Battlefield Earth: (Elia Cmiral) If cinematic science
fiction failures are to be ranked on a list, the 2000 epic turkey
Battlefield
Earth would reside comfortably someplace near the top. A significant level of
talent was employed to bring L. Ron Hubbard's best-selling novel to the big
screen, and it's hard to imagine just how so many people managed to produce such
a hideous film. Perhaps John Travolta's involvement as a producer is a clue. A
poor plot, dumb dialogue, cheesy effects, and other problems are all so
pronounced in the film that even fans of trashy, B-realm sci-fi flicks laughed at
this one. The plot is a usual "mankind in turmoil" kind of affair from Hubbard: a
race of strangely dressed, bad mannered alien humanoids called Psychlos conquer
Earth sometime in our future and do some pretty nasty things, including (but not
limited to) the destruction of fast food restaurants, the elimination of the
designated hitter rule, and, of course, the mass enslavement of humankind. Not
only do they manage to keep humans subdued in this role for a thousand years, but
they accomplish it while dressed like someone you'd see standing on a
Haight-Ashbury street corner in San Francisco at 4:30 a.m. during a lunar eclipse
and a convention of Hell's Angels' Hairdressers. John Travolta's costume alone
indicates that these Psychlos fellows must have suffered from some terrible kind
of considerable sinus problems. What is even more disturbing, or perhaps comical
in a sad sense, is that Czech/Swedish composer Elia Cmiral decided to make a
whole-hearted attempt at a decent orchestral score for this spectacle. Coming off
of a few impressive works of structural merit (such as
Stigmata and
Ronin), Cmiral approached
Battlefield Earth almost as though it was
the opportunity of a lifetime, assembling a score that could very well have
served as the mainstream announcement of his career. But then, as everyone knows,
Battlefield Earth suffered a quick and terrible death, becoming an
embarrassment to everyone involved in its production, including, arguably,
Cmiral. His mainstream breakthrough, in fact, never came. It is safe to say,
however, that the composer's extremely dynamic effort was at least one of only a
few interesting aspects of the entire debacle.
Cmiral's sincere approach to
Battlefield Earth was to
create a massive orchestral, choral, and electronic score that would stand
alongside other classic sci-fi works. To a basic extent, he succeeded, but the
problem then arose that his music for the film was too grandiose in scope and
performance to match the terrible on-screen elements, thus sounding as though it
was an intentional parody of the genre. If ever a score sounded too broadly
conceived for its film, it is
Battlefield Earth. Even technically,
Cmiral's effort is clearly flawed. The title theme, which is not particularly
memorable in its progressions, exists far too infrequently, and action cues that
begin to muster power, rhythm, and energy often degenerate into messy orchestral
blunderings. Cues that attempt to establish a personality are blindsided by an
endless supply of crashes and electronic shredding sounds. The electronics really
do a disservice to Cmiral's score, failing to add creativity and instead pushing
at the tolerance level of the listener in cues such as "Psychlo's Top 40." Some
of the effects employed by Cmiral are embarrassing, including the cheesy 1980's
laser sounds heard indiscriminately throughout the work. The latter half of the
score suffers especially from a disjointed presentation, during which Cmiral just
barely manages to establish an excellent action motif, sometimes with the chorus,
and then a scene change demands a quick end to it. The performance by the studio
orchestra in Seattle grinds and pounds at different rhythms at each turn, so the
unlistenable portions of the score aren't even consistent. Therein lies the
overarching problem with Cmiral's attempt for
Battlefield Earth; the lack
of a personality kills this score. The instrumental battle between the organic
(with Taiko drums) and the synthetic barely registers as an adequate method of
creating sonic disparity for the warring sides. On album, the ills of the score
are blatantly obvious, with several little snippets of music containing excellent
material for compilations (such as "We've Won"), but the rest of the product
containing extremely problematic continuity issues. The album also suffers from
too many pictures of Travola's ridiculous costume, with no still from the film
showing anything other than this one painfully obvious reason as to why the
production failed. Overall,
Battlefield Earth is a frustrating score that
should, unfortunately, be swept under the rug along with the film.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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The insert includes a short note from John Travolta about the score.
