In sum, without any consideration of Bates' more serious transgressions in the assembly of 300, the resulting music is a two-star effort. It panders to the lowest common denominator of blockbuster action music for topics set in times long past. Bates has claimed that the lack of overarching structural coherence in a thematic sense was intentional, stating, "To be honest with you that's not really the direction I like to go with scoring so much. When somebody comes on the screen and you hear their theme all the time, it's just not my sensibility." He even admits that "What I wanted to do was create certain motifs that supported a mindset, or an emotion, or a circumstance that we're experiencing dramatically for the film." To that end, he succeeded to a basic degree. The problem for the young composer arose when it came to balance his own research with the temp track that was obviously used in various places throughout the picture. The composer maintains (correctly, given the nature of the graphic translation of the topic) that a direct application of traditional sounds would not have functioned in 300, though he did supposedly look backwards for some inspiration. "I definitely researched a lot of choral work and it's very difficult to find any reference to anything before the 5th Century," Bates continues. "I knew that I wanted voice to be a part of it, but it's just my nature to probably always do something that is a hybrid of sorts." Somewhere along the line, however, he got thoroughly tripped up by the temp track placed into the film, thus transitioning this review into its second (and necessary) half. Temp tracks have been around since the earliest days of cinema. Before there were early film scores to play to the photography of new productions, directors would play classical music on phonographs in synch to the projected rough edits, giving the studio composer some insight into what the director wanted. This process has evolved to a level that is so grotesque that it has restricted many composers from the liberty of producing what could be fine film scores if not for filmmakers' insistence on mimicry. There's something actually quite satisfying when a director simply goes ahead and spares the composer the headache of imitating a temp track by simply licensing the music from a previous film for use in the new one. Accomplished composers like Jerry Goldsmith would roll their eyes at the temp track and simply take the assignment into the direction of their choice, usually resulting in superior results. Others simply do their job, earn their pay, and move on.

When a composer replaces his or her own creativity with the editing skills of a temp track arranger, a piece of their soul, as the saying goes, is indeed lost to the studio. A man like John Debney has made a career out of such endeavors. Music editors heeding the whims of filmmakers have become an all too common and unfortunate occurrence in today's society, as pointless and irritating an occupation as animal talkers who double as pet psychologists and professional organizers who live out of suitcases and charge $90 per hour. Cleansing the soul in such manners has its price, however, and for Bates, his debacle over 300 has brought him financial fortunes but also significant ridicule that will likely kill any chance of widespread respect for his music in the future. Plagiarism happens in film music, and in the last thirty years, no composer has stirred discussions about this fact more than James Horner. The difference between Horner and Bates, however, is that Horner has proven his ability to write masterful music without the need for inspiration from the past. Bates' music for mainstream films in the 2000's outside of 300 has amounted to a steamy pile of sonic feces, artistically underachieving at every turn despite satisfying a select few in the industry. A tremendous amount of disdain has rained down upon him for his transgressions involving 300, and as much as you pity any composer who is trying to earn a paycheck by writing the right music for the wrong expectations, there is no excuse for his plagiarism in this instance. In the few years prior to 300, most of the plagiarism-related talk in the film music industry revolved around the challenges against Zimmer's Gladiator, for which the composer had been sued in court. Bates' problems in 300 make Gladiator look inconsequential, leading to the unprecedented move by Warner Brothers to acknowledge very publicly that Bates' music is not entirely original. After the wrangling of lawyers, the studio added an asterisk to Bates' name in the movie poster (and DVD) credit section, followed by "*Derived in Part from Preexisting Compositions Not Authored by Tyler Bates." Furthermore, the studio issued a statement in August of 2007 that stated, "A number of the music cues for the score of 300 were, without our knowledge or participation, derived from music composed by Academy Award winning composer Elliot Goldenthal for the motion picture Titus. Warner Bros. Pictures has great respect for Elliot, our longtime collaborator, and is pleased to have amicably resolved this matter."

Collectors of Elliot Goldenthal's music had already picked up on the clear plagiarism long before. The Leonidas/Spartan theme (in "Returns a King" and "Come and Get Them") is clearly identical to "Victorius Titus" in Titus, not only in the progression of the vocalized theme, but even in the style of the slapped and pounded percussion in that cue. This is truly film score plagiarism at is most inexcusable. Why couldn't Bates have done what most of his peers have accomplished and made enough subtle changes to stay legal? Less obvious but still definitely connected are Bates' "Remember Us" and Goldenthal's "Finale," and similar fragmented hints exist elsewhere in the score. These similarities are well documented because of Goldenthal collectors' great affinity and respect for Titus, but the problems don't end there. Bates also managed to anger another entire segment of the population: Macedonians! As early as April of 2007, it had been revealed by Macedonian reporters that the lovely theme for the Queen in 300 was actually derived in full from the regional folk song "Zajdi, Zajdi Jasno Sonce" (Set, Set Bright Sun), a piece that traditionally defines Macedonia apart from the larger Yugoslavia. While the song was credited in arthouse productions like Powder Keg and Savior, no such acknowledgement was made in 300, and Bates was even forced to address these reports specifically with the rebutment, "I can't say there is a specific source of inspiration for the cue." Additionally, the application of Ali's vocals in these cues and elsewhere, including the wavering of pitch one note above or below key, is highly reminiscent of Gabriel Yared's rejected score for Troy. Film music collectors have pointed out several other connections to previous scores, all of which damning the sum of Bates' work for 300. These include Horner's replacement work for Troy, Vangelis' Alexander, a few Zimmer scores outside of Gladiator (led by Black Hawk Down), and, as previously mentioned, a handful of Haslinger scores in the industrial segments. It is perhaps fitting that Christopher Lennertz conjured an extremely effective parody score of 300 for Meet the Spartans that quite literally made explicit fun out of all of these references. It shouldn't be surprising that Lennertz's take on the same ideas is infinitely superior in terms of its structural coherence and instrumental intellect, too. Meet the Spartans, in playing the topic seriously (as any good parody score should), is therefore a much more entertaining listening experience out of context.

The most inexcusable aspect of Bates' handling of 300 is that it was completely unavoidable. There were many ways to give the film a unique aural texture to match its striking visuals. Much was said about the different pacing of various elements in the blue-screen and special effects layers of the film's final visual mix. To coincide with characters in the foreground moving in slow motion and surrounding action whizzing by at faster than normal speeds, Bates could have written two layers of music at equally striking differences in pace and layered them like Goldsmith did in The 13th Warrior and Ennio Morricone accomplished in The Mission. Such intelligent juxtaposition of tempo could have offered 300 the kind of intellectually satisfying sense of originality without sacrificing the hard-nosed industrial and masculine tone of the music. Ironically, the mix of the music in the film isn't always that spectacular anyway, with much of the final battle sequence, from "Xerxes' Final Offer" to "Glory," buried in the sound effects edits. The score experienced deluxe treatment from Warner Brothers before the Goldenthal issue thankfully put an end to the parade of 300 CD products pushed at fans with too much expendable income. A regular CD and a "special edition" were released together in March of 2007, the latter featuring the same music but providing lifeless fans with a 16-page booklet and three trading cards. Just days before Warner's admission of the plagiarism, its music branch dropped a "collector's edition" into stores, a product with a 42-page case-bound book complete with the "Blood Spatter" art debossed and foil-stamped on the cover. Unfortunately, in between the Corniche Silk end sheets (seriously, do people really care about this nonsense?), there are only two pages devoted to notes about the score, leaving the rest for photography from the film that will probably be used by some men for masturbatory purposes. Three additional original score tracks and a nasty remix of "To Victory" await your $40+ for a new copy of this product, and none of these cues adds anything significant to the other 25 tracks of previously available music (though "First Battle Push" is a somewhat decent summary of the score's other action material). In the end, Bates' 300 isn't worth any of these albums, proving that intelligence from composers now comes at a premium. He said at the time, "I have as much respect for a garbage can lid as I do for the orchestra. Both of them can be entirely useful and important in the scope of a movie, if you look at them the right way." That's a wise statement, but it's completely irrelevant unless you can actually use that garbage can lid in a manner that doesn't break the law.   @Amazon.com: CD or Download