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Review of Oblivion (Anthony Gonzales/Joseph Trapanese)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... only if you found the hybrid orchestral and electronic music for this film engaging in context, and even then, beware of a long album presentation that relies upon ambience and style rather than any specific complexities.

Avoid it... if you expect to hear music as interesting as that of Tron: Legacy, the team of Anthony Gonzales and Joseph Trapanese struggling to conjure more than very simplistic and derivative ideas for this assignment.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Oblivion: (Anthony Gonzales/Joseph Trapanese) Be careful when filmmakers claim to have an original science-fiction concept, because, more often than not, what they're offering is some blend of ideas executed in superior forms in other movies. Director Joseph Kosinski has claimed that 2013's Oblivion is a tribute to 1970's science fiction cinema when, in fact, it borrows a frightful number of plot elements from more recent genre entries and therefore threatens to derail its greatest asset: its concept twist. Without revealing this mid-way plot redirection, it's safe to say that Oblivion is a post-apocalyptic depiction of the remnants of Earth dealing with a war against invading alien forces that explores significant identity issues along the path to figuring out exactly who the heroes and villains are. Logical fallacies in the timeline are the telltale signs of a flawed script, and while the movie performed well with audiences (thanks, in some part, to Tom Cruise's involvement in the lead role), it fell short with many critics because of its problematic story. Kosinski wanted to follow the success of his Tron: Legacy cinematic debut with this unconventional sci-fi affair, and, as you might imagine, a non-traditional approach to the music was one of his primary interests. Admitting the Daft Punk would not be appropriate for this assignment, he instead turned to French electronic group M83, insisting that he wanted a similarly unconventional score by "pulling an artist from outside the movie business to create an original sound for this film. M83's music was fresh and original, and big and epic, but at the same time emotional and this is a very emotional film and it felt like a good fit." Because M83's Anthony Gonzales had no film scoring experience sufficient for him to complete this process, Kosinski once again turned to Tron: Legacy arranger and orchestrator Joseph Trapanese. It's difficult to say exactly how much influence Trapanese had on these two scores, given that both of them don't conform to many industry standards. Trapanese isn't a tremendously experienced composer, either, his most notable work for television, and perhaps it is no surprise that the finished product for Oblivion is extraordinarily simplistic and defies Kosinski's original intent by revealing itself to be extremely derivative as well. For all the hype that was generated at the film's release about the "fresh" direction taken by Gonzales and Trapanese for this project, any experienced film music listener will be able to hear substantial and distracting references to Tron: Legacy, Inception (and other Hans Zimmer works), and vintage Vangelis compositions, among others.

Like the film, the score for Oblivion suffices without excelling. It goes through the motions of a hybrid score without actually innovating. The blend of orchestra and synthetics is as expected, a slight electronica rhythmic vibe intersecting with the larger ensemble during action sequences and droning ambience creating a wishy-washy haze during conversational moments. Somewhat dated drum-pad or rock percussion punctuates several cues with a sense of coolness totally out of place in this film. The symphonic players are wasted in this effort because of the debilitating simplicity of the composition. Meters are usually static, the two themes are basic and not manipulated with care, and there is absolutely no nuance in the actual performances, Trapanese's conducting clearly not inspiring those in front of him. The mixing of the work (once again courtesy of Remote Control Productions) is bass-heavy as always, leaving little room for any notable treble-region elements. String ostinatos are as stale as ever here, often serving as the only activity underneath very mundane, long-lined melodic progressions. Occasionally, a harsh edge of synthetic keyboarding intrudes upon the soundscape in 1980's Vangelis fashion, a welcome element, actually, given the topic. The score's two themes are ineffectual, the one featured immediately on piano in "Jack's Dream" reprised in longer form in "You Can't Save Her." The main identity, heard first late in "Tech 49" and expanded with Blade Runner and Basil Poledouris influences in "Earth 2077," is more interesting. The sound design portions hint at ingenuity at times, but their presence in the mix isn't particularly prominent. The action material is extremely obnoxious in Oblivion, "Canyon Battle" and its irritating percussion layer symptomatic of the score's major problem: the unresolved crescendo. The composers abuse this technique in the score, ending far too many cues with build-ups to a resolution that never happens. As such, Gonzales and Trapanese fail to exhibit the ebb and flow of a score's emotional connections with any sense of organized precision. That's what happens when composers follow the Zimmer method of scoring the concept prior to seeing the film, as Gonzales did. Overall, the score for Oblivion is nowhere near the spectacle of Tron: Legacy and, by the slammed percussion at the end of "Fearful Odds," is somewhat laughable in its stylistic corniness and compositional incompetence. Some will love the textures because they don't come from an industry insider, and for those folks, the 140-minute, download-only "deluxe" edition of the album will go well with their zone-out sessions. For everyone else, the standard 69-minute version will be more than enough to bore. Both albums come with a song melodically connected to the score but featuring badly layered vocals that ruin the singer's appeal. A quest for originality has ironically yielded the exact opposite.  **

TRACK LISTINGS:

Regular Album:
Total Time: 69:06

• 1. Jack's Dream (1:22) • 2. Waking Up (4:09) • 3. Tech 49 (5:58) • 4. StarWaves (3:41) • 5. Odyssey Rescue (4:08) • 6. Earth 2077 (2:22) • 7. Losing Control (3:56) • 8. Canyon Battle (5:58) • 9. Radiation Zone (4:11)

• 10. You Can't Save Her (4:56) • 11. Raven Rock (4:33) • 12. I'm Sending You Away (5:38) • 13. Ashes of Our Fathers (3:30) • 14. Temples of Our Gods (3:14) • 15. Fearful Odds (3:09) • 16. Undimmed By Time, Unbound By Death (2:26) • 17. Oblivion* (5:57)

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Deluxe Album:
Total Time: 113:36

• 1. Jack's Dream (1:29) • 2. Waking Up (4:17) • 3. Supercell (4:18) • 4. Tech 49 (6:01) • 5. The Library (3:26) • 6. Horatius (2:31) • 7. StarWaves (3:41) • 8. Hydrorig (2:22) • 9. Crater Lake (1:27) • 10. Unidentified Object (2:31) • 11. Odyssey Rescue (4:11) • 12. Return From Delta (2:22) • 13. Retrieval (6:47) • 14. Earth 2077 (2:22) • 15. Revelations (1:42)

• 16. Drone Attack (3:26) • 17. Return to Empire State (6:41) • 18. Losing Control (3:57) • 19. Canyon Battle (5:57) • 20. Radiation Zone (4:11) • 21. You Can't Save Her (4:58) • 22. Welcome Back (1:46) • 23. Raven Rock (4:35) • 24. Knife Fight in a Phone Booth (4:39) • 25. I'm Sending You Away (5:39) • 26. Ashes of Our Fathers (3:32) • 27. Temples of Our Gods (3:15) • 28. Fearful Odds (3:11) • 29. Undimmed by Time, Unbound By Death (2:26) • 30. Oblivion* (5:56)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert includes a list of performers and a note from the director about the score.

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