: (Danny Elfman) It's difficult to
definitively determine if Tim Burton was trying to make a film better or
worse than what
turned out to be, but in any case,
the picture might have better if it had swung in either direction. Never
receiving a glowing response from critics and blown off in the end by
viewers already satisfied in the genre by
earlier in 1996, Burton's tribute to the ridiculous, low-budget, B-minus
films of Ed Wood and others in the 1950's science fiction genre
(inspired as well by a series of old Topps bubble gum cards) tried just
a little too hard to actually be good, or to be above its own material.
Therein lies the main reason for the film's downfall: the combination of
a spectacular cast, magnificent special effects, overdone gore, and a
refusal by Burton to allow the film to take flight with its parody lines
causes
to be little more than a bizarre spectacle.
It simply isn't funny in most of its parts, too, and while it never
ceases to intrigue in the way it tickles the perverse senses of those
inclined to find mutilation and mass death entertaining, its defocused
and lacking character development doesn't give you any reason to care
about its premise. Perhaps one of the more important and overlooked
aspects of
is the fact that the project re-united
the quirky director with composer Danny Elfman. The two men had
experienced a passionate disagreement a few years earlier, spawned by
the awkwardly deep involvement by Elfman in
in 1994. Many other Burton and Elfman collaborators
had reinforced the plain and simple fact that the composer was
inevitably the perfect fit for
, though. When a
mutual contact called Elfman and asked if he could fly to the film's
shooting location in Kansas, he enthusiastically (and with a sense of
relief) traveled there immediately. He and Burton sat down at a
restaurant and reconciled without any drama, agreeing to move on and
ignore their stormy episode, and that was not only a good thing for the
long-term triumphs they would go on to experience, but also in the
immediate time frame, because it's difficult to imagine
Without missing a beat, Elfman seems to have read Burton's
mind once again for
Mars Attacks!, because the finished product
is musically identical to the film's mutual successes and failures.
Elfman dove head-first into the notion of raising Bernard Herrmann's
The Day The Earth Stood Still from the dead for the occasion,
taking the most famous and stereotypical elements of 1950's and early
1960's sci-fi music and beefing them up with all the power and diversity
of a modern symphony orchestra and synthetic accents. The resulting
barrage of alien marches, theremine statements, and genre-bending
sub-themes is a marvel of creativity and ingenuity, but ultimately
suffers the film's fate: a total lack of focus. At best, the most
positive descriptor of Elfman's work for this film would be "fun." It
keeps your attention because of its undeniably silly personality. Many
film music collectors would call it effective as well, and no doubt it
was, but how do you value a score that mirrors its film so thoroughly
that they plunge together into failure? It's not quite as far to take
the leap towards the realm of "intolerable"-related descriptors, for
Mars Attacks! is a self-induced headache waiting patiently on the
shelves to shatter the silence in your room with enthusiasm and zeal. If
you divide the score into its major parts, you recognize the Martian
march, a definite highlight of the work and a foreshadowing of the
spirit of
Men in Black, before moving on to the frenetic and
wildly inconsistent action music, the lovable portions of source and
cutesy romance music, and the two finale tracks of victorious harmony.
Spread throughout all these sections are the theremine, the
quintessential representative of 1950's schlock, the similar ondes
martenot (an Elmer Bernstein favorite that was used as a replacement for
the theremine in many places because it was far easier to find a
performer for the instrument), a high-pitched female choir (which
"eew's" and "ahh's" its way into an even deeper levels of fantasy
schlock), an organ performing the usual menacing chord progressions, the
mandatory synthetic sound effects of zipping saucers, and a perpetual
presence of snare or timpani to represent the militaristic nature of the
invasion. There are moments in the score when Elfman, probably
inadvertently, steps on the toes of David Arnold's
Independence
Day in the use of male choral shades and brass solos for faux heroic
scenes.
While the ingredients are all there for a wildly
entertaining listening experience,
Mars Attacks! becomes derailed
is in the inconsistent development of its strong and enjoyable title
theme and the lack of its quantity of truly satisfying parody-deserving
usage throughout subsequent major cues. The march is one of those
oddball themes that contains a catchy melody but is ultimately
overshadowed by an immensely memorable fanfare figure at the end,
two-note phrases over-emphasizing their awesomeness before gloriously
resolving on key, often with powerful organ in the bass (he gloriously
and hilariously concludes those finale structures with wailing brass as
seemingly a tribute to
The Day The Earth Stood Still). If Elfman
could have retained the cohesive personality that the score promises in
its first quarter, this may have been a far different review. In
portions of cues like "The Landing," "Invasion," and "Final Address,"
you hear this potential explored in passages that could probably be
assembled into ten to fifteen minutes of impressive highlights. But by
the time the listener reaches the "Martian Lounge" and "Martian Madame"
cues, led by Latin club rhythms and bongo drums, the identity of the
score has become so fragmented that the listener will likely start
craving a return to the spunk and propulsive movement from the opening
titles. Even the fake brass heroism of Elfman's treatment of the human
military response fails to really resonate, the constant, dry snare
rhythms in "First Fire Fight" and other cues sounding a bit too cheap
for the magnitude of sound necessary to create a solid parody
environment. The "End Credits" cue is perhaps a best representative of
the score's curious and ultimate failure, not sure whether to continue
the parody style of the opening titles or to take the mood down a dark
and ominous path instead. All of that said, keep in mind that
Mars
Attacks! is a beloved score for Elfman collectors, and, to be fair,
a singular highlight like "The Landing" is impressive in its bridging
between the choral elements from Elfman's early career (and
Scrooged in particular) and the popular percussion applications
that highlight his
Men in Black and
Spider-Man work. The
inclusion of Tom Jones, both as a character and as source music, and
(literally) head-popping songs of vintage tones also break up the flow
of the music in the film. Overall, the soundtrack has is a fragmented
mixture of parody that isn't quite serious enough to be effective and
outward carnival atmosphere that hails back to the earliest Elfman
creations for film.
On album,
Mars Attacks! has enjoyed (or
suffered, depending upon how you look at it) a long history of activity.
The commercial Atlantic album of 1996 is an adequate, 40-minute survey
of the highlights from Elfman's score (concluding with the two film's
major songs). It lacks a couple of truly important performances of the
main march, mainly in "Invasion" (even Elfman himself laments this cue's
absence from the product), but that material probably wouldn't have made
a difference in the score's initial rating. When that product fell out
of print in the 2000's, fans turned to bootlegs that were generated from
the isolated score track on the DVD release of the film. Somewhat
surprisingly, the score was licensed by La-La Land Records and
remastered in its expanded form for a limited pressing in 2009,
surpassing the bootlegs with cleaner edits and bonus alternative takes.
The 2011 set "The Danny Elfman and Tim Burton 25th Anniversary Music
Box" includes
Mars Attacks! as the subject of its 7th CD, and the
only additional music heard on that set that wasn't included on the 2009
La-La Land album is an assortment of three minutes spread throughout
"The Landing" to emulate the film version of that cue. It replaces the
alternate "Martian Lounge" track on the 2009 album. For enthusiasts of
the score, the additional material common to the 2009 La-La Land and
2011 Warner sets will yield some definite highlights (with roughly the
same sound quality), including a fair dose of the noble, sentimental
material and explosive action cues. The synthetic demo version of the
title theme, as recorded for the film's trailer, only makes you seek out
the fuller, finished alternative. Aside from the reprises of the
Herrmann-inspired closing bars of the title theme in these extra cues,
it's the type of material that is interesting to hear once, but a
75-minute presentation of
Mars Attacks! is simply too much to
handle. Those seeking one of these products should be confident that the
2009 2-CD set from La-La Land, priced down to $15 or below after the
label could not sell enough of its 3,000-copy run in the first few years
on the market, is a far better presentation of the score than what is
heard on the $500 set (where the additional tracks are not inserted
chronologically into the original soundtrack order). On any album of its
releases, Elfman's eccentric music for Burton's abomination flies all
over the map, leaving its main titles as the only truly memorable piece.
If you're trying to convert your roommates and friends into film music
enthusiasts, there are a thousand scores better for that task than this
nutty one.
@Amazon.com: CD or
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- Music as Written for the Film: ***
- Music as Heard on All Albums: **
- Overall: **
| Bias Check: |
For Danny Elfman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.16
(in 87 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.27
(in 151,394 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
