Filmtracks: Pacific Rim (Ramin Djawadi)

Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #539
Written 7/6/13

Invert Colors

Buy it... if you are able to accept that fact that not all scores for juvenile, blockbuster robot and/or monster movies are created equal, Ramin Djawadi providing far more intelligence for this entry than you hear in similarly conceived projects.

Avoid it... if the prejudices you hold towards rocking electric guitars, chanting male choruses, foghorn blasts, and mournful female vocals do not allow you to appreciate circumstances in which they are applied at their very best.

Djawadi

Pacific Rim: (Ramin Djawadi) Thanks mostly to the imaginations of the Japanese, the "mecha" and "Kaiju" genres of films have flourished since the 1950's, delighting audiences with depictions of metropolitan destruction far more entertaining than the typical war story. Rarely in the mainstream have you seen the giant monsters of the Kaiju variety battling the massive human-driven robots of the "mecha" world, however, and the 2013 American movie Pacific Rim seeks to bring those concepts together. It postulates that in the future, alien-like monsters rise from the depths of the Pacific Ocean with the intent to haunt the nightmares of insurance company executives. As expected, they pillage, sack, and destroy with awesome visual methodology. But those pesky humans dedicate all their resources to creating big "mecha" robots that they climb into and utilize to wage war against the nasties, setting up a wet dream of a conflict between Godzilla and the Transformers, essentially. The story makes even Independence Day seem intelligent, testing the limits of juvenility and logic while appealing to the rampant testicular hyperactivity of its target demographic. Such a movie, with the blessing of modern rendering technologies, is perfect for a large-scale parody, pitting robots and creatures with faces molded after Gene Wilder and Kelsey Grammer against each other, both requiring anatomical correctness that allows them to use their male appendages as additional weapons or vulnerabilities. Now that would be worth watching. As for Pacific Rim, all hope rests upon director Guillermo del Toro to deliver more than simple metallic eye candy. He wanted to honor the "mecha" and "Kaiju" traditions without mocking them, and to that end he sought a more balanced musical identity in the film than what you heard from Steve Jablonsky for the Transformers franchise. Impressed with Ramin Djawadi's varied work for television and film (his music for the series "Game of Thrones" has garnered significant positive attention), del Toro hired the veteran of Hans Zimmer's Remote Control Productions to provide a truly hybrid orchestral and electronic score. In these circumstances, one would certainly have expected Djawadi to emulate the Jablonsky mould or simply rehash his stale, ineffective tone from the original Iron Man. After all, does Pacific Rim really require or deserve any better? Interestingly, the composer decided to step up his blobkbuster sound for the occasion, yielding a surprisingly complex and engaging score that steps beyond the label of "guilty pleasure" with which some will inevitably label it.

The ingredients that Djawadi calls upon for Pacific Rim are exactly as expected. An orchestra without a woodwind section (aside from a flute soloist), electric guitars played by Tom Morello and George Doerning, electronic sound design by a Remote Control veteran, a deep male chorus, enhanced bass region brass emphasis, a female vocal soloist for lamentation, an erhu soloist for an exotic touch, and many of Zimmer's usual crew are present. From this list, you'd expect Djawadi to lay waste to the soundscape with generic, occasionally insufferable noise. But he doesn't, and what Pacific Rim finally proves, along with a few other distinctive scores, is that the stereotypical ensemble collected for these occasions doesn't necessarily have to produce stereotypically asinine results. Djawadi has managed to take these elements and infuse them with a more expansive thematic tapestry, complex musical techniques (including counterpoint and quick, rhythmic variations, both shunned by Zimmer during this era), and, most importantly, a sense of style. This music is, quite frankly, what one could imagine Brian Tyler executing rather than anyone associated with Remote Control, and it's therefore a refreshing change of pace that manages to stir the loins using ultra-masculine force without completely sacrificing smart musical design. That said, is this composition anywhere close to matching those of modern day maestros? Of course not. But it achieves menace, awe, and coolness without bashing the listener over the head, and that victory alone warrants significant praise for Djawadi, as does the apparent fact that he didn't employ a dozen ghostwriters from the production house to flesh out the score, either. There may be criticism from some listeners regarding the somewhat retro style that the composer decided to employ with his primary theme for Pacific Rim. It has a distinctive 1960's television vibe going for it, thanks to the movements of its melody, and it therefore has hints of Lalo Schfrin in its demeanor. Why Djawadi decided upon this route is uncertain, though it remains applicable because of the straight forward rock aspects of the baseline and electric guitar performances under the brassy melody. The opening guitar riff in "Pacific Rim," followed by the underlying, nicely staggered rhythms and the main melody of that concert-like arrangement of the theme, will also recall portions of famous rock songs, though not to the detriment of this score's effectiveness. In some ways, the theme sounds like a harder offshoot of Alan Silvestri's 2012 score for The Avengers, and by association it makes one wonder if this theme for Pacific Rim wouldn't have been a good fit for Djawadi's Iron Man.

Read More...

The main Pacific Rim theme closes out with a small dose of humor for Inception fans, the concluding foghorn effect more organic here and later punctuating the start of measures in rhythms during several places in the score. Credit has to be given to Djawadi for how well his main theme is manipulated throughout the work, following the awesome coolness of the opening track on album with a wide variety of renditions of the theme that begin with a restrained statement at 1:36 into "Gypsy Danger" and continue onto soft electric guitars early in "Canceling the Apocalypse." The components of the opening performance are sometimes separated from the melody, the underlying rhythmic line employed for character usage in "Call Me Newt" and "Kaiju Groupie." At 1:27 into "Physical Compatibility," this rhythm develops into the main theme on guitar, and the actual melody is generally heard in the other references to the identity. These moments include reprises of the opening arrangement (with all supporting parts, including rocking guitars) in "Jaeger Tech," "Go Big or Go Extinct," and "No Pulse." Less obvious statements include fragments of the theme mixed into the action of "Category 5," melodramatic, elongated renditions in the middle portions of "For My Family," a nice brass insertion of the idea over a descending line in "Deep Beneath the Pacific," and a noteworthy intersection with one of the stomping 4-note themes of bravado in "The Breach." Djawadi doesn't stop there, however, and while his secondary motifs may be sometimes difficult to attribute to individual meanings, he does explore seven additional themes in multiple places each, making the score one worthy of a closer examination. Clearly related to the main theme is a hopeful offshoot that serves as Pacific Rim's de facto anthem. Hinted on guitar at 0:44 into "Canceling the Apocalypse," the theme builds to its full form at 1:04 into that cue. A subtle but stoic version mingles with hints of the main theme at 1:20 into "To Fight Monsters, We Created Monsters" and a militaristic variant in the form of a choral chant at 0:37 into "We Are the Resistance" morphs into the main theme. More frequently referenced is a series of cascading 4-note phrases heard late in the opening suite (at 3:13) that represents both dread and heroism later in the work. It exists in accelerating fashion at 0:46 and 2:20 into "Gypsy Danger," mixes seamlessly with the main theme at 1:34 into "Jaeger Tech," occupies a very pretty horn solo at the start of "Better Than New," offers hints of itself at 1:01 and 1:47 in "Category 5," supplies a deep brass sense of anticipation at 1:18 into "Go Big or Go Extinct," and concludes the album's presentation with an unresolved fragment at the end of "We Need a New Weapon."

There exist two "stomping" motifs in Pacific Rim that seem to play off of each other and infuse the necessary grandiose scale to the score. Neither is really sophisticated in any way, though the second one does develop into what seems to be a more complex identity for the elements of evil in the plot. The first of the two 4-note stomps is a generic, ball-busting motif heard at 1:12 and 2:13 into "Pacific Rim," more of a rolling rhythmic effect in that track. Subsequent applications include a fluid statement at 0:23 into "To Fight Monsters, We Created Monsters," a dramatic form at 0:54 into "Striker Eureka," and a reminder at 0:31 into "Category 5." More interesting is the seemingly villainous alternative to this motif, another stomping identity that is sometimes elongated with repeated final notes. Accompanying this brutal blurting is a melodramatic theme that only graces the score a couple of times on album. Both parts of this identity can be heard in "Just a Memory," the stomping at 0:47 yielding to the introduction of the wrought-out minor-key progressions of the actual theme. Only at 1:05 in "Deep Beneath the Pacific" do you receive a similarly developed presentation of the melody again. Djawadi does, however, remind you of the stomping portion of the identity throughout the work, starting immediately in "2500 Tons of Awesome" and extending deliberately at 0:19 into "Striker Eureka" and 0:40 into "Deep Beneath the Pacific." Not surprisingly, the theme becomes immensely rendered with choral muscle at the starts of "Category 5" and "For My Family" (the former with timpani pounding and the latter with constant cymbals). Less obvious is a creepy translation to erhu ambience at 0:43 in "Hannibal Chau" and a choral hint at 1:43 into "The Breach." The other themes of Pacific Rim include the Russian-like ideas heard initially in "The Shatterdome," first a very long anthemic idea at 0:17 and then a bull-blown Russian chant at 1:35 that grows out of the deep male choir in the rest of the cue. The Russian chant returns at 1:20 into "Double Event" while the more elegant theme for strings and horns is defiant and hopeful at 1:42 into "Pentecost." For the romantics in the audience, the hidden treasure in Pacific Rim is an elusively elegant theme that shares progressions, strangely enough, with Jerry Goldsmith's main idea from The Ghost and the Darkness. This soft theme builds out of a typical but still alluring solo female voice from 1:27 in "Mako" (repeatedly adding additional performers) and receives a more major arrangement throughout "We Need a New Weapon" (with a big crescendo at the end). In between is a performance at 0:50 in "To Fight Monsters, We Created Monsters" during which the theme's underlying progressions eventually nicely reveal the actual melody.

There are other fragments of themes in Pacific Rim that don't recur, most notably the Hannibal Chau theme over rolling rhythmic suspense in the first half of the track of that name. There is also a brief passage at 1:20 into "Striker Eureka" that suspiciously borrows the theme from Mark Mancina's Speed for a moment. The extensive interaction between the main melody and its related offshoots also muddy the thematic picture a bit, but Djawadi ties them together with common rhythmic devices (often featuring trios of repetition) that afford the score a strong sense of cohesiveness. You don't expect to hear eight themes in a context such as this, and to encounter so many instances of cohabitation of themes in the same cues is refreshing enough to forgive some lack of delineation of identity. Most casual enthusiasts of the score will be enamored by the opening main theme arrangement and its three reprises later in the work. It wouldn't be surprising if there are orchestral film score traditionalists who summarily classify Pacific Rim as yet another entry in a lengthy series of brain-dead electric guitar-laden, generally anthemic, and nuance-lacking scores from the influence of Zimmer's style of the 1990's and 2000's. To force that label upon Pacific Rim is inaccurate, however, especially in terms of its unnecessary but welcomed complexities. For those who cannot stand electric guitars in their scores, stop and consider exactly what type of film they would be most appropriate for. Pacific Rim is certainly that film, and Djawadi goes one step further by allowing the guitars enough free reign to be cool without ever screeching or becoming obnoxious. Their performances here are awesomely executed, even if they do steal a bar or two from rock tradition. A distinct lack of generic stupidity here, in part because of the influence of Schifrin style in the main theme, should earn the composer praise from even staunch Zimmer/RC detractors. The mix of this score contributes to the positive outcome; at a time when so many similar works are absolutely drowned out by an overemphasis on the base region, Pacific Rim refuses to resort to droning ambience or the kind of "enhancements" that Zimmer uses to squash the natural tone of the horns, trombones, and tubas. Djawadi, on the other hand, simply boosts the number of those performers, allowing their natural tones to create foghorn effects of a much grittier, authentic sound. Overall, Pacific Rim is for Djawadi what 2004's Catwoman was for Klaus Badelt, a score maligned because of its ingredients and Media Ventures/Remote Control origins despite containing a remarkable amount of thematic development and appropriate style for the subject matter. Approach the music for Pacific Rim with the same understanding of its purpose and be rewarded by its unnecessary smarts. **** @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Filmtracks Home	Reviews
Scoreboard	Desktop Site