| CLOSE WINDOW |
|
FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Battle Beyond the Stars (James Horner)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you want to know where it all essentially started for
James Horner, not to mention that Battle Beyond the Stars is an
impressively engaging science-fiction score by any standard.
Avoid it... if enduring the inspiration for Horner's eventual self-regurgitation is as disturbing to you as hearing the composer blatantly pull material from Jerry Goldsmith's Star Trek: The Motion Picture for this score.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Battle Beyond the Stars: (James Horner) The New
World Pictures studio headed by Roger Corman was at the height of its
ambitions in 1980, determined to not just fill the screen with B-rate
science fiction and horror schlock but actually compete with the major
blockbuster franchises already established in cinema at the time.
Undoubtedly, Battle Beyond the Stars was a response to the space
opera phenomenon caused by Star Wars, and its plot involves a
colorful band of mercenaries hired to protect a distant farming colony
from nasty aliens. The character-driven picture features a dose of
Corman's usual flesh on display, of course, though the special effects
of starship combat were akin to television's Battlestar Galactica
in their general design. Most of the movies that came out of Corman's
troop were undeniably trashy, but that group did include several big
names that would go on to mainstream greatness, including Ron Howard and
James Cameron. Both directors eventually used the services of composer
James Horner, who himself was a Corman regular during the initial years
of his career during which he had to write personal checks to his
musicians. Horner was fresh out of his doctorate education in music
composition and theory when he landed the position with Corman, making
his story initially very similar to Cliff Eidelman's, especially with
their overlapping involvement with the "Star Trek" franchise. His score
for Battle Beyond the Stars was among the later in the rather
impersonal collaboration, and it had far more of a lasting impact on the
direction of the composer's career than other Corman entries. For
Horner's collectors, it's a bit strange to go back and revisit Battle
Beyond the Stars, if only because it came at a time during which not
one listener could compare the style of the music to a previous Horner
score. Ironically, though, being the first entry in an illustrious
career doesn't automatically mean there isn't some borrowing to be
heard.
Horner's writing has always been a hotbed of controversy regarding his tendency to gain inspiration from himself and multitudes of others, though Battle Beyond the Stars was a case of temp track emulation of the highest order. Despite this obvious reality, the score directly caused Horner's employment on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and an acquaintance with Battle Beyond the Stars art director James Cameron that may have likely led to his troublesome assignment on Aliens. Being the young, impressionable composer at the age of 26 in 1980, Horner freely admits that he was strongly influenced by the works of other writers when assembling Battle Beyond the Stars. In interviews conducted early in the decade, Horner went so far as to admit that Jerry Goldsmith was an enormous influence for him in the earliest days (not to mention some unsavory rumors about Horner's involvement with Goldsmith's daughter), explaining some of the overlaps in electronic experimentation with the orchestra and other various rhythmic similarities. He could also provide several names of classical composers whose motifs were interesting to him then (and for many years to come). Thus, at a time when Horner was too young to rip off his own material, he took the opportunity to quote some recent favorites. In the case of Battle Beyond the Stars, Corman was looking for music similar if not identical to Jerry Goldsmith's Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and it was ironically Horner's ability to so well incorporate that material into his own that he got noticed. As one must recall, the early 1980's were the time when space fantasies and sword and sorcery films were at their height, with Goldsmith and John Williams re-establishing the power of the full orchestra in film music. Corman wanted to take advantage of that sound but on a fraction of the budget. Thus, Horner was given only 62 orchestral players with which to simulate the adventurous sound of the London Symphony Orchestra. What surprised everyone is the plain fact that, with performer exuberance and a bevy of wonderfully liberal reverb on the album mix, he succeeded. For Battle Beyond the Stars, Horner composed a spirited main theme, a longing interlude for romance, a Western-styled character subtheme, and a variety of other minor motifs, all of which already exhibiting traits of the composer's style that would dominate his work in the first half of the 1980's. In the end, though, what Horner wrote for the film was simply too complex for the musicians to perform. The composition is superb, but the performance, while inspiring in the enthusiasm drawn from the players by David Newman's conducting, is sometimes badly lacking in the brass section. An entire series of brass performances at 3:40 into "Epilogue/End Title," for instance, is badly mangled. And yet, there's something about the performance mistakes that enhance the Corman B-rate film atmosphere; it fits snugly with the cheesy costumes and sets, and it is no coincidence that the director used Horner's music for the film in countless of his other similarly poor flicks. In retrospect, the music for Battle Beyond the Stars is a riot, one of nearly smirk-inducing fun many decades later. To a distracting extent, the references to Goldsmith's Star Trek: The Motion Picture are aplenty in Battle Beyond the Stars, with the distinctive Blaster Beam in the two scores performed by the same musician. The uniquely crisp, metallic edge that no modern synthesizer can imitate is unmistakably joined by familiar rhythms and counterpoint techniques taken directly from the Goldsmith classic. The entire cue "The Battle Begins" (and "Gelt's Kill") pays tribute to the opening Klingon sequence in Goldsmith's score, with whole motifs from the Blaster Beam and other percussion providing a cheap and light-hearted but entertaining imitation. You'll easily recognize the brass Klingon theme altered for use here, as well as the propulsive rhythmic crescendo that exists late in the equivalent battle cues for both scores. The start of "Love Theme" is an even more shameless rip, using woodwinds and piano to affectionately reflect Goldsmith's score with no alteration. Ironically, when Horner was actually hired to work in the "Star Trek" franchise and tasked with writing his own Klingon music, he disappointingly never produced anything as similar to Goldsmith's famous Klingon material as what you hear in this work. In a general sense, it's also intriguing to hear, even beyond all of these obvious influences, the process of Horner testing out the original motifs and ideas in Battle Beyond the Stars that would later become staples of his career. In and around all the obvious borrowings from Goldsmith's Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Alien, and even A Patch of Blue are the fledgling ideas that would later be fleshed out in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Aliens, Cocoon, and even Willow. Horner's own eventual Klingon theme in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock is foreshadowed wholesale here. The raw enthusiasm written into this score is something that slowly tapered off as Horner matured, however, leaving more classically complex compositions that rarely matched the brutish excitement heard in this 1980 work. This unique character is in part why listeners held on to their LP records of Battle Beyond the Stars for two decades. It's an extremely engaging score, even with all of its performance and recording flaws. Aside from the fanfares, look for highlights in the softer cues like "Nanelia and Shad," which features some alluring translations of the score's themes by an oboe over harp and strings. In 2001, the score finally made the transition to CD courtesy of the science-fiction schlock label GNP Crescendo, which combined its contents with the composer's concurrent Humanoids from the Deep on one product, another Horner collaboration with Corman. While Humanoids from the Deep offers an intellectually intriguing glimpse at the composer's horror methodology, it obviously lacks the spunk and personality of Battle Beyond the Stars. The performance is significantly better in the lesser work, but the horror genre was not as exciting for Horner as the realm of space. Despite slashing about for a film with massive, evil, mutated fish pursuing barely clothed women with giant boobs, the music for Humanoids from the Deep just couldn't compete. It is a score of function rather than inspiration, and it remains nothing more than a footnote in Horner's career. Sound quality was always a problem with these scores, and while Humanoids from the Deep initially had better clarity than Battle Beyond the Stars, both were afforded superior sound on the 2001 release than either the LPs or the bootlegs that had represented them in the 1990's. The long awaited and readily available 2001 GNP Crescendo product made the bootlegs of these early Horner scores completely obsolete, though the folding of the label shortly thereafter didn't help collectors' prospects. The sound quality in the Battle Beyond the Stars section varies greatly from cue to cue, with some sequences muffled considerably while others are vibrant and impressive. It largely depends on the volume of the individual cues. A 1,000-copy 2011 CD from BSX Records, essentially the GNP Crescendo label rebranded, then presented Battle Beyond the Stars alone with slightly remastered sound. (The same label also pressed Humanoids from the Deep alone that year as well). Even here, there are brass artifacts that distract in the later cues. That quickly sold-out CD did append Alan Howarth's source music and extensive sound effects, as well as the decent but not overwhelming City of Prague Philharmonic performance of the main theme from many years prior and long released by Silva Screen. The re-recording sometimes suffers from performance flubs itself, again in the brass section, and its gain levels seem to have been pushed too high for this release, yielding frustrating distortion and a tinny sound. Those who already owned the 2001 album really had no need for the 2011 expansion, especially as Howarth's material is impossible to reconcile out of context. In 2023, Intrada Records expanded the presentation to a 2-CD set with the discovery of new and superior source tapes. The additional material provided isn't particularly stellar, as it tends to only more greatly expose the connections between this work and those of Goldsmith, but it does provide a better chronological narrative. The presence of low brass and Goldsmith-inspired echoplex trumpet effects are improved on the film presentation, though Intrada opted not to apply the LP mix's compensating reverb levels to the full score. Listeners can still appreciate that fuller though slightly muted sound, however, on a remastered LP emulation after the primary program on that set. Some performance flubs, mainly on trumpets, were carefully edited to diminish them. On any product, the exciting personality of Battle Beyond the Stars can easily make the listener forget about its age and subsequent performance and sound issues. For enthusiasts of both Horner and Goldsmith, the score will be an enjoyable listening experience as long as it isn't taken too seriously. You have to appreciate it for what it is, an exhibition of Horner's youth and a testing ground for ideas to be littered throughout his better-known scores for a decade to come. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
2001 GNP Crescendo Album:
Total Time: 68:12
2011 BSX Records Album: Total Time: 70:38
* composed, performed, and produced by Alan Howarth ** performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Nic Raine 2023 Intrada Album: Total Time: 106:44
* composed, performed, and produced by Alan Howarth
NOTES & QUOTES:
The inserts of all the albums include extensive notes about the film and
its music, often featuring excerpts from an old CinemaScore interview with Horner.
The track listing on the packaging of the 2011 BSX Records album erroneously adds
a 53rd track.
Copyright ©
2001-2024, Filmtracks Publications. All rights reserved.
The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Battle Beyond the Stars are Copyright © 2001, 2011, 2023, GNP Crescendo Records, BSX Records, Intrada Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 9/1/01 and last updated 12/1/23. |
