: (James Horner) Every filmmaker strives to
someday create the next "cinematic event," but James Cameron had a
proven ability to focus years of his attention into achieving just such
success. Conceived of in the mid-1990's by Cameron was the premise of
, but technological advancements in film only allowed him
to begin tackling the topic in the following decade. True to his
self-professed "king of the world" stature, Cameron wrote, directed,
shot, and, in some cases, edited the resulting blockbuster himself,
emboldened by a budget well over $300 million and the powerful marketing
efforts of 20th Century Fox. Not only did Cameron plan on pushing CGI
animation to levels only explored on the surface by Peter Jackson's
trilogy, but he would attempt to master a
3D technology that had always previously caused difficulty with screen
darkness. His story is clearly modeled after recent American history,
telling of the corporate exploitation of a far-away world in the
interests of mining its resources to help save a hopelessly polluted
Earth. Humans' interactions with the people of Pandora, the Na'vi, begin
peacefully but eventually resort to forceful military relocation.
Parallels between the Na'vi and Native Americans are unmistakable, not
to mention a few connections to America's war in Iraq in the 2000's and
ongoing environmental issues. Beyond all the innovation in the rendering
of Pandora's setting and creatures, as well as the purely gung-ho
American displays of Marines in action (does America's military bravado
represent all of Earth in 2154?),
-like
love story resulting between the two leads despite an obvious culture
clash. When one of the Marines' Na'vi-like avatars, meant to infiltrate
the indigenous population, is helmed by necessity by a paraplegic
ex-Marine named Jake, he is saved by a surprisingly sensual and tough
Na'vi woman, with whom he learns about the people's culture. Not so
surprisingly, he switches allegiances.
between
Na'vi and humans through the perspective of these lead characters,
Cameron achieves the same balance between heart and destruction that
kept audiences coming to
a dozen years earlier. Despite
early skeptical buzz, responses to
by major critics were
overwhelmingly positive, many claiming it to be the best film of 2009.
Not only did they declare the 2-hour, 40-minute running time merited,
but the 3D rendering was generally effective. It successfully attained
all of the "game-changing" descriptors that Cameron was seeking,
sneaking his political agenda into relevance within a romantic science
fiction narrative. Also the recipient of much attention once again was
composer James Horner, for whom
remained an endless
stream of income and his only source of Academy Award statues in a
storied career. With that project having patched up whatever lingering
confrontational issues Horner and Cameron had experienced early in their
careers (
wasn't a pleasant assignment for Horner by any
means), the composer voluntarily devoted a full eighteen months to
in early 2008 and toiling from early to
late every day on perfecting each cue for Cameron's epic. "I'll have to
recover from that and get my head out of
," Horner joked
late in the process. He recognized immediately that the scale of this
score would need to eclipse everything else in his career, likening the
difference between
and previous assignments to
hi-definition and a mono cassette. He insisted upon basing the score's
foundation around a traditional orchestral environment. "I had long
discussions with Jim [Cameron] and we decided that mainstream audiences
were not ready for an avant garde experience," Horner recalls. "They
don't listen to avant garde music and
is not an art film.
The score needed to be grounded. That's where the world's ear is."
On the other hand, Horner was at liberty to bring all of
the various ethnic elements he had utilized throughout his career into
one massive collaborative mix for
, and it was not unusual
for one ten-minute cue to contain performances by ten different
ensembles. Editing and mixing
was therefore as challenging
as all of the inevitable rewrites that Horner was required to provide
for Cameron's own changing edits of the picture. "Sometimes we don't see
eye to eye on a cue but I always do it again," he said. "I have no
problems rewriting." When considering all of specialty instruments
collected for
, though, some of which invented specifically
for this recording, you can understand why Horner set aside so much time
for only this task. While there are some relatively unique sounds
employed by Horner for
, the score remains a "best of"
collection of all of the composer's most eccentric organic and synthetic
techniques through the years. As you might expect, the root of Horner's
jungle-inspired material, led by native flutes, pan pipes, and watery
keyboarding, derives all the way from
more recently, and
the primal children's choral variations on that same sound were arguably
best summarized by
. Much of the more serene
aspect of
,
especially with the extensive employment of a whistle to represent the
magic of the forest. Lovely fiddle solos are pulled from
. The electronic side of
comes in two forms,
the soothing melodic grace of processed choral effects a la
. The piano also spans the same emotional
range, performing Horner's stereotypical descending figures to inspire
curiosity in parts while crashing in the lower ranges during moments of
fright, this time without the usually reliable timpani for the effect.
Brass plays a more predictable role, the trumpets called upon once again
for Horner's famous four-note motif of danger. Cymbal tapping and
sparkling piano from
Outside of a recurring, plucked string effect, the mixing
of a variety of unprocessed solo voices in
is perhaps its
most strikingly original element. Unlike the dreamy environment created
by Sissel's new age style of performances for
, Horner
uses tones from a choir boy to operatic female adult to ensure a more
organic feel to their contribution. Perhaps some of this employment was
inspired by Howard Shore in his
scores, and
the product here is no less beautiful in parts. The varying vocal
accents invented by Horner aren't entirely original (they remind of the
composer's early imitation of Jerry Goldsmith in really old works like
and James Newton
Howard's more creative music); the high children's vocals for the Na'vi
are reminiscent of
, though they more precisely
emulate the popular "Adiemus" recordings usually associated with
vocalist Mariam Stockley in the late 1990's. The sakauhachi flute, the
prototypical Horner favorite and a lovely instrument, puffs in rhythm
and wails away at times in a supporting role. While Horner may claim
that a significant amount of effort went into the creative employment of
unusual instrumentation with which to accent the familiar orchestral
foundation for a mainstream blockbuster,
has very few
moments in which the texture of the music will surprise you. Instead,
Horner manages to impress with the fact that he has collected so many of
the instrumental "colours," as he calls it, that have represented his
career and massaged them into one score. Thankfully, he doesn't try to
insert many Irish or Scottish tones into
; only a snippet
of bagpipe is to be heard in "Shutting Down Grace's Lab." Absent are the
acoustic guitars from
and its sequel and,
despite some hints, the extensive tapping of snare and electronic
circuit imitations of
. Otherwise, every major,
memorable instrumental usage by Horner is heard repeatedly in
. Thus, in terms of texture, it will be a comforting
experience for most Horner enthusiasts. The same situation applies when
examining the thematic constructs that he faithfully develops for
There exist at least five recurring themes of note in the
score, though only three will likely leave a lasting impression on the
listener of the soundtrack album. Each of these themes is derived in
part (or almost in sum) from a previous Horner score, and if you're
bothered by the composer's habit of cannibalizing his own themes, a
technique predictably cited as a detriment in film reviewer James
Berardinelli's review of
Avatar, then you could be in for a bumpy
ride here. Some of the re-use in
Avatar is subtle enough that
only the texture of the performances will reveal the inspiration, though
at other times the progressions are so obviously reprised that even a
dedicated Horner apologist will roll his eyes. You'll hear full blown
themes and fragmentary progressions in
Avatar that you will
immediately recognize from
The Four Feathers,
Glory,
Willow,
Titanic, and
Legends of the Fall. Why
Horner seems so inept at conjuring unique chord progressions for his
themes is truly baffling, but fortunately his ideas are generally able
to be manipulated so well that they suit the emotional needs of multiple
contexts. As such, few non-soundtrack collectors in the mainstream will
be sitting around scratching their heads over this issue (Berardinelli
actually mistakenly compared this score to
Star Trek II: The Wrath of
Khan and
Aliens, neither of which having anything much in
common musically with
Avatar), and Horner at least saves his most
unique idea in this score for the film's primary theme. When confronted
by a film of the stature and length of
Avatar, it's almost
impossible to give a truly rounded assessment of its score based on its
first album release. Horner selected 78 minutes of music generally
representative of the film's narrative for the initial Atlantic/Fox
product, but well more than three times that amount of material exists
if you include all of the recordings eventually thrown out late in the
editing process. The album gives you a pretty good feel of what Horner
was trying to accomplish for
Avatar, but it was always known that
superior material was left off of the product. With this restriction in
mind, remember that this review of the score's major themes concentrates
mainly on the major cues chosen for the album.
One of the intriguing aspects of Horner's work for
Avatar is that despite his obvious re-use issues, he does insist
that his themes evolve here, adjusting them extensively throughout the
score, almost to unrecognizable forms that utilize only the same base
chord progressions at staggered tempos, so any dissatisfaction or
confusion caused by the treatment of a theme on the initial album is
likely to be answered by later, more complete releases of the music. The
2009 album only allows three of those themes to develop naturally over
the course of its length, with the two others never really congealing or
restrained to just a portion of the release. There is also, of course,
the pop song to contend with in
Avatar. Horner had to convince
Cameron to use the Celine Dion song at the end of
Titanic,
recording it in secret and then thrusting it upon the director, and he
pitched the same kind of song to the director once again. "There is over
three hours of music in the movie and I needed something that would keep
people in their seats for the end credits," Horner explains. "Another
orchestral piece would not do that. I wanted to end the film on
something personal." By basing the song on the love theme from the
score, he thus emphasized that idea as the primary representative of the
entire work. Horner reminds, "I approach things very emotionally. I'm
always pushing that side of a story." Perhaps it is no surprise that the
romantic side of the score will far overshadow the appeal of the action
side for many listeners. Not only does the main theme of
Avatar
represent the growing bond between Jake's avatar and Neytiri, his Na'vi
savior and advocate, but it also conveys the enthusiasm that the
paraplegic experiences with his newfound sense of freedom. It's a
discovery theme of the most harmonically appealing kind, built upon an
elementary but satisfying series of four chord progressions that are a
simplified variation (in the third of the four shifts) on the secondary
phrase of Horner's
Titanic love theme. This progression is
omnipresent in the score, heard in some form or another in each of the
thirteen score tracks on the initial album, and it is this idea that
provides
Avatar with its most spectacular melodic highlights.
Interestingly, these four shifts are only part of a much larger, more
elegant theme that is rather short-changed in the work.
To get a good sense of
Avatar's discovery/love
theme in its entirety, you have to pay close attention to the Leona
Lewis song's progressions; the singer takes artistic liberties with
Horner's theme in "I See You" and thus, along with the post-processed
sound that messes with the reverb of the performance, almost ruins the
otherwise beautiful theme. But you'll note that while the chorus section
of the song is indeed the well-established four-chord progression, the
remainder of the theme is as compelling if not more so. The only
prominent instance in which you get to hear this theme in full in the
score on the initial album is in "Becoming One of 'The People'," which
opens with a gorgeous solo boy's voice conveying the entirety of the
theme twice over light percussive rhythms, soothing harp and strings,
and eventually children's choir. (An alternate recording of this piece
exchanges the solo boy's voice with a flute to similarly fantastic
effect, though the flute is placed further back in the mix.) If you're
looking to nail down the full identity of the score's heart and soul,
start with the opening of this cue. The idea's development comes much
earlier than Jake's discovery of the Na'vi, however, for Horner
foreshadows the theme significantly. In the muscular turmoil of the
string ostinatos in the middle of "'You Don't Dream in Cryo...'," Horner
introduces the theme at 3:20 and carries its bassline thereafter. A
related, strictly rising variant on the four progressions, with
prominent plucked strings and choir, is another hint at 1:45 in "Jake
Enters His Avatar World," an effective transitional cue that is followed
by a minute of thrashing, native percussive rhythms and another minute
of exciting but relatively humble performances of the theme. It slowly
meanders in the background on violins from 0:38 to 4:45 in "Pure Spirits
of the Forest" before a pretty, heightened woodwind and synth version is
interrupted by darker material. The score really begins to take flight
in the contemplative "The Bioluminescence of the Night," the textures
and tonality of the three Na'vi themes extensively conveyed with
unhindered beauty over the subsequent 20 minutes. The discovery/love
theme extends from soft woodwinds in this cue at 0:37 to watery
percussion and choir at 1:53 (this is where Howard's
Waterworld
comparisons are bound to result) and a surprisingly warm violin solo at
2:41.
As mentioned before, the primary theme of
Avatar is
highlighted by its rousing arrangement in "Becoming One of 'The
People'/Becoming One With Neytiri," the first three minutes of the cue
containing the best instrumental representation of the melodic
structures heard in the song. Rambling piano accompaniment from
A
Beautiful Mind and the lofty whistle from
The Spitfire Grill
atop the ensemble accompany the theme on more substantive strings at
2:33 and return in the fifth minute of the cue. Tender solo woodwind
performances of the theme at 5:54 lead to another swell of choral and
string beauty at the end of the track, raising the sensitivity of the
most delicate moments from
Casper. In both "Climbing Up 'Iknimaya
- The Path to Heaven'" and "Jake's First Flight," Horner uses the
discovery/love theme as interlude to a secondary ascension theme; in the
first cue, it exists with vibrant choral accents over percussion and
bass strings at 1:33 and in the latter cue it receives 40 seconds of
lush keyboarding, vocal accents, and percussion at 0:59. While the
chanted Na'vi-language accents (usually two-syllable) are refreshing,
the bass string rising and falling to key in the first of the two cues
is an all-to-familiar technique dating back to scores like
Gorky
Park and
Red Heat. As the music turns decidedly darker, this
theme is the one most frequently manipulated into expressions of worry
or panic against dissonant brass. It's tortured at 0:44, 0:58, and 2:06
into "Scorched Earth" in ways that will remind of the
Titanic
sinking scenes; the final minute of that cue actually twists the
secondary phrases of that theme as well. The theme brings a brief moment
of relief in its accelerated synth and percussion performance at 1:33
into "Quaritch." It's intentionally mangled at 0:30 into "The
Destruction of Hometree" and thrust into terror at 2:03 into that cue.
Only slight lamentation in the base four chords can be heard at 0:25
into "Shutting Down Grace's Lab." As reality sets in further, the theme
is barely referenced in the first 20 seconds of "Gathering All the Na'vi
Clans for Battle" and is relegated to a lonely solo vocal at 8:56 into
"War" that extends into the secondary phrases of the theme with great
sorrow. The theme's degeneration as
Avatar loses its romantic
fantasy atmosphere and reaches its necessary confrontation is
heartbreaking.
The other two major Na'vi themes are a bit more
troublesome in the Horner re-use category. The first is the Na'vi
culture theme, which resembles the primary
The Four Feathers
identity and, to a lesser extent, the
Legends of the Fall Tristan
material. This idea becomes increasing prevalent as the score matures,
eventually closing it out on a somber note. Before it is expressed first
in full in the middle of "Becoming One of 'The People'," Horner previews
it in fragmentary roles. Plaintive solo voice at 1:15 into "'You Don't
Dream in Cryo...'" and faint woodwinds 30 seconds into "Jake Enters His
Avatar World" lead to a secondary phrase (of very typical Horner
fashion) on native flute at 1:32 in "The Bioluminescence of the Night."
The idea informs much of "Great Leonopteryx" with subtlety. Nestled in
between memorable performances of the main discovery/romance theme in
"Becoming One of 'The People'," the Na'vi culture theme flourishes from
3:08 to 3:54, the full ensemble joined by whistle in the highest ranges
and dramatic cymbal crescendos. The theme goes on hiatus until the
conclusive battle cues, first in subdued, troubled fragments at 5:26 in
"The Destruction of Hometree" (under the usual danger motif) and then in
further fragments on native woodwind at 1:06 into "Shutting Down Grace's
Lab." It generates momentum throughout the first half of "Gathering All
the Na'vi Clans for Battle" before reaching its full climax with
ensemble and choir at 3:31 into that cue. The manipulation of the theme
in "War" is very adept, following a Na'vi battle theme at 0:51 and
eventually merging with it. After a dramatic and massive statement at
6:08 into "War," the Na'vi culture theme continues to inform the
remainder of the cue, eventually reaching both contemplative strings and
defiant brass counterpoint in the last two minutes. The aforementioned
Na'vi battle theme is the third significant piece of the thematic puzzle
for the species, best described as a
Willow-like trumpet call to
action. An intriguing foreshadowing of the theme at 2:57 into "The
Bioluminescence of the Night" is perhaps the most unusual presentation
of the theme within the context of
Avatar, though its
free-floating sensibilities of
Titanic likeness here are blatant
re-use by the composer. A noble brass preview at 1:35 into "Scorched
Earth" yields the full theme at 2:17, complete with dual choral
hits.
Whenever you hear parts of
Avatar that remind you
of
Willow or Horner's muscular action writing stance of a tonal
nature that had previously extended all the way through
The Legend of
Zorro, you're likely hearing part of the Na'vi battle theme. That
heroic battle call for the Na'vi is most extensively explored in "The
Destruction of Hometree," aided by deep choral fright and plaintive
sakauhachi flute blasts. Launched with militaristic snare and brass
progressions at 1:32 (and again at 2:45) into that cue, a deliberate and
dramatic version of the battle theme at 3:37 leads to low choral
melodramatics. The singing ensemble performs the theme in similarly
slower tempo at 4:33 as well. The haunting vocalizations of "Shutting
Down Grace's Lab" imitate the theme's progressions in a layering much
like
Thunderheart without stating the actual theme. It is applied
as fragmentary counterpoint to the culture theme at 2:45 into "Gathering
All the Na'vi Clans for Battle." In the conclusive "War," the Na'vi
battle theme answers the humans' military theme at 0:51 and merges with
the culture theme thereafter. The massive choral rhythm at 3:37 into
"War," similar to the Fort Wagner sequence in
Glory and complete
with banging chimes, is this theme's final statement, albeit in such
bloated form that it's difficult to recognize. It is in this cue that
the humans' military theme is most dominant, opening the cue with
bravado and dominating the native accents. Additional brass statements
of the theme persist on brass at 1:54 into the cue. The theme's
progressions are previewed over a snare rhythm briefly at 4:15 into
"'You Don't Dream in Cryo...'." Interestingly, Horner uses the format of
three rising notes in the minor key on deep brass to represent
everything frightening in the score, and this choice extends to the
enormous pounding at 5:27 into "Pure Spirits of the Forest" over
mechanized groaning. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that all
beasts, living or mechanical, represent the same inherent danger. The
final major theme in
Avatar is one for ascension that thrives
only in the middle portion of the soundtrack. Horner has stolen pieces
of his evocative main theme for
Glory several times through the
years, but never as completely as he does here, almost the entire first
two phrases of the 1989 theme repeated with minor rhythmic
adjustments.
After thirty seconds in "Climbing Up 'Iknimaya - The Path
to Heaven'," Horner's ascension theme for
Avatar is repeated
several times on children's choir and percussion in the cue, using the
discovery/love theme as an interlude. The percussion in this cue is
especially well handled, the lighter shaken rhythms especially
noteworthy. The same formula is repeated with sparse vocals after half a
minute in "Jake's First Flight," though the latter cue allows the idea
one mostly orchestral performance at the 2:24 mark. Both build up to a
common crescendo of bright celebration with descending brass figures.
After these cues relating to Jake's official assimilation into Na'vi
culture, the theme is diminished in presence, making the theme
Glory's one truly distracting contribution to these specific
cues. A few other motifs run through
Avatar, many of them equally
familiar to any Horner collector. The presence of the four-note motif of
danger, a stalwart since Horner's earliest action material, is
disappointing, but at least there was no ambiguity about its purpose by
this point. It becomes a frequent contributor from the latter half of
"Scorched Earth" onward. As in
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, he
tones it back to the performance of a single trumpet to solemnly denote
danger past, a neat touch. Another typical Horner technique on display
in
Avatar is the three-note "rise and fall" motif, famous from
the opening and closing choral performances in
Willow; it's
Horner method of enhancing minor-key fantasy with an awe-inspiring swell
of the major key, as at 4:40 into "Becoming One of 'The People'/Becoming
One With Neytiri," though a minor-key variant of this tested idea pops
up in the action material as well. Additionally, a Na'vi defiance call
(a pair of hits by vocalists and percussion) is utilized often. This
motif resembles the many times Horner has used a pair of banging
metallic objects such as an anvil in previous works. Here, it's a
convenient way to get the Na'vi language into the score without much
structural effort. At 3:51 into "Scorched Earth" and extending into
"Quaritch," these hits, now with the clanging metallic accents, extend
past simple
Mighty Joe Young territory and breathe forceful life
into their defiance. The first minute of "The Bioluminescence of the
Night" relies heavily upon the other two major motifs, both aiding in
the brilliance of the softer Na'vi music.
An alternating high flute/whistle figure is lifted from
The Spitfire Grill (returning at 1:00 into "Becoming One of 'The
People'" and continuing in many of the main theme's performances),
sometimes stretched into lower registers and quietly tailing off as in
Braveheart. It's slowed down and lowered on brass in "Becoming
One of 'The People'" at 1:50. Also, a descending piano counterpoint
figure containing pairs of notes is almost omnipresent in "The
Bioluminescence of the Night," sometimes four to six notes in their
joined fall and continuing as long as necessary. This idea percolates
during most of the score's most sensitive moments. Horner eventually
twists it into a figure of resolution for brass, descending to key in
ways reminiscent of
Enemy at the Gates. Avid Horner collectors
can probably find several more familiar pieces from older scores here
and there in
Avatar, this on top of the many instrumental
applications that, despite Horner's testimony to suggest otherwise, are
comfortable to his tastes, including the tones of the six vocal
soloists. A couple of unique motific moments do debut in
Avatar,
times at which Horner's references to his older scores are so thin that
they seem to suggest a novel approach to a scene. Among these is an
incredible Celtic-like interlude for female vocalist (resembling Lisbeth
Scott) at the end of "Jake's First Flight," cleverly using fragments of
both the discovery and culture themes while blending their pieces into
something fresh. Another relatively unique moment comes about four
minutes into "Gathering All the Na'vi Clans for Battle," during which
you'll swear that Cameron used Hans Zimmer's
Pirates of the
Caribbean as a temp track. The use of East Indian vocals in
"Shutting Down Grace's Lab" is a clear reminder of Rahat Nusrat Fateh
Ali Khan's performances in
The Four Feathers, albeit much softer.
These singular offerings are in no way enough to compensate for the fact
that almost the whole of Horner's work for
Avatar is derived in
some form or another from his previous efforts. For the composer's
longtime collectors, the re-use phenomenon had been an issue going back
to the mid-1980's, so few could claim that
Avatar is any
different in these regards. Some mainstream listeners may hear
similarities in tone and progression to
Titanic during the
discovery/romance theme (and song), and that was probably Horner's
intent.
If you believe in the strength of the ingredients,
though, as well as the composer's talent for applying them expertly for
the necessary emotional impact of a scene, then
Avatar will
undoubtedly impress you. Horner certainly had a touch for capturing the
spirit of a particular scene despite the fact that he used the same
techniques and instruments to do it nearly every time. The clear
difference with
Avatar, though, is that he reached back to so
many of those ingredients for one score. Unlike his successful scores
for franchise of
The Mask of Zorro, which are a triumph of
originality in Horner's career because of a few contributions of ethnic
flair,
Avatar goes out on countless branches simultaneously. In
comparing his choices to Cameron's, he said, "We both like to, as he
puts it, walk on a branch and hear it creak. We both like that feeling
of being way out on a limb. We both like to take chances." That said,
the
Avatar score's greatest gamble is its posture as a "greatest
hits" collection of Horner's career sounds, an attribute likely to raise
the ire of any detractor of the composer's methodology. Some might say
that hearing all of the Hornerisms in one place at one time qualifies
the result as transcendent or radically new. In sum,
Avatar,
despite residing as one of the composer's better known works, is a
challenging score to rate. The minimum it deserves is four stars; there
is no justification for going lower than that, because despite any
concerns over the re-use, the assembly of the parts for this truly epic
cinematic event makes for a formidable product. Sure, Horner's forcing
of themes from
The Four Feathers and
Glory into obvious
roles in
Avatar is awkward and a continued disappointment, but
for those without those scores imprinted in their memories, does it
really make that much of a difference in a context such as this? If you
compare
Avatar to the other scores of 2009, there's really
nothing that can touch it in terms of ambition. This is a powerhouse of
a work that ranks among the most diverse and thoughtful in Horner's
career, destined to make some of the same waves previously caused by
Howard Shore's
The Lord of the Rings music. Horner's development
and especially manipulation of his themes for
Avatar is extremely
intelligent, addressing each circumstance with the kind of precision in
alteration heard in Shore's famous trilogy and subsequent
The
Hobbit music.
Perhaps no better example of Horner's intelligence in
Avatar exists than the cue "Into the Na'vi World," a 90-second
teaser that was available as a preview on the score's official but
short-lived website. All three of the score's major themes exist in
slightly masked form in this exuberant cue. It opens with the main
discovery/romance theme under the plucked string accents and over a
strong bed of percussion, but the progression, in its enthusiasm, has
been given a few extra notes over its four base shifts. It is followed
at the halfway mark by fragments of the culture theme on large-scale
brass and strings, concluding with the battle theme on brass and pairs
of the Na'vi defiance call in unison. It's a spectacular recording,
considered by some fans to be a "bonus cue," that was not available on
the initial 2009 album release, opening up a broader discussion about
the frustrating inadequacy of the Altantic product. Horner claimed at
the time to have put the same level of passion and detail into all three
hours of music for
Avatar, not to mention all the rejected music
along the way, and while the same label offered a marginally expanded
album in 2010 to coincide with the DVD release of the film, the score
long thrived on 3-CD and even 5-CD bootleg presentations. The 2010
"Deluxe Edition" album from Atlantic was a digital-only commercial
product in the days before lossless download options were regularly
available, making the album particularly annoying at the time for
audiophiles. It appended nearly 20 minutes of additional material to the
end of the initial album, surveying a range of the score's various
emotional modes in six tracks. The "Pandora" assembly easily is the
highlight of the lot, opening with a fresh arrangement of the
discovery/love theme, altering the flow of the progressions to breathe
new life into the idea. While concentrating solely on the four-note
chorus section of the theme, its performances in the latter half offer
stellar flute work. Synthetic suspense and fantasy ambience dominate
"Viperwolves Attack," yielding to anonymous percussive rhythms of fright
by its end. A solo boy vocalist opens "Great Leonopteryx" with an
ascendant motif that eventually develops into the Na'vi culture theme,
accelerating into a massively dissonant crescendo. Hints of that theme
define much of "Escape From Hellgate," though propelled by urgent
rhythmic panic for strings and percussion under fragments of brass
performing the theme.
Rounding out the additional tracks on the 2010 "Deluxe
Edition" album for
Avatar, the "Healing Ceremony" cue returns to
the mystical portions of Horner's work, solo voices, shakuhachi flute,
and percussion aided by deep string depth for a passage vaguely guided
by the Na'vi culture theme but taking the idea in a new direction that
recalls some of the spiritualism of
Thunderheart. The churning
action material of "War" is extended in the underwhelming "The Death of
Quaritch," metallic groaning effects combining with largely non-thematic
symphonic performances to yield a rather mundane overall result. This
cue has a distinctly synthetic aspect to its rendering, sounding almost
like a demo of cue to be recorded with an orchestra. Of these additional
cues on the 2010 "Deluxe Edition" album, "Pandora" is the only true
necessity, with "Healing Ceremony" and "Escape From Hellgate" holding
possible interest for some listeners. The material is a solid
intellectual examination of the Na'vi culture theme, but that doesn't
make for a particularly engaging album experience. Listeners were tasked
with rearranging the tracks into the order of the film's narrative, too,
"Pandora" not really fitting in anywhere appropriate despite its
strength. The presentation was inexplicably missing two of the best
unreleased cues, the momentous "Into the Na'vi World" and the action
powerhouse "Quaritch Down," making it an unacceptable offering overall.
Leaked at about the same time was a supposed 3-CD promotional
awards-bait set with the entirety of the film version of the score, and
fans eventually added the vast sessions recordings to expand their
bootlegs of this material to 5 CDs totalling upwards of five hours. Most
listeners will not appreciate that volume of music from
Avatar,
but the score remains in desperate need of some kind of comprehensive
album in lossless sound, hopefully with a surround mix option. As for
the widely available 2009 album, the twenty minutes of superb Na'vi
material in the middle of that product, as well as the rowdy action
rhythms and solemn conclusion to "War," countered a mundane song and
lingering re-use issues to return Horner to five-star status. The
composer's death in 2015 will preclude his scoring of Cameron's
long-expected sequels, but the return of this themes is all but
demanded. In justification of the immense length and breadth of
Avatar's score, Horner nicely summarized his experience in the
evocative and beautiful world of Pandora by saying, "This film has been
all of that and more."
***** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.15
(in 108 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.23
(in 203,346 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
