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Review of Battlefield Earth (Elia Cmiral)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you're a sucker for L. Ron Hubbard's mentality and want to hear
Elia Cmiral's chaotic musical interpretation of a human revolt against aliens.
Avoid it... if you value your time and your money, or if you already accidentally wasted several dollars seeing the film itself.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
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. **
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 48:52
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes a short note from John Travolta about the score.
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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 Battlefield Earth are Copyright © 2000, Varèse Sarabande and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 7/14/03 and last updated 4/1/09. |
