two years
earlier, a sequel featuring Conan once again in Robert E. Howard's
Hyborean age was inevitable. Not returning for the successor, though,
was the same brutally classic vision of the fictional age that Milius
and Oliver Stone and had created in the first film. Some will argue that
follow-up director Richard Fleischer, a veteran filmmaker in his own
right, built a spin-off of the Hyborean age in the sequel film,
exploring a different avenue that developed other aspects of Conan's
character and his surroundings. Others will argue that
was a monumental failure simply because it lost the
classic realism and solitude that made the first film so enticing. The
majority of audiences agreed with the latter opinion, tired of Conan and
exhausted by the 1980's bombardment of fantasy adventure films set in
ancient times. Substantial difficulties finalizing a script for
caused immense dissatisfaction across the board,
including with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who consequently refused to return
to the franchise for a planned third entry. Other than the executive
production team, only three elements returned for the sequel: actors
Schwarzenegger and Mako and composer Basil Poledouris. Despite early
ideas of utilizing a pop/rock score for the first film, Poledouris had
beaten the odds and produced one of the finest pre-historic orchestral
scores in the history of cinema. Decades later,
still stands as perhaps the most outstanding achievement
of Poledouris' career, and a concert of music from that score would
represent the composer's final public appearance shortly before his
death in 2006. Thus, the return of his musical tone for
was an immediate necessity. In the interim, he had written
less ballsy, more traditionally fantasy-oriented concept music for
Universal Studios' live action production, "The Adventures of Conan: A
Sword and Sorcery Spectacular," in 1983, a preview of the path away from
the weight of
Poledouris was put at a tremendous disadvantage with
Conan the Destroyer, contending with not only the abandonment of
the attitude that made the first score a classic but also forced to
write for a smaller, inferior orchestra with no chorus. Despite these
circumstances, his resulting score suffered from some of the same
exhaustion that hindered the film, even though the composer once again
attempted to recreate a sound for ancient times that did not follow any
of the rhythmic or lyrical rules of modern music. His work reflected the
director's lighter, more humorous take on the series and offered a sound
that is far less weighty in its dramatic gravity. Because of this
shifted emphasis, the score for
Conan the Destroyer moves with
greater agility on its feet while also utilizing a less domineering
thematic presence. Most of the major themes from the first film do make
cameo appearances in the sequel, though Poledouris usually alters their
structures or only states them in fragments. Thus, listeners hoping for
straight forward and lengthy recapitulations of the previously
established themes will be disappointed. Likewise, Poledouris' three or
four new motifs for the score are not as singularly memorable and are
often manipulations of previous ideas in their foundations. Returning is
the opening Crom theme from the first film (though its primary statement
at the outset of the sequel is absent from the 1992 album release),
representing the universe of Conan, as well as portions of the
underlying rhythms and secondary phrases of the "Riders of Doom" cue
that often accompanies movement on horseback (as heard in "Elite Guard
Attacks" and "Dream Quest," among others). Conan's own theme (originally
from "Riddle of Steel") is less utilized, unfortunately, though a
mutation of its more lyrical progressions does give the character a
somewhat fresh identity for the sequel. The "Valeria Remembered" cue
does offer a hearty performance of the love theme from
Conan the
Barbarian, but much of this material was cut from the film. The
slow, pounding theme for the religious mass at Thulsa Doom's mountain in
the first film makes an oddly out of place, ill-advised appearance in
"Approach to Shadizaar." Sorely missing is the vivacious civilization
theme, which is odd given Conan's return to the same locations (and
meeting the same camel of punching fame) in the sequel.
The two most prominent new themes in
Conan the
Destroyer are adequately summarized in "Elite Guard Attacks" and
"Crystal Palace." Especially of note is the Western-styled idea
foreshadowing
Cherry 2000 at 4:00 into the latter cue. The
action-packed confrontation and battle music in these cues exists at
nearly the same level as Poledouris' previous effort. He also transforms
the overarching Crom theme for the series into an effective dueling
motif that culminates into a major force in the massive "Conan &
Bombaata Battle" (a cue that also makes strong use of the sequel score's
rhythmic fighting motif). A rhythmic, rising minor-third motif in
"Crystal Palace" is responsible for reflecting the lumbering movements
of the story's main adversarial beast. The highly focused theme for the
evil queen and her guards resides in "Elite Guard Attacks" and is a
spin-off of the processional music from the prior score. While some
listeners consider the primary theme of
Conan the Destroyer to be
the mutation of the titular character's more lyrical passages from the
first score, there really isn't much unique identity to this idea in the
sequel to qualify it as truly new (outside of its seldom applied
interlude sequence). More intriguing is the use of Poleoduris' uplifting
theme for Conan from the "The Adventures of Conan: A Sword and Sorcery
Spectacular" soundtrack in one prominent place (heard in the 2011
re-recorded version of the score in the cue "Conan the Destroyer"). The
composer assembled his major new ideas and sprinkled them into his "Main
Title" and "End Credits" cues, but these were butchered in the film and
were not provided on the original soundtrack album. The final insult to
the
Conan the Destroyer score was the incredibly poor quality of
the Rome performance and the muffled recording that accompanied its
execution, long a source of great disdain for the composer. The
performances by the "Unione Musicisti di Roma" orchestra are truly
hideous in parts, with the horns often missing key notes entirely during
important sequences. Much of the brutality inherent in the original
score's recording is lost in this flimsy entry, despite valiant efforts
by some of the bass woodwind players to create the same depth. The light
and festive percussion, limited already by budgetary reasons, offers
tingling metallic sounds with equal effectiveness, but the remainder of
the orchestra's sections seem incredibly unpolished.
The troublesome issues relating to the severe
performance and recording problems with
Conan the Destroyer were
in part related to the fact that the composer wrote the sequel score in
the same demanding fashion (with even more rowdy, abnormal meters) as
Conan the Barbarian, so the flaws stand out very obviously. Also
frustrating is an extremely dated sound due to poor recording
technology, with an even more archival, muted ambience exhibited in
several key cues. So dry is the recording that the cymbal crashes sound
as though they've been reduced to children's size. Thus, you have a
strong composition nearly ruined by limited orchestrations due to budget
and unqualified performers. The original album for
Conan the
Destroyer is just as out of print as the Varèse Sarabande
companion for
Conan the Barbarian, also released in 1992. This
time, however, the album could be missed without much sense of loss for
even an avid Poledouris collector. A good alternative for those
unsatisfied with this score is the "The Adventures of Conan: A Sword and
Sorcery Spectacular" recording from 1983, which foreshadows several
ideas explored in
Conan the Destroyer but with arguably superior
performances. In 2011, Prometheus Records released the continued efforts
of producer James Fitzpatrick to bring Poledouris' music from the
Hyborean age, resulting in re-recordings of both
Conan the
Destroyer and "The Adventures of Conan: A Sword and Sorcery
Spectacular" by the City of Prague Philharmonic in similar fashion to
that team's successful presentation of
Conan the Barbarian the
prior year. While these sequel scores are not as essential for a casual
collector,
Conan the Destroyer has long suffered in its original
form and the re-recording is surprisingly impressive. Hearing the
complete score orchestrated as it was intended, with all live players
instead of synthetic backing in places, and in superior digital sound
(though unfortunately not as resounding as the
Conan the
Barbarian re-recording, with far less reverb) is certainly a
pleasure, though it does expose the fact that
Conan the Destroyer
is still a composition heavily reliant upon passages from its
predecessor. The re-recording of the 1983 live-action show's score is
perhaps the best, hidden attraction on the product, though the absence
of the immense narration present with the original recording is a
detriment. No matter the album, however, neither of these follow-up
works can compete with the mastery of the music for the original
Conan the Barbarian, a qualified classic in the genre.
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- Music as Written for the Film: ***
- Music as Heard on the 1992 Varèse Album: ***
- Music as Heard on the 2011 Prometheus Album: ****
- Overall: ***
| Bias Check: |
For Basil Poledouris reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.5
(in 33 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.26
(in 34,597 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
