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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Pete's Dragon (Daniel Hart)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if there is no such thing as too heavy a dose of schmaltz
in your children's adventure scores, Daniel Hart infusing a satisfyingly
emotional narrative to his occasionally overblown score.
Avoid it... if you reject the mere premise of this remake, because nothing of the affable 1977 soundtrack survives in this impressively executed but potentially shallow, workmanlike effort.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Pete's Dragon: (Daniel Hart) One of 2016's more
puzzling box office success stories was the remake of the partially
animated 1977 Walt Disney musical Pete's Dragon, though the movie
was a hard sell internationally. The original film was a light-hearted
musical of dubious quality but tremendous heart, buoyed to cult status
by a few highly memorable songs and the delicious performance of
character stage actor Jim Dale as Dr. Terminus. For the 2016 fully
live-action version of Pete's Dragon, the entire storyline of the
original film is disregarded, the newer vision far more ominous while
eliminating much of the comedy. In the all-new time and location, Pete
is orphaned in the woods in the 1980's after a car crash kills his
parents; there, he is adopted and raised for five years by an equally
lonely dragon named Elliot by the boy. As a logging company threatens
their habitat, the boy is reintegrated into society while the dragon is
inevitably pursued by the military. Just as the film largely ignored the
1977 source material, so too did the new soundtrack. While a rather odd
but intriguing connection of composer Howard Shore to the film
circulated for quite some time, the assignment eventually went to
Director David Lowery's normal collaborator of the 2010's, Daniel Hart.
Not far removed from driving buses and performing as part of a band,
Hart had produced a handful of film scores of minimal scope for Lowery
and, after hearing some positive demo cues, Disney took a leap of faith
to allow the two to collaborate again on Pete's Dragon. Admitting
that he had never heard the 1977 soundtrack, Hart disregarded the
musical entirely and set forth on producing a rather straight-forward
orchestral and folksy combination effort that merged some traditional
material and inspiration from the Country genre into the mix, as
reflected in the songs included on the soundtrack. The absence of any of
the original melodies from 1977 is a significant disappointment,
especially given the popularity of "Candle on the Water" and John
Debney's immensely successful adaptation of existing tunes into his
score for the concurrent remake of The Jungle Book. There will be
purists who reject Hart's work simply because of this lack of regard in
even subtle acknowledgement.
If you separate the absence of any satisfying nod to the 1977 soundtrack for Pete's Dragon, then you're left evaluating a score by Hart that could be praised or denigrated in a few very general ways that will, depending on which argument sways you, completely shape your opinion of the score. On the upside, the Hart score is well executed and thematically rich, its narrative excellent and its instrumental and choral blend achieving the right balance between the parochial and the fantastic. It's far more evenly developed that you would expect from a novice composer, especially in its ability to emotionally connect. On the downside, it has all the feeling of a composer writing towards the genre rather than really absorbing it, yielding a result that some might describe as similar to the sufficient but oddly empty adventure tone that you sometimes heard from Debney and the similarly workmanlike Joel McNeely in the 1990's. You also have a "Nicholas Dodd effect" possibly playing a role here in the major orchestration and conducting work of Kevin Kaska for Pete's Dragon. There are also more than a few similarities to the children's mode of James Horner to be heard (along with The New World in "You Are Not Alone"), occasionally to distracting levels, though the employment of the light, high-range choir will remind of sensitivity employed by Danny Elfman in a project like Real Steel. When considering both these positives and negatives, you end up with a score that is more than sufficient, heartfelt, and lovely at times, but strangely shallow on the whole. Perhaps with some seasoning in the larger film scoring sphere, Hart will be able to better capture a sense of resonance that is lacking in Pete's Dragon. Some listeners won't care about the score's safely formulaic approach, partly because of the composer's ability to translate the guitar work from his prior scores into a noteworthy role here, alongside fiddle solos that address the country atmosphere nicely. The themes are also where Hart truly excels in the score. There are multitudes of them in Pete's Dragon, one being an adaptation of a traditional melody that is performed twice by Bonnie Billy as "The Dragon Song." This identity is woven into the score as an identity for Elliot, not surprisingly, and really shines in its action variant late in "Gavin Knows What He's Doing." It is here that the folksy solo instrumentation merges best with the orchestra. Out of the traditional tune for Elliot come the exuberant sparks of life in the cues "Brown Bunny," "Reverie," "Tree Fort," and "North Star," traversing again into action in "Follow That Dragon" (listen for more than a hint of The Rocketeer here) and wrapping itself into a nice finish in "Go North" (as the lyrics of the song say). A theme of family is hinted in "An Adventure" at the start but blossoms at the conclusion of "Saying Goodbye." Likewise, a theme for sadness makes a few poignant appearances, introduced in its John Barry/James Horner hybrid form in "Elliot Gets Lost" before its tandem of major performances at 1:10 in "Takedown" and 2:23 in "Saying Goodbye." The most memorable theme of the score is the one that represents the friendship between the two leads, heard first in the latter half of "Are You Gonna Eat Me?" and growing with trust of boy and dragon as the story progresses. By the conclusion of "Reverie," the theme adopts the role of addressing the wonder of flight as well, though Horner never truly leaves us as Hart's interlude phrase to the theme strongly resembles An American Tail. From the tender, percussion-laden "It'll Be Just Like It Used to Be" to the triumphant action mode at the end of "Elliot at the Bridge" and the flute-trilling, choral-aided "Abyss," this idea is easy to recall as the default identity of the score. The culmination of the theme in "The Bravest Boy I've Ever Met" is a bit overwrought and sappy, however, despite some impressive overlapping lines of action for strings and woodwinds. Overall, some listeners will attempt to bypass the slower first third of the score (before the boy and dragon are discovered), though these passages are not devoid of interesting motific development. The bigger issue these folks will need to reckon with is Hart's inability to avoid too heavy a dose of schmaltz in the arc of the thematic narrative. You can even tell from the overplayed crescendo of the main theme's initial exposure at the end of "Are You Gonna Eat Me?" that subtlety in foreshadowing is not an ally here. That said, Pete's Dragon is a really admirable burst into the mainstream for Hart, and specific moments in the work, led by the outstanding blend of tones in "Reverie," merit the highest praise. The album release features just under 50 minutes of score while the remainder is filled by harmless country/folk songs that won't interest most film music collectors. A pointless cover of "Candle on the Water" reminds purists of an inevitable, nagging sense of disconnect with the entire production. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 76:05
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert unfolds into a poster of the dragon but contains no extra information about the score or film.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Pete's Dragon are Copyright © 2016, Walt Disney Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 3/10/17 (and not updated significantly since). |
