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Review of Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver (Tom Holkenborg)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... if you didn't get heartburn from the previous score in the franchise, the second one extending nearly the exact same sound to equivalent triumphs and failures.

Avoid it... if you expect more than two or three singular moments of appeal, the bulk of this continuation stomping and brooding through the same soulless textures.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver: (Tom Holkenborg/Various) The Zack Snyder imitation of the Star Wars universe continues in 2024, Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver being the immediate continuation of the previous year's Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire. The pair of films was originally meant to wrap up the concept, telling the conclusion of a galactic underdog story of little value. The rebels defending an agrarian world against an all-powerful imperial force using every tired technique and special character capability to defy the odds and free their world. Additional backstory reveals more about the main characters, though few critics were impressed by any of the new details. Once again plaguing this franchise is the director's reliance upon fake backgrounds that in many cases look too terrible to forgive. Audiences tuned in to the hybrid theatrical and (mostly) streaming spectacle even if they knew the product was rather trashy, and the filmmakers tentatively decided to punch out a series of additional movies based on the concept regardless of its poor reputation. For film music collectors, Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire afforded electronica and budding orchestral enthusiast Tom Holkenborg the opportunity to write a space opera in the Hans Zimmer mould. Holkenborg and an army of ghostwriters conjured an epic fantasy environment that owes nearly all of its style and tone to Zimmer, though the upside of that emulation is that some of the solo vocal and string work in the score proved to be among the best material Holkenborg had applied to a film by that point. The music for Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver is a direct continuation of the exact same musical equation, the scores clearly tackled as one. The orchestral handling, the synthetic edge to the post-processing, and the alluring solo layers all return in exactly the same duties, though the strings are emphasized a bit differently in their artistic chamber sensibilities a few times. The faults of the prior score also define the sequel, Holkenborg and his crew simply unable to avoid overemphasizing every last moment of the work, making it a somewhat exhausting experience with few genuine respites.

As before, the composer's team manages to guide Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver away from the total mindless pounding of his Godzilla vs. Kong scores, but not indefinitely. As the score reaches its climax of action here, the unyieldingly abrasive, processed sound of the London orchestra, led by atrociously blaring brass emphasis, does intrude badly at moments of intended gravitas. The terrible new action in "Born of Woman" resembles the stomping of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire and extends to synthetically heavy suspense in "Everything That Rises." But these moments of extremely challenging deterrence are relatively few, and Holkenborg ultimately brings catharsis to the tandem of scores with his still overblown but at least resolving dramatic culmination in "Whitsun Oath" at the end. Casual listeners will know exactly what to expect with Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver, though they should be aware that the second score frontloads the most interesting tracks and devolves into more generic action from there. Most of the vocal and string solos of interest recur in the first half, the former far more fleeting this time around. A somewhat underachieving song, "The Land We Breath" with Rose Betts, has various performances spread throughout movie, but only one appears near the end of the album. The "Maman Tché" source song alongside it also appears much earlier in the film. The three dominant themes from Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire all return, but the primary one for the protagonists' planet and society is largely diminished. Formerly the score's main theme, this identity doesn't return as cleanly as one might expect. Wailing female vocals suggest fragments of the idea in "Warmblood," and it struggles against the villain material in "From a Rabble Such as This." It's deconstructed on a solo string in "Everything That Rises," is thrust into brooding action mode early in "Who Dares Wins," and transitions its phrasing to become something of a folksy influence on the song, "The Land We Breath." Given that the main planet and the inhabitants of this story are the same as in the prior one, it's difficult to determine why Holkenborg's team would largely abandon this broadly established idea, especially as it had vitally intertwined itself with the main character theme for Kora previously.

The primary character theme thrives in Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver, yielding an especially intriguing adaptation in "Auguries of Innocence" on strings, a distinct shift from the female voice that had previously guided the identity. In that cue, the theme becomes frantic and delirious in a horror mode for much of its length, and similar performance techniques carry over to another melody in "Poems No Child Should Know." This theme for Kora interrupts the action at 1:00 into "Cut and Run" on its more familiar vocal tones and is reprised at 0:55 into "Who Dares Wins," becoming solemn during several renditions at 2:56 into "Whitsun Oath." Also returning is the descending motif for the Imperium and general concepts of conflict, reprising its distant choral menace early and late in "The Hated Other." It is adapted into the action of "Quickhatch" as a cyclical tool, building drama in latter half, and it faintly threatens early in "From a Rabble Such as This" before shifting to melodrama in the middle of "Who Dares Wins." Also reprised wholesale for Princess Issa is the undulating boy soprano voice from "My Life for Hers" in "Seneschal Psalms," that material fighting the thrashing processed brass in "What's Best in Men" prior to a return to original vocal form. The best parts of "The Weight of Lions" for General Titus are reprised without much variance in "The Falling Mountain" as well. A pair of other themes become more pronounced in the second film, including a noble identity consisting of two to four-note phrases of hope. This optimism opens "We Make Ourselves a Place Apart" on strings and extends on solo cello, joined by warm acoustic guitar accompaniment. It returns in the latter half of "Enemy of the Sun" for a few prominent phrases and faintly informs the latter half of "Who Dares Wins." Also of note is an action motif at 2:24 into "Quickhatch" with an impressively tonal muscularity on brass layers that is a clear highlight of the score. Similar phrasing takes a more dramatic turn in "Or Cover Me with Dirt," and it lends the same stance to the major fantasy culmination at the start of "Whitsun Oath." Overall, the score for Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver doesn't satisfyingly build upon the highlights of the prior score, but it doesn't really tread backwards in quality, either. The duo of "Auguries of Innocence" and "Quickhatch" provide the only significant moments of interest in an otherwise drab and soulless continuation. An enjoyable compilation of the two scores' highlights could impress, but this music is still the equivalent of fast food: artificially inflated and naggingly substanceless.  ***

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 60:50

• 1. The Hated Other (5:05) • 2. Seneschal Psalms (2:02) • 3. We Make Ourselves a Place Apart (2:13) • 4. Auguries of Innocence (4:12) • 5. Quickhatch (3:37) • 6. The Falling Mountain (2:31) • 7. Enemy of the Sun (1:30) • 8. Poems No Child Should Know (3:09) • 9. Warmblood (2:49) • 10. Born of Woman (5:40) • 11. From a Rabble Such as This (1:41) • 12. Everything That Rises (3:50) • 13. Or Cover Me With Dirt (2:25) • 14. What's Best in Men (2:15) • 15. Cut and Run (2:50) • 16. Who Dares Wins (4:19) • 17. Whitsun Oath (5:50) • 18. The Land We Breath - performed by Rose Betts (2:01) • 19. Maman Tché - performed by Djimon Hounsou (3:01)

NOTES & QUOTES:

There exists no official packaging for this album.

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