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Zimmer |
Blade Runner 2049: (Benjamin Wallfisch/Hans Zimmer)
Long the ambition of director Ridley Scott, a return to the dystopia of
a future Los Angeles with human replicants and the "blade runners" who
hunt them has been many years in the making. Helmed instead by Denis
Villeneuve, 2017's
Blade Runner 2049 does rectify some of Scott's
regrets regarding his 1982 classic science fiction thriller
Blade
Runner, and many viewers consider the direct sequel to be a superior
overall product despite the massive cult following of the original.
Surrounded by new characters dealing with more advanced replicant
technology and continuing existential contemplation, Harrison Ford and
Edward James Olmos return in a story that essentially confirms Ford's
blade runner, Deckard, and Sean Young's replicant, Rachael, as the
heartbeat of the entire concept. While many nuggets exist in
Blade
Runner 2049 for enthusiasts of the original, a reunion scene between
an older Deckard and Rachael, the latter using archival footage and
manipulations to recreate Young's prior appearance and voice, is as
devastatingly sorrowful as any in recent memory. The story postulates
that Rachael was capable of bearing children, and that the two leads did
indeed have at least one. A young blade runner with a possible
connection to them, played by Ryan Gosling, is the star of this film,
chasing the truths resulting from the prior film while eluding multiple
authoritarian interests. As expected,
Blade Runner 2049 is a
visual masterpiece, building upon the original film with stunning
depictions of a bleak future. The music for
Blade Runner remains
in high regards with concept fanatics and those who collect the new age
electronic music of Greek synthetics pioneer Evangelos Odyssey
Papathanassiou, otherwise known as Vangelis. In part due to the
popularity of the film and in part owing to decades of poor availability
of Vangelis'
Blade Runner score on album, the work's quality has
been bloated beyond all reason. While the tone of the score was perfect
for the movie, a proper emotional connection was largely absent until a
handful of late scenes, Vangelis' score lacking the soul of humanity
necessary to establish the dichotomy between humans and replicants, and
especially the latters' aspirations to live like the former group.
There is no doubt that the style and voice of Vangelis'
music was destined in some way to be reprised in
Blade Runner
2049. Villeneuve turned to his usual collaborator, Jóhann
Jóhannsson, to produce the score for this sequel. Despite
Jóhannsson's immense mainstream success in his experimental film
music, however, he was either fired or left the project voluntarily as
it became clear that he was not emulating Vangelis as closely as the
filmmakers demanded. Interestingly, Vangelis was still alive but no
longer composing for films at the time of production; still, it would
have been a shame had at least a courtesy phone call not been made to
request his return. In the end, however, the ubiquitous blockbuster
problem solver, Hans Zimmer, received the final call for
Blade Runner
2049. Zimmer, immersed in a world tour promoting his music, made a
few contributions to the score as time allowed, but he turned most of
the project over to Remote Control Productions regular Benjamin
Wallfisch, who had branched off into his own prolific career in the
horror genre in 2016 and 2017. Zimmer was in possession of a vintage
Yamaha CS-80 synthesizer, however, the likes of which Vangelis had
creating the most iconic sounds for the ambience and marginal themes of
Blade Runner. Armed with that machine and a clear dictate to
resurrect Vangelis' sound design for the sequel, Wallfisch created a
basically sufficient but badly underplayed score that fails to
accomplish much of anything outside of baseline background tones for the
film's general darkness. Granted, this score was likely created in a mad
rush late in production, but to hear something so devoid of personality,
a mere echo of an already troubled predecessor, is an immense
disappointment. Yes, the Yamaha synthesizer makes enough appearances
throughout the score to provide a basic connection to Vangelis' voice,
and these moments of slow, depressing tonalty are the highlights of the
score. The expression of this technique late in "2049" is reportedly a
Wallfisch contribution while a briefly optimistic alternative in "Mesa"
was offered by Zimmer. A reprise of the Vangelis cue "Tears in Rain" is
another direct connection, though it's dropped rather wholesale into the
equation here. Other recognizable progressions from the original film's
score inform the meandering chords in the sequel, but these applications
only function as well as the identical performance means.
Thematically, Wallfisch concocts a four-note theme of
discovery for the Gosling blade runner, heard first on piano after about
a minute in "2049." This theme for
Blade Runner 2049, while
following Vangelis' lead in employing incredibly slow tempos for his
ideas, is otherwise totally ineffectual at its task and will be
overlooked by most listeners. Inexplicably, the iconic end titles theme
from
Blade Runner makes no return here within the score proper, a
completely unacceptable decision for a soundtrack that otherwise
attempts to ape Vangelis' ambience when possible. Unfortunately, outside
of these moments of interest, the majority of the score for
Blade
Runner 2049 is frightfully dull and uninspired. The "Joi" cue lacks
even a hint of emotional connection, and Wallfisch and Villeneuve
dropped the ball badly at the spotting sessions for the scene in which
Deckard meets a new copy of Rachael. That scene inevitably breaks one's
heart, and the music simply stews quietly in the background despite the
obvious agony conveyed by Ford in that scene. What an incredibly
disappointing missed opportunity. The action music in this score,
meanwhile, is truly awful. Among the most distractingly hideous of these
cues is the grating, dissonant, electronic groaning of "Sea Wall," which
Zimmer apparently also had a hand in producing. Like
Dunkirk,
Zimmer and his crew don't seem to have any inhibitions about supplying
music that actually ruins scenes in a film by attempting to force an
emotion down audiences' throats through the sheer force of volume. What
happened to the artistry of subtle manipulation? Is the talent no longer
there? Or is this music simply the sonic equivalent of the biggest,
baddest explosion ever staged for our eyes? Making matters worse in
Blade Runner 2049 is an album situation that sprinkles the Frank
Sinatra and Elvis Presley source songs amongst comparatively terrible,
bleak score cues. Likewise, one cannot resist being annoyed that Zimmer
gets primary credit on a product like this; whether contractually
necessary or not, it's deceptive and wrong. With Ford indicating a
willingness to reprise his role as Deckard again, there stands a chance
that this score isn't the last audiences will have heard of Vangelis'
influence for concept. To encounter such ineffectual, non-descript muck
from Wallfisch for
Blade Runner 2049 begs for another artist to
take a stab at finally combining Vangelis' distinct style of electronic
soundscapes with a more appropriately resonating thematic core for
Deckard's sad journey through life, preferably returning to franchise's
main theme along the way. This one's barely functional and a frustrating
waste.
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Bias Check: |
For Hans Zimmer reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.93
(in 98 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.95
(in 277,221 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film. The font used for its
credits listings is too small to read despite ample space.