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Stargate
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Composed and Produced by:
Orchestrated and Conducted by:
Nicholas Dodd
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LABELS & RELEASE DATES
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ALBUM AVAILABILITY
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The 1994 and 2006 albums were regular U.S. releases, though both went
out of print. The 2019 La-La Land album is limited to 3,500 copies and available
initially for $30 through soundtrack specialty outlets.
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AWARDS
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None.
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ALSO SEE
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Buy it... if you're ready for a triumphant return to the romantic,
epic scores of Hollywood's Golden Age, a breakthrough effort from an
upstart David Arnold that laid the foundation for his future success.
Avoid it... if you demand consistent quality from all corners of
this score, its second half remaining a step behind the similarly
rendered score for Independence Day and Arnold's other subsequent
orchestral work.
BUY IT
 | Arnold |
Stargate: (David Arnold) Nobody predicted that the
1994 science-fiction romp Stargate would become such an
influential success at the time, though with its own strong performance
and two spin-off television series to its credit, the sci-fi concept by
the Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin team has persisted as a lasting
phenomenon. Merging mystical science from the age of the great Egyptians
with a modern military and interplanetary travel, Stargate was
essentially envisioned as a Lawrence of Arabia on another planet.
There are differing viewpoints on how well that plot held up to critical
standards; nearly everyone agreed that the first half hour of
Stargate was immensely entertaining while the rest of the film
remains debatable in quality. It was largely by luck that the Emmerich
and Devlin team happened upon each other and the resulting script for
Stargate, but by comparison the far bigger surprise to Hollywood
was composing newcomer David Arnold, whose score fared far better than
the film as a whole. By the time one lucky connection suggested him to
Emmerich and Devlin, the young British artist had scored exactly one
feature film, Young Americans in 1993, and was only writing music
for other projects on a limited basis. Having been impressed by that
melodic score and more than willing to give a new, young artist a chance
in the industry, the production hired Arnold on a whim and without much
discussion to score Stargate. So successful was the score, not to
mention a pleasant surprise for everyone involved with the project, that
the same collaboration led to the subsequent scores for Independence
Day and Godzilla, the first of which commonly considered a
modern classic. Nobody in the industry or in the film score community
was expecting Arnold to haul off and produce one of the most
impressively bombastic and romantic sci-fi adventure scores of all time
for Stargate, but he did just that. Listeners cite many different
reasons as to why Arnold's score for this film would become so enticing
for collectors and an important element of the continuing concept. One
widely accepted possible reason for the success is the score's return to
the roots of classic Hollywood music.
It ironically took a young Brit to storm onto the scene
and remind the industry of the glory of its own classic epics, drawing
several comparisons in reviews to the popular works of John Williams.
With sweeping themes and a grand orchestral style, Arnold approached the
film from the perspective of Maurice Jarre's Lawrence of Arabia,
taking the Oscar-winning sound from that score and spicing it up with a
chorus for the fantasy element. In doing so, he captured the high swings
of emotion that old adventure scores delighted in delivering to
audiences, with themes flexible enough to both grace the quiet
interludes as well as explode during raucous action scenes featuring
computer-aided armies and pyramids. With the snare drum and layered
brass already in full force, Arnold's flair for patriotic music would
serve him well in Independence Day two years later. The action
cues heard in the final fifteen minutes of Stargate indeed
foreshadowed things to come for the composer, though the sound shared by
these two scores was largely lost by Arnold in the ten years following
them. A potentially more surprising reason for Arnold's success on
Stargate is his seemingly total mastery of orchestral complexity.
In addition to textured layers and exacting counterpoint, his effective
manipulation of chord progressions to give the score an Egyptian twist
is far more effective than its contemporaries... all from a man who had
never written a note of anything like it before and had little
opportunity to research the topic. Some film music historians attribute
much of the score's success to Nicholas Dodd's orchestrations, and it is
no secret that a fair portion of Arnold's best career work has resulted
from a collaboration with the orchestrator and conductor that first
flourished here. Their multilayered approach utilizes every corner of
the orchestra and shakes the floor with power more often than not. The
score's main theme is an Egyptian variation of a somewhat generic,
heroic theme, its repetitive phrasing graced with a natural essence of
epic scope that greatly compliments scenes that overlook massive
landscapes. Secondary themes for the military element, love interest,
and villain of the destination world are all well-developed by Arnold,
though the love theme on woodwinds, as heard in "Daniel and Sha'uri," is
partially lost amongst the glitz of the other ideas. The military motif
thrives in early preparation cues, and the sinister villain's motif
stews from "King of the Slaves" on.
The themes of Stargate are faithfully repeated
throughout the work, though you have to forgive listeners that get
distracting by the rendering of these ideas. A sizable adult chorus is
beautifully integrated into a few select, key sequences; both "Stargate
Overture" and "Giza, 1928" are highlights of the album because of the
well-balanced mixing of the Sinfonia of London and Chameleon Arts
Chorus. The solo voice of Natasha Atlas is sadly undermixed, however, in
her two performances. Comparisons between Arnold and John Williams were
likely extended by the similarities between "Giza, 1928" and the Ark's
theme in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the Arnold cue remains one
of the composer's career highlights decades later. Several of what sound
like ethnic instrumental contributions are simply standard orchestral
elements rigged to seem exotic, including foremost the flute
performances in the middle of "Going Home," and these techniques work
rather well. After the film progresses through the gate onto the alien
world, though, the score unfortunately loses some of its grip.
Individual playful moments, such as the "Mastadge" cues (another tip of
the hat to similar fun in Lawrence of Arabia), are standouts. But
Arnold wouldn't completely fine-tune his straight action material until
Independence Day, leaving Stargate as a score of two
uneven halves. After the sense of awe and curiosity ("Unstable")
established early in the score, it seems to finish its journey by simply
going through the motions. On the whole, however, nobody expected Arnold
to give the world such an adventuresome aural treat, and when combined
with the merits of the score's stronger first half, Stargate is
an easy recommendation. On album, 65 minutes of the score was available
for a dozen years on the Milan label. While more music from the film
existed, the demand for that material was never as great as the
sustained calls for expansions of Arnold's subsequent scores for
Emmerich and Devlin. The sound quality of the score was merely decent,
however, and the "We Don't Want to Die" cue was included out of order
near the end of the album. For most casual listeners, this 1994
presentation of the score offers everything really needed from the work,
albeit in slightly muted sound quality. The original digital tapes for
the score proved to be unsalvageable in subsequent years, unfortunately,
leading to the use of analog backups for the remasterings on
album.
In 2006, the Varèse Sarabande label issued a
"deluxe edition" of the Stargate score, selecting nine more cues
(from the 58 recorded for the film; five reportedly remained missing
until the next album) and placing the overall offering of 72+ minutes in
film order. The sound quality was refined on this product as well,
making the album a more tempting product for fans of the franchise. The
additional cues, however, are not spectacular inclusions; only seven
became self-contained tracks, and most of them are particularly short.
The action-oriented "Execution," "Against the Gods," and "Transporter
Horror" near the end of the film are the only notable additions (though
the opening to the end credits is a fun repetition to hear as a bonus
track), and the insertion of the dissonant and uninteresting "Wild
Abduction" in between the score's two best cues at the opening is
startling and disappointing. Equally dissonant and irritating is "Bomb
Assembly," a sharp contrast to the jubilance in the following cue.
Still, the presentation on the Varèse Sarabande album, whether it
makes for a better listening experience or not, is more faithful to the
score and film. Despite the general weakness of the expanded 2006
presentation from Varèse, an even longer product was assembled by
La-La Land Records in 2019 for the movie's 25th anniversary. For this
2-CD set, the label provided the film versions of recordings that were
necessitated in later editing of the picture, breaking apart the
combined cues of the Varèse product and adding the remaining
missing cues. The appeal of the all-new music on this set is mainly the
film and other alternate versions of several cues, for the newly
included moments such as "Send in the Probe" and "Spread Out" generally
reflect the more dissonant and abrasive side of the work. In all
reality, though, most listeners won't notice a significant difference
between the alternate or film versions of the cues and those they recall
from the original album. The sound quality is great on the 2019 set,
though brass layers are rather raw in the forefront when joined with the
choir. Ultimately, the expanded presentations are decent souvenirs from
this important film score, and Arnold collectors won't be able to easily
shake their nostalgic affinity for it, but Stargate has always
been a work with immense highlights dogged by lengthy sequences that
languish by comparison. Approach the longer albums with a specific
intent to create your own 20 minutes of tremendous highlights from this
rowdy adventure. **** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
Bias Check: |
For David Arnold reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.47
(in 15 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.27
(in 43,573 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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Excellent album Sheridan - August 31, 2006, at 9:30 a.m. |
1 comment (1820 views) |
Audio Samples
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1994 Album:
2006 Album:
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1994 Milan Album Tracks ▼ | Total Time: 64:46 |
1. Stargate Overture (3:01)
2. Giza, 1928 (2:10)
3. Unstable (2:07)
4. The Coverstones (0:58)
5. Orion (1:29)
6. The Stargate Opens (3:58)
7. You're on the Team (1:55)
8. Entering the Stargate (2:57)
9. The Other Side (1:44)
10. Mastadge Drag (0:56)
11. The Mining Pit (1:34)
12. King of the Slaves (1:15)
13. Caravan to Nagada (2:16)
14. Daniel and Shauri (1:53)
15. Symbol Discovery (1:15)
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16. Sarcophagus Opens (0:55)
17. Daniel's Mastadge (0:49)
18. Leaving Nagada (4:09)
19. Ra - The Sun God (3:22)
20. The Destruction of Nagada (2:08)
21. Myth, Faith, Belief (2:18)
22. Procession (1:43)
23. Slave Rebellion (1:00)
24. The Seventh Symbol (0:57)
25. Quartz Shipment (1:27)
26. Battle at the Pyramid (5:02)
27. We Don't Want to Die (1:57)
28. The Surrender (1:44)
29. Kasuf Returns (3:06)
30. Going home (3:09)
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2006 Varèse Sarabande Album Tracks ▼ | Total Time: 72:36 |
1. Stargate Overture (3:03)
2. Wild Abduction* (1:19)
3. Giza, 1928 (2:11)
4. Unstable (2:08)
5. The Coverstones (0:59)
6. Translation and Orion** (1:49)
7. The Stargate Opens (3:58)
8. You're on the Team (1:57)
9. Entering the Stargate (2:57)
10. The Other Side (1:45)
11. Bomb Assembly* (1:09)
12. Mastadge Drag (0:57)
13. The Mining Pit (1:36)
14. King of the Slaves (1:16)
15. Caravan to Nagada (2:17)
16. The Eye of Ra* (0:41)
17. Daniel and Shauri (1:53)
18. Symbol Discovery (1:14)
19. Sarcophagus Opens (0:57)
20. Daniel's Mastadge (0:49)
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21. Leaving Nagada (4:11)
22. Ra - The Sun God (3:23)
23. The Destruction of Nagada (2:09)
24. Myth, Faith, Belief (2:19)
25. Procession (1:44)
26. Slave Rebellion (1:01)
27. We Don't Want to Die (1:58)
28. Execution* (1:16)
29. The Kiss*/The Seventh Symbol (1:50)
30. Against the Gods* (0:34)
31. Quartz Shipment (1:28)
32. Battle at the Pyramid (5:03)
33. Surrender (1:45)
34. Transporter Horror* (1:49)
35. Kasuf Returns (3:06)
36. Going Home (3:10)
Bonus Track:
37. Closing Titles (Intro)* (1:13)
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* previously unreleased material
** contains previously unreleased material |
2019 La-La Land Album Tracks ▼ | Total Time: 108:56 |
CD1: (50:56)
1. Stargate Overture (3:03)
2. Abduction (1:18)
3. Giza, 1928 (2:12)
4. Unstable (Film Version) (2:44)
5. The Coverstones (1:00)
6. Translation/In Case You Succeed (0:52)
7. Orion (Film Version) (1:30)
8. The Stargate Opens (3:58)
9. Send in the Probe (2:08)
10. You're on the Team (1:57)
11. Entering the Stargate (Film Version) (3:00)
12. The Other Side (1:46)
13. Bomb Assembly (1:09)
14. Mastadge Drag (0:57)
15. The Mining Pit (1:34)
16. King of the Slaves (Film Version) (1:21)
17. Caravan to Nagada (2:14)
18. The Eye of Ra (0:41)
19. Daniel and Sha'uri (1:55)
20. Spread Out (1:52)
21. Skaara and Gun (0:44)
22. Symbol Discovery (1:13)
23. Sarcophagus Opens (With Choir) (0:58)
24. Daniel's Mastadge (Film Version) (0:50)
25. Leaving Nagada (Film Version) (4:13)
26. Ra - The Sun God (Film Version) (3:22)
27. The Destruction of Nagada (2:09)
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CD2: (58:00)
1. Myth, Faith, Belief (2:22)
2. Procession (1:45)
3. Slave Rebellion (1:02)
4. We Don't Want to Die (2:00)
5. Execution (1:18)
6. The Kiss (0:38)
7. The Seventh Symbol (Extended Version) (1:19)
8. Against the Gods (0:35)
9. Quartz Shipment (1:31)
10. Battle at the Pyramid (Film Version) (5:27)
11. The Surrender (1:45)
12. Transporter Horror (1:49)
13. Kasuf Returns (3:07)
14. Going Home (3:10)
15. End Credits (1:13)
Additional Music: (28:53)
16. Unstable (2:11)
17. Orion (1:31)
18. The Stargate Opens (Alternate Excerpt) (1:16)
19. Entering the Stargate (2:58)
20. King of the Slaves (1:17)
21. The Eye of Ra (With Choir)) (0:41)
22. Sarcophagus Opens (0:57)
23. Daniel's Mastadge (0:50)
24. Leaving Nagada (4:11)
25. Ra - The Sun God (3:24)
26. Ra - The Sun God (Film Version Excerpt, No Choir) (2:16)
27. The Seventh Symbol (0:58)
28. Battle at the Pyramid (5:03)
29. End Credits (Alternate Take) (1:15)
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The inserts for all three of the albums include extra information
about David Arnold and the score.
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