franchise in 1990 was afforded an identical budget to its predecessor
(about $40 million) but returned by far the least in grosses of the
three films. Still popular enough with critics and audiences to produce
a decent profit, though,
features a
solidified storyline that avoided the potentially confusing level of
time paradox pitfalls of the second entry. After preserving the proper
timelines in the past, present, and future at the end of
, Doc Brown and his time-traveling DeLorean are hit by
lightning, forcing him back to 1885 and disabling the car. Upon
recovering the hidden vehicle in 1955 with that version of Brown, Marty
McFly has to travel back in time once again to save Doc from an untimely
death and encounters his friend conflicted about a love interest he has
met there. With the majority of
set
in 1885, the film enjoys a consistent plot with pithy parallels to the
1950's part of the trilogy, and it culminates in one of the most
exhilarated train sequences to ever be shot for the screen. Composer
Alan Silvestri had received countless accolades for his work for
, and much of its music was reprised by necessity in
the 1989 sequel. Before production got far with
, the composer did write a short, Elmer Bernstein-inspired
Western theme to accompany a teaser of the third film contained at the
end of the cliffhanging second one. It overshadowed a score for
that was technically adept and contained a few
interesting alterations to the first film's material, but on the whole
wasn't original enough to really extend the music's own narrative in a
meaningful direction. Entire sequences of the score for
were largely copied and pasted into the sequel, with only one
new, rather grim suspense theme explored in the altered realities of
that story.
Finally breathing new life into the Silvestri's music for
the franchise was
Back to the Future Part III, which not only
offered a few memorable new themes to the mix, but also relied less upon
the straight reprises of previous thematic incarnations that plagued
Back to the Future Part II. The downside to that equation is that
some of the more integral secondary thematic elements of the first two
films are underplayed in
Back to the Future Part III. Returning
to close out the trilogy, of course, is Silvestri's primary theme for
the franchise, split as usual into its triumphant fanfare and
adventurous rhythmic halves. Because the last moments in the 1955 period
of the first film are briefly recounted, the composer opens
Back to
the Future Part III with restatement of his standard finale,
segueing it to a short burst of the fanfare for the official title of
the third film. Thereafter, Silvestri's employment of the theme's two
parts is more fragmentary than before, adapting it smartly into the new
theme for the train and other surviving elements from the prior scores.
Even in the finale of the third film, Silvestri alters the pacing of the
conclusive phrases of the theme's two parts to signal the definite end
to the overarching story. The performances of the adventurous half of
the theme sound far more inspired in this score than in
Back to the
Future Part II, played with genuine excitement during the lengthy
train sequence and with striking beauty in its mingling with the love
theme for the film as well. The fanfare receives a compelling
translation to redemptive strings early in "It's Clara (The Train Part
II)." Diminished from the picture, and practically absent from the score
in their whole forms, are the wholesome theme for Marty and Doc's
friendship, as well as the bubbly, frantically rhythmic theme for Brown.
The only remnant from the positive side of
Back to the Future
that doesn't completely fade from relevance is the series of tingling,
percussive triads that are used as descending stingers for magical
moments on screen. Its most prominent usage is at the start and end of
the film; the motif opens the score with three sets of pairs and is
intriguingly merged into a longer descending figure of similar tone at
the opening of "Doc Returns," the dying embers of the car's life.
The rambling danger motif that represented the
troublesome Biff Tannen in the first two films is once again broadened
in its application to action scenes in
Back to the Future Part
III, just as it extended to the "Clocktower" sequence in the
original), though it's mostly confined to background depth. The
suspenseful preparation rhythm from the mall (and Libyan gunmen)
sequence in
Back to the Future Part and "The Future" in
Back
to the Future Part II is heard briefly in "It's Clara (The Train
Part II)." Although the primary theme of time alteration from
Back to
the Future Part II wasn't particularly memorable, it is incorporated
into moments in the third film that suggest that the timeline could be
changed for the worse. This menacing material is most notably heard in
the first half of "The Hanging," a few seconds in "Point of No Return
(The Train Part III)," and, with a lighter touch, in the first half of
"The Future Isn't Written" (the last actually making use of the full
theme as heard in "My Father!" in the previous score, but in a much
different tone). A brief mention of Biff's somber, alternate 1985
reality theme, complete with its whining violin introduction, is also
heard in "Into the Mine/Tombstone/It's Me." Of these evolutions of
motific ideas, the lack of bigger role for the original Marty and Doc
themes seems odd, especially since the timeline of the films suggests
that each story takes place immediately after the previous one. That
said, the tender moments between those two characters in this film have
been mostly supplanted by the relationship between Doc and Clara, woman
he saves in 1885, so spotting of the idea may have been a challenge. The
new themes in
Back to the Future Part III include the
Bernstein-styled Western idea previewed at the end of the prior film and
the aforementioned love theme for Doc and Clara. The former doesn't
really have much of a place in
Back to the Future Part III
outside of comedy usage, foreshadowed in "Hill Valley," bursting
suddenly in "We're Out of Gas," and anchoring part of "End Credits." The
love theme, reminiscent of some of Jerry Goldsmith's character themes of
the 1990's, is heard extensively throughout the score, gorgeously
flowing in "Main Title" and several later conversational cues before
impressive full ensemble performances in "Doc Returns" and "End
Credits."
These latter two cues featuring the fullest
performances of the love theme in
Back to the Future Part II
unfortunately expose the fact that the theme's closing phrase mirrors
"When You Wish Upon a Star" a bit too closely for comfort. The reference
does hit the right sense of innocent wonder, however, so perhaps it
works. Somewhat more nebulous, but figuring heavily in the climactic
closing to "Doc Returns," is the theme for the train, a three-note motif
that gains momentum along with the doomed engine. Accompanying it is a
secondary six-note phrase, a series of two-note stingers, and puffing
snare rhythm obviously meant to mimic the sounds of the locomotive. So
much of the action material from all three scores is passionately merged
into the two later train cues that Silvestri almost creates an all-new
atmosphere of adventure for just this fantastic extended scene. Among
the more singular moments in the score, "Indians" cue stands out as
offering Silvestri's chase material in its own parody of stereotypes.
The soundtrack also included contributions by ZZ Top that became source
material in the picture, the "Doubleback" song adapted by Silvestri into
the era of the story. On the original 1990 album, this adaptation
combined with a fair amount of the score to round out a 45-minute
presentation. Unfortunately, the arrangement of
Back to the Future
Part III on that initial Varèse Sarabande product is
completely and nonsensically out of film order. On some CDs, such
rearrangement is nothing more than a bit awkward, but here it was always
extremely irritating. In 2015, alongside Intrada Record's expanded set
of the prior score, Varèse made
Back to the Future Part
III a CD Club entry and provided the proper presentation of the film
versions of the score's cues, along with ample alternate takes and a
bevy of source material. More importantly, the expanded set confirms
that the sound quality in the recording of the third score was much
improved compared to its predecessor, an oddity given their close
proximity. Ultimately, Silvestri's concluding score for the franchise
may not have the overwhelming cohesion or sense of wonder as the 1985
original entry, nor will it appeal to enthusiasts of the
Predator
score the way the prior one did with its percussively rhythmic passages,
but it is an intelligent exploration of new territory that adapts the
existing themes with far more satisfaction in structure and sound
quality than its predecessor.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Alan Silvestri reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.48
(in 42 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.34
(in 40,098 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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