn’t miss that much.
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Next time: “I used to be hip, and now I’m this old fart that does only orchestral music and tunes.”
