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| Edelman |
Ghostbusters II: (Randy Edelman) Enthusiasts of the
Ghostbusters franchise have long lamented the languishing of the
concept on the big screen, and 1989's disappointing sequel to the 1984
classic is largely the reason. With ownership over the property held by
director Ivan Reitman and the movie's three major writers and stars,
Ghostbusters II was the result of much wrangling to satisfy Bill
Murray, whose concerns about the storyline of the second film were more
than justified. All the principal characters return for another round of
paranormal mass-destruction in New York City, the Carpathian villain
feeding off of all the animosity of the people in the area. While the
end result may not be as reviled as it was at the time of its release,
the insistence by Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd that they use the social
commentary about angry citizens as a central element of the story was
never destined to be a winner. The production suffered poor test
screenings that required reshoots to persist to the months just prior to
the theatrical release, which badly underwhelmed. The film simply wasn't
quite as funny, the plot not as compelling, and Murray didn't seem to
want to be there half the time. Not surprisingly, the movie suppressed
the franchise for decades, a spin-off in 2016 the result of endless
bickering with Murray about allowing further expansion of the rights.
For
Ghostbusters II, while the basic equation for the picture
stayed the same, many of the players behind the scenes did turn over.
Composer Elmer Bernstein wasn't entirely thrilled by Reitman's use of
songs in
Ghostbusters, with the replacement of a few key cues
meeting with significant composer disapproval despite his concession
that Ray Parker Jr's title song was a smart choice. Disagreements
between Bernstein and Reitman ultimately led the director to search for
another composer. That next regular collaborator turned out to be Randy
Edelman, who provided music for several major Reitman films in the late
1980's and 1990's. By the time Edelman joined the
Ghostbusters II
crew, Reitman had already been inundated with artists offering to
contribute songs to the film and its soundtrack, with Parker Jr. joined
by Bobby Brown to lead the selections this time.
Edelman remains satisfied with the amount of his music
that was retained in
Ghostbusters II, though no fewer than ten
songs did end up in the final cut. (One of them, incidentally, was an
Oingo Boingo entry, "Flesh 'n Blood," that only received very brief air
time in the movie, a circumstance that Danny Elfman claims would have
led him to withdraw his support for its use at all had he known it would
receive so little prominence.) Regardless of the addition of two Brown
songs and a host of others, the Parker Jr. song remained the favorite
for the concept. Edelman's music holds a somewhat muted place in the
history of the franchise. In the official trilogy of movies, Elmer
Bernstein's original is highly respected and Rob Simonsen's 2021
expansion of that sound for
Ghostbusters: Afterlife is a loving
tribute that improves upon Bernstein's core material and sound. By
comparison, Edelman's score for
Ghostbusters II is a completely
self-contained work, the composer explicitly choosing not to even study
any of Bernstein's material for consideration. That decision, according
to the composer, was met with approval from Reitman. Undoubtedly,
Edelman had a stereotypical sound during this era of his career, his
contemporary keyboarding familiar in countless comedies and romances
while his blend of orchestra and synthetic augmentation defined his
fantasy and action material. Without deviation,
Ghostbusters II
is a faithful combination of those two trademark sounds for Edelman.
They have nothing in common with the personality or execution of
Bernstein's score, of course, but they suffice basically to serve the
needs of the film at a minimal level. Edelman's music is typically
affable but simplistic and underdeveloped, his motifs often charming but
not prone to impressive evolution in his scores. He conjures his base
comfort zone and seven or eight themes, adding a beefier orchestral
presence to the equation. While the presence of the sizable orchestra in
the mix does assist the action passages and a few of the larger
feel-good moments, it never really emerges out of the realm of
corniness. (In fairness, some might have said the same about Bernstein's
score.) The writing and orchestration of the major sequences has the
feeling of parody at times, which may work for some listeners but does
tend to diminish the whole. The composer comparatively excels at the
lighter keyboarded passages, including his pop-infused suspense
tones.
There is rarely a moment in
Ghostbusters II when
Edelman isn't stating one of his themes, and those ideas usually stick
to predefined instrumental parameters throughout. One detriment of the
score is that despite a wealth of themes, none of them really identifies
itself as the soundtrack's main tune. That duty should fall to the hero
theme of the work, but Edelman doesn't reference it enough to give it
memorability. The idea has a fanfare introduction and the full melody,
and both exude a sense of silliness befitting a lower budget project.
The fanfare's rhythm in particular gives off a cheap,
Superman
vibe. It opens "A Few Friends Save Manhattan," the cue appearing at the
end of the credits, with a few early phrases revealed completely at
0:56. The most resounding rendition of the theme comes with the fanfare
opening of "In Liberty's Shadow," the orchestral highlight of score that
yields to the actual theme at 0:50 on synths before adding back in some
orchestral elements later in the cue. The hero theme is given brief
bursts in "Order in the Court," at 1:56 into "A Slime Darkened Doorway,"
and in the first minute of "Vigo's Last Stand." It emerges out of the
love theme in "Family Portrait/Finale" for a new solo piano arrangement
at 1:29. ("Finale" is actually an alternate full ensemble version tacked
onto the end of that album track.) Sadly, this theme doesn't stick. The
most memorable idea in
Ghostbusters II is ironically the nursery
rhyme, "Rock-a-bye baby on the tree top," which is all over this score,
used for seemingly every appearance of the story's baby with highly
obnoxious results. It's heard first at 1:04 into "A Baby Carriage Meets
Heavy Traffic" with worry, takes a moment in the latter half of "Order
in the Court" (actually the cue "She Cleaned" but inexplicably combined
here on album) and in the middles of "He's Got Carpathian Eyes," "In
Liberty's Shadow," and "Rooftop Broom Kidnap." Edelman adapts the tune
extensively into his own trademark style in "Oscar is Quietly
Surrounded," and hints extend to the start of "Enlightenment." The
application of this melody into such a prevalent position in the score
is a huge misfire by Edelman, because it further pushes the whole work
into parody territory. The baby does have its own suspense motif of
sorts, an electronic rhythmic device that foreshadows the opening cue of
Kindergarten Cop. Heard late in "A Baby Carriage Meets Heavy
Traffic," this material extends to 1:15 into "Vigo's Last Stand."
Two or three themes for the lead characters occupy the
softer, keyboarded moments of
Ghostbusters II. A general love
theme for the overarching family of characters seems to have a separate
partition for Dana specifically, but these ideas all intermingle in how
they are dropped into the film, giving them identical purpose. These
passages are the highlights of Edelman's score; it's where the composer
always seemed to excel during this period in his career, and this
project is no different. The softer material is featured at 0:08 into "A
Few Friends Save Manhattan," returns at the end of "Order in the Court"
on album, receives suite treatment in "The Sensitive Side of Dana,"
opens "Rooftop Broom Kidnap" for a Tully/Janine scene, briefly recurs at
the end of "A Slime Darkened Doorway," offers a respite at 1:30 into
"Vigo's Last Stand," and opens "Family Portrait/Finale." Meanwhile,
Murray's Venkman character receives his own tune defined by Edelman's
suite rendition in "Venkman's 6th Ave. Strut." In the actual score, it
interjects for a moment at 2:18 into "Vigo's Last Stand" but really
shines in "Good With Kids," which opens with only the idea's chords but
becomes playfully fuller later; parts of this cue are repeated in the
film. This latter material specifically previewed the cute classroom
portions of
Kindergarten Cop. The villainous Vigo the Carpathian
receives two themes, one for action and another for his hypnotic
effects. The action theme is extremely grating, its swirling strings and
two-note brass phrases highly abrasive and overplayed in context. It's
launched at 0:48 into "A Few Friends Save Manhattan," opens "Order in
the Court" and consolidates later in that cue, and receives its most
obvious performance in the film at 1:53 into "Rooftop Broom Kidnap." It
returns at 0:48 into "Vigo's Last Stand" in full swirl, its progressions
shifting towards the hero theme's phrasing nicely in one of the score's
few moments of cross-thematic development. Momentary bursts of the theme
also figure at 0:11 and 1:07 into "Enlightenment." More alluring in
Ghostbusters II, and perhaps Edelman's most effective theme in
the score, is his creepy melody for Vigo's effect on others. The
hypnosis theme contains descending pairs of notes with dramatic appeal,
Edelman alluding to it in a greater variety of instrumental shades than
the other themes. In its most potent native form, it features slight
choral menace over wet drum pads, leading to an ominous brass crescendo
with timpani.
The hypnosis theme in
Ghostbusters II can be
heard at 0:27 into "He's Got Carpathian Eyes" and 0:27 into "In
Liberty's Shadow," also hinted at 0:45 into "Rooftop Broom Kidnap" for
suspense. It closes the ambient darkness of "The Scoleri Brothers" and
receives suite-like attention at 1:02 into "Oscar is Quietly Surrounded"
on synthetic orchestral tones; it shifts nicely synthetic choir at 2:26,
and the interplay with the baby's theme is conceptually strong here even
if it was never used in the picture. An action variant of the hypnosis
theme is provided for the river of slime in "A Slime Darkened Doorway,"
but it returns to original form at the outset and 2:07 into "Vigo's Last
Stand," shifting to slightly ominous strings at 0:21 into
"Enlightenment." The final thematic influence on the score is Parker
Jr.'s song melody, which figures at 1:36 into "The Scoleri Brothers" and
in the humorous but annoying song variant instrumental in "One Leaky
Sewer Faucet." Put together, the score for
Ghostbusters II is
more than a little schizophrenic outside of Edelman's established
techniques of writing and recording. The score, like its predecessor,
never received an official album release at the time of the film's
debut. Edelman blamed that on musician re-use fees, though the failure
of the sequel certainly didn't help his cause. It took until 2021 before
Sony finally released a scant 45-minute score-only product, the
disappointing length resulting from what Edelman claimed was the studio
losing the master tapes for about half the score. As a result,
alternates of some cues were used for the product, and to flesh out the
character themes, Edelman newly recorded four cues ("Venkman's 6th Ave.
Strut," "The Sensitive Side of Dana," "Oscar is Quietly Surrounded," and
part of "Family Portrait") on his own with keyboards joined by synthetic
orchestral samples. Also included is the wretched "One Leaky Sewer
Faucet" even though it wasn't heard in the picture. Purists will lament
the lack of film versions for several cues, along with a handful of cues
missing altogether, but the real problem with the 2021 album is its
terrible sequencing and inconsistent sound quality from track to track.
The arrangement was produced by Edelman himself, and it's among the
worst presentations of a score to be heard on album in years. Expect the
ambient qualities of the tracks to differ significantly, some of the
orchestral passages sounding distant while others vibrant. The score for
Ghostbusters II is a tragedy, from Edelman's refusal to
acknowledge Bernstein to the haphazard new thematic attributions, parody
stylings, and frustrating album situation. Toss this one in the slime.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For Randy Edelman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.05
(in 20 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.16
(in 29,260 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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