: (Jerry Goldsmith)
Co-written by James Cameron and Sylvester Stallone, the 1985 sequel to
proved to be a successful enough profit vehicle to
immediately launch the production of another sequel. The original tale
of 1982 had been one of ultimate psychological loss, and although John
Rambo is not killed in the film as he was in the book that inspired the
screenplay, he is a man for whom solitude is his destiny. The two
sequels continue this theme, for his narrow focus and lack of friend or
family makes him an easy killing machine with a vague political agenda.
The Russians ultimately became his enemies in the sequels, and he blows
through them like a mechanized terminator, suffering from predictable
betrayals, captures, and escapes along the way. His injuries don't stop
him, his weapons never run out of ammunition, and the badguys never stop
pursuing. As more of a straight action film than the first one,
presented composer Jerry Goldsmith
with the opportunity to take his comparatively varied score for
and adapt its central themes into a far more listenable and
straight-laced action explosion. Both sequel scores by Goldsmith, along
with Brian Tyler's much later extension of the franchise, would espouse
this characteristic, placing some token ethnicity into the equation
while faithfully following the action on screen with nonstop and
frightfully enjoyable bombast. The ethnic elements and sound quality of
, but Goldsmith's handling of the original themes is astonishingly
intelligent and satisfying in the second installment.
There were essentially two primary themes for John Rambo
himself in
First Blood. The first was the emotionally beaten
"Long Road Home" melody that opened the film as Rambo sought out his
remaining war buddy; its acoustic guitar and string performance is as
melancholy and ironically beautiful as any Goldsmith had ever written.
Despite truly being the primary theme of the film, the idea is
eventually supplanted by the straight action theme that most people
associate with Rambo, with dense brass and militaristic percussion
serving the war machine side of Rambo's mentality. A motif that runs
through
First Blood is a low range, five-note "sneaking theme"
that dominates the later scenes when Rambo is planning the demise of the
small town. It makes a few appearances in
First Blood Part II,
performed by synthesizer in "The Snake" and at the end of "Stories," but
doesn't have much of a role given that the film is oriented towards more
confrontation and less sneakiness. The only completely new themes for
First Blood Part II are a slight oriental motif for Rambo's local
accomplice, one that is barely developed enough to make an impact, and a
slow, ominous, descending, and somewhat stereotypical brass theme for
the Russian commander that does a fair amount of musical battle with
Rambo's themes in the latter half of the score. Listen for all of these
themes to intersect, interestingly, in "Stories." While
First Blood
Part II may seem rather obvious in its movements and adaptation,
Goldsmith's manipulation of the "Long Road Home" theme is nothing short
of brilliant, mutating it into two separate themes that divide Rambo's
psyche. When tending wounds or bonding with other characters, for
instance, Rambo is treated to the sensitivity of the original
performance, though without the guitar.
In both "Stories" and "Ambush," heartbreaking
renditions of the "Long Road Home" theme from
First Blood are
performed in full by solo instruments. More intriguing, however, is
Goldsmith's translation of the theme into its precursor, the war-torn
version of agony. It devolves back into the form it would have taken
while Rambo was first in Vietnam, masking itself as a dark hero's theme.
This hero theme thus becomes the new title theme for
First Blood Part
II and coexists perfectly with the already-establish action theme
from the first film. In fact, Goldsmith would provide a surprising range
of emotion with this new hero theme variation. The most strident of
these can be heard in "Betrayed," in which Goldsmith extends the theme
over a slower, more deliberate rhythm as Rambo is betrayed by his
American commander and allowed to be captured by the Russians. The
resolve conveyed in the pure brass performances during this cue is
indeed a highlight of the entire score. Typically, the sustained action
in
First Blood Part II makes the score a remarkably cohesive
listening experience. The cue "Escape from Torture" makes such strong
use of both of Rambo's action theme variants and relentless percussive
rhythms that the cue would later be spliced twice into
Rambo III
(with marginal results; the editing of cue fragments to match scene
length was a bit awkward). The role of electronics over the three scores
did change dramatically, with
First Blood Part II featuring the
most intrusive synthetic elements of all. By 1985, Goldsmith was using
synthetic rhythms extensively, though if you recall scores like
Legend,
Gremlins, and
Baby: Secret of the Lost
Legend from that time, the tone of those electronics was often quite
sharp. The same is abundantly true here, with many of Goldsmith's
electronic sounds extremely grating in their harsh tones, especially
when mixed as they are at the forefront of the ensemble.
In fact, your ability to appreciate Goldsmith's harsh
synthetics in
First Blood Part II will largely guide your
appreciate of the whole. When they perform the oriental motifs in the
first half of the score, they barely make an impact, but in "Main
Titles" and in the later action cues, these electronic samples can
become one of the work's only annoying aspects. On album, the score
received a very early CD release by Varèse Sarabande in 1985, and
that album disappeared from the market like many of the label's other
initial digital offerings. In 1999, Silva Screen resurrected the score,
cleaned up the sound quality as much as possible, and added 15 minutes
to a re-release. Some argue that the additional material is
inconsequential and that the listening experience of the Varèse
album is better. To an extent that's true, but no album from
First
Blood Part II would be complete without the outstanding "Village
Raid/Helicopter Fight" cue (mislabeled on the packaging), five minutes
of Goldsmith action at its best. The sound quality is indeed improved,
but not strikingly so; the third score easily offers the best sound of
the three. In 2016, Intrada Records assembled a definitive, complete set
of all music from
First Blood Part II and provided two separate
mixes for listeners. Although only partial, the 35MM mixes on the second
CD in that set are less muted by age. The hidden gem of the Intrada set
is Goldsmith's original "End Titles" recording, discarded immediately
and never vaulted with original master tapes. A surviving cassette copy
reveals a phenomenal arrangement of the new Rambo theme in this score in
conjunction with a preview of the composer's victorious
Hoosiers
finale the next year. The sound quality is poor, but it's a tremendous
cue by the composer, far better than the song that replaced it. The
"Peace in Our Life" song performed by Stallone's brother is an
unnecessary light rock piece that is included on all albums. Regardless
of this unfortunate mishap with the credits,
First Blood Part II
is an outstanding action score held back only by its slow start and
occasionally obnoxious electronics.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
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