The Maze Runner: (John Paesano) Ah, yes, yet
another dystopian science fiction book aimed at teenagers makes its big
screen transition, the concept written by James Dashner in the late
2000's meant to take advantage of that seemingly endless demand for
depictions of average teenagers placed in heroic circumstances. This
particular low-budget 2014 venture,
The Maze Runner, performed
extremely well financially and 20th Century Fox immediately green-lit
its sequel. Its The story tells of a group of random teenagers that find
themselves deposited in the middle of a large natural maze, with few
memories of their prior life and left to their own devices to survive.
How refreshing it must be to not worry about prom dances all of a
sudden. But wait, of course, there's the apocalypse awaiting them
outside the maze that is the true story. Where would any of these films
be without a little "end of the world" intrigue? The crew and cast of
The Maze Runner is largely unknown to mainstream viewers, the
director making his major successful debut here. The same could be said
of composer John Paesano, though he has a few big screen credits and a
plethora of video game and television experience under his belt. His
press kit and online biographies indicate that the classically trained
Paesano has worked to some degree with John Williams and Jerry
Goldsmith, and while he suggests that he wrote additional material for
three of Goldsmith's final scores in the early 2000's, his involvement
on those projects must not have been significant enough to merit
crediting on any of the albums for those scores. He was clear in naming
Goldsmith, Williams, and Hans Zimmer as his inspirations when
approaching
The Maze Runner, however, and veteran film music
collectors will be able to hear the connections to not just the works of
these composers, but a wealth of others as well. It's always interesting
to hear newcomers to the big stage quote their inspirations and then
judge the temp track adherence that results. In the case of Paesano and
The Maze Runner, it's a pretty transparent series of adaptations
of style from not only the composers he specifically references, but
from James Horner (an
Avatar homage), James Newton Howard (the
finale), Thomas Newman (character interludes), and Trevor Jones (the
opening theme), among others. For some listeners, these recognizable
influences will be a deal breaker. That said, though, given the
relatively lower budget nature of this film and Paesano's lack of major
credits thus far in the Hollywood feature franchise realm, listeners
have to be satisfied with this first effort.
Perhaps more important to remember about
The Maze
Runner than just the references to others' styles is the simple fact
that this score was explicitly constructed as an origin work in such a
way that the thematic foundations may not make sense as of the initial
film. There are interesting themes introduced in this score, highlighted
by the opening and closing tracks on the album release, but don't expect
to hear these ideas fully fleshed out in the mass of the underscore. In
fact, you have concepts in the film, especially relating to specific
types of characters, that seem slighted by the thematic assignments,
cues like "My Name is Thomas" and "Why Are We Different" taking
distinctly Thomas Newman mannerisms to hazy melodic structures that
don't really tackle much. Likewise, concepts within this first movie,
such as the dreaded Grievers, don't seem to enjoy tight motific
identities that are easy to grasp for the listeners. Some of the issues
related to obtuse themes relates back to the simple fact that this score
is approached like many others in which a composer recognizes that he is
taking a huge step forward in his career. These situations seem to
beckon the idea of sonic wallpaper in these artists, as a project like
The Maze Runner affords a composer the opportunity to produce a
sampler of all his capabilities and thus he crams in every kind of
impressive idea he can muster into each cue. Very much in this vein is
this work, a score extremely dense in many parts and thus indicative of
Paesano's capabilities across a broad stroke of emotional lines. The
composer recorded a number of unusual natural sounds and altered them
for inclusion in his very aggressively orchestrated score. A cue such as
"Section 7" opens with such creativity. At times, the rhythmic
application of these ideas yields a "Brian Tyler effect," the phenomenon
in which a hell of a lot of ruckus rolls along without actually moving a
narrative in any direction. It's meant to thrill you in the moment
rather than move you forward. Such scores have difficulty congealing
into a truly cohesive listening experience, leaving you searching for
the easy harmonic statements of theme. Paesano treats many of the
character moments in
The Maze Runner with comparatively light
tones for acoustic guitar and woodwinds, allowing too much contrast
between the unbridled explosions of noise in the action material and the
needed emotional connections of the softer portions. Also working
against him is a very dry mix that sounds shallow at times. His
electronically manipulated elements are fine, as is the occasional
choral infusion, but the ensemble does have the resounding feeling in
the recording that he was seemingly seeking; as such, the whole is a bit
flat. Still, this a good starting point for any franchise, and one can
hope that the narrative will be clarified in future entries.
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The insert includes a list of performers and a note from the composer. The text on the page
with the bulk of the production credits is nearly impossible to read due to poor design.
