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Review of Ender's Game (Steve Jablonsky)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if your love of power anthems and other film scoring
techniques of simplistic, brute force is so unwavering that you can
forgive the total lack of intellectual thought posed by Steve
Jablonsky's music for this philosophical story.
Avoid it... if you expect any emotional depth or addressing of character turmoil by Jablonsky, who proves that he's much better at serving up generic, dumbed-down music than a respected industry veteran such as, say, James Horner.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Ender's Game: (Steve Jablonsky) Imagine the
frustration of author Orson Scott Card for a moment. Much of his adult
life has been devoted to the concept spawned from his story of
Ender's Game over the 1980's and 1990's, and when his fictional
universe was finally adapted to the big screen in 2013, not only was the
movie an artistic disaster, but all anybody wanted to talk about during
the publicity tour for the project was Card's distaste for
homosexuality. The fact that Card, a Mormon, would argue against
equality for homosexuals in today's world is somewhat amusing given all
the heavy philosophical subject matter in Ender's Game,
definitely a thinking man's examination of Aristotle's good old factors
of ethos, pathos, and logos at the highest of levels. The story exists
in Earth's future, when the planet comes under attack from an alien
species. Humanity trains its brightest young minds to use video game
simulations to prepare them for the upcoming retaliatory war against
this species, with unintended consequences and heartbreak for those with
any sense of diplomacy. The controversy involving Card's public
statements about today's political landscape were just one fraction of
the problems faced by Ender's Game; more tellingly, its
post-production work was shattered by the reported firing of a
significant number of crew members. The finished product was not only
boycotted by some viewers because of Card's opinions, but reviews of the
adaptation were poor and worldwide box office returns failed to recoup
the production's budget and Lionsgate was forced to retract all
discussions about a franchise that would have clearly been the intent of
this film given Card's wealth of conceptual material and the cliffhanger
ending to this first entry. One of the aspects of the film suffering
from uncertainty was its soundtrack. At the start of 2013, respected
veteran composer James Horner was announced as being attached to
Ender's Game, but at roughly the same time as his removal from
the badly received 2013 version of Romeo and Juliet in early
summer, news broke that Horner was among those dismissed from Ender's
Game. Both films suffered significant late rearrangement, and while
Horner did record a full score for the earlier Romeo and Juliet,
all indications are that he did not record any material for Ender's
Game.
The choice of Horner for Ender's Game was initially an inspired one. Had the film's production values been of greater merit, the composer likely could have addressed many of the nuanced sociological themes in Card's concept, especially within the psyche of a young mind. Such intellectual approaches are few and far between in Hollywood of the 2010's, however, and it is no surprise that the production, in need of some quick fixes at the behest of careless studio knuckleheads, turned to the Remote Control-born Steve Jablonsky as a dose of salvation. Known best for his perpetuation of Hans Zimmer methodology in the Transformers franchise (at a more affordable price, of course), Jablonsky was still being ridiculed in 2013 for the absolute and almost hilarious awfulness of his score for Battleship the previous year. Any remnants of Steamboy and other promising glimpses at his capabilities have largely been erased in the 2010's, and Ender's Game won't serve to rectify any negative impressions about his limitations. If director Gavin Hood, his team, and/or the studio wanted a safely stupid power-anthem score to cater to the lowest common-denominator as a method of milking as much out of Ender's Game as possible, then that's exactly what they got. Jablonsky phoned in a score for this film that is completely devoid of the intricacies of thought and emotional gravity of inner turmoil that Horner could have addressed. In fact, from listening to this generic Remote Control work, one could assume that the film has completely lost all of its philosophical gravitas. The bad news, especially for Horner enthusiasts, doesn't stop there. Not only is Jablonsky's approach to the film one of blubbery waste, but it's highly repetitive as well. Few scores rotate as endlessly through the same core set of basic ideas as this one, testing anyone's patience when conveyed outside of the context of the film. For a universe as intriguing as Ender's Game, it's astonishing to ponder just how incredibly underdeveloped the music for this film turned out to be. The minor-third progressions, the synthetic augmentation of orchestral sounds, the vocal integrations, the rhythmic churning of enhanced strings, the expansive brass whole notes, thumping percussive brainlessness, all present and thriving in yet another capitulation to mainstream convention. There are defenders of the score for Ender's Game in existence, those for whom the cheap thrill continues to outweigh higher brain functions. For these listeners, the score provides something Horner would never dream to stoop down to: a pair of decently enunciated anthems of ultra-muscular bass that pound away with enough deliberation to expose any tiny cracks you might already have in either your eardrums or the sheetrock on the walls of your room. The opening "Ender's War" builds up to the first of these identities, the one that ties most of the score together. If that doesn't stir the lions adequately, there's the secondary anthem for the Dragon Army subset of young heroes in the story. First announced at the end of "Dragons Win," this idea is featured three or four times in full during the score. Upon casual appreciation, these themes will be indistinguishable and function just the same. Outside of these ideas, Jablonsky seems content to let his common ostinatos hold everything together, each one hopelessly rooted on key and rotating mostly between the minor-associated notes directly above. There is some choral grandeur to be heard, the latter half of "The Way We Win Matter" a decent example of this execution, but the soundscape is devoid of any interesting counterpoint, and in that cue in particular, the moment of beauty is followed by the usual array of irritating electric guitar and alarm clock manipulations. The moments of contemplation in Ender's Game are scored with extreme disregard for emotional impact, a cue like "Ender Quits" a meandering, pointless exercise in ambience. All of this said, Jablonsky does attempt some minimally interesting utilization of solo strings in the work, the violin line over the ostinato in "The Battle Room" being the ballsy 2010's power-anthem version of Trevor Jones' adaptation of Dougie MacLean's "The Gael" in two cues of Last of the Mohicans. If that's the brainiest element a person could find in Ender's Game, then perhaps it's best that Horner spent his time over the year at charity events and other meaningful gatherings. Like the Transformers scores, there is a guilty pleasure suite to be compiled from Jablonsky's generic output for Ender's Game, perhaps even fifteen minutes of tonally dumb but tasty red meat for avid Remote Control collectors. It's significantly better than Battleship, but then again, damn near everything is, even the concurrent Remote Control disaster for Captain Phillips. Keep chewing on that well-done steak, RC fans. You'll get it down eventually. **
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 70:40
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
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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 Ender's Game are Copyright © 2013, Varèse Sarabande and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 12/27/13 (and not updated significantly since). |
