Filmtracks: Strange World (Henry Jackman)

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Written 12/5/22

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Buy it... if you are ready to hear Henry Jackman push past the typical norms of the children's adventure genre to provide an outstanding main theme of harmonically fascinating wonderment for this concept.

Avoid it... if you have no tolerance for childish swashbuckling exuberance, the tone of this score sometimes silly in its more conventional passages.

Jackman

Strange World: (Henry Jackman) Plenty of adventure stories have involved a group of main characters journeying through a bizarre world that turns out to be something unexpected on a larger scale. Such remains the case in the 2022 Disney animated romp, Strange World, though the host is sadly not Donald J. Trump's brain. Rather, a group from the secluded land of Avalonia ventures out to determine what's going wrong with local power source, and it takes about two minutes of story time for any audience to determine that all these actions are taking place within a living organism. The main family of explorers, the Clades, is joined by other misfits from Avalonia in search of truth and energy, and they ultimately help save the host and bring balance to their "land" by the end. The touch of existential perspective is saved as a revelation for the gang near the conclusion. Reasonably received by critics, Strange World was quickly labeled a box office failure, one piece of a larger industry problem in late 2022. But also working against the film was its absence from theatrical releases in much of the world, a necessity caused by Disney's insistence upon a homosexual teen character that is considered unsavory in even stranger worlds on our own planet. Reuniting with the filmmakers for yet another animation entry is composer Henry Jackman, though Strange World offered a different strategy from the norm for the composer in this genre. While his animation music had often been defined or at least accompanied significantly by synthetic elements, some of them distinctly retro, this film provided Jackman (and a healthy team of ghostwriters) with the opportunity to dive into more traditional symphonic swashbuckling. Having grown up in the age of John Williams at his height, Jackman was excited to emulate a Williams-level of motific development for an orchestra along with a pretentious adventure sound, citing James Horner influences as well. On top of that, the rhythmic aspects of the music for Strange World find their roots in Alan Silvestri's action scores.

Such 1980's influences are music to the ears of any learned film score collector, and Jackman succeeds in creating a really well-balanced, thematically tight narrative with more than enough to charm and adventure to serve the story. Jackman's approach to Strange World is almost entirely organic, the work's orchestral prowess aided by some slight electronic augmentation for two of his themes. A touch of synthetic choir was added to a real choir to give the vocals an extra, other-worldly tone of mystery. As he had done in his Jumanji scores, the composer supplies more contemporary sounds for the safety of the "real" world at the start and end of these journeys, though these elements don't define much of Strange World. There are some Carl Stalling mannerisms filtered through a Horner lens in cues like "Skin in the Game" and other lightly comedic moments, tuba and woodwinds handling these brighter moments. But the true attraction in this work is Jackman's application of an unusual blend of melody and harmony for his main theme. Rather than maintain a sense of awe and fantasy via unique instrumental coloration, he instead uses the traditional ensemble to generate harmonies that owe much to Jerry Goldsmith's late 1970's and early 1980's fantasy suspense music in their ability to suggest both beauty and danger at once. On the other hand, there's a fair amount of straight forward, brass-led swashbuckling adventure for the main characters, and the pleasant, contemporary portions are appealing in their own way. The score is very heavily thematic, rarely a moment passing without a reference to at least one of the major themes or their derivatives. The "End Credit Suite" contains every significant theme in snapshot succession, though the more discerning ears of film music collectors will be better engaged by Jackman's "Strange World Overture," which is a concert-like arrangement of his main identity that was assembled first and used to sell the filmmakers on the composer's conceptual approach. It's a fascinating theme because of its intentional harmonic imbalance in true Goldsmith fashion, a lovely and alluring construct while maintaining the challenging atmosphere of a foreign world of hidden dangers.

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Everything rooted in the strange world itself has elements derived from Jackman's early suite arrangement of the main theme for Strange World, secondary characters related to the biosphere adopting passages from this material. While this main theme is symphonically compelling, Jackman does apply subtle synthetic layering to its fluid background lines to augment the fantasy tone, yielding a truly unique and enjoyable approach to a score that could have functioned just as well with more conventional techniques. The main theme debuts these distinctly Goldsmith-like tones of alien whimsy at 0:18 into "Strange World Overture" with more than a touch of the late, effects-driven sequences in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Designed to be lush but slightly inaccessible, the theme shifts to big fantasy strings at 0:51 and on brass at 1:57 with even more swirling layers. In the score proper, the theme or its underlying chord shifts are everywhere, occupying most of the space in between the other themes' statements. It opens "A Conflict of Visions" mysteriously, informs "Searcher's Quest" with synthetic influence, takes a more organic, softer route early in "The Descent," and defines "Abundance of Life" in full choral majesty. The progressions of the main theme are accelerated for "Crazy Creatures" before a large, ominous statement, and the idea envelopes other material throughout "The Misadventures of Ethan Clade" and the start of "The Tale of Jaeger Clade," becoming uniquely comedic later in the cue. This lighter version of the main theme emerges more frequently as the strange world becomes more defined and navigated by the leads, a more friendly tone in "Flesh and Blood" on flutes continuing its lighter tone in "Voyage to the Heart" and playfulness shining in "Skin in the Game" before turning darkly mysterious on choir. The theme shifts into an oddly comedic waltz in "Flight of the Poot Pickles," turns suspenseful and elusive in the first half of "The Heart of Pando," enjoys new life on woodwinds in "Change of Plan," and nicely compliments other themes in "A Great Effort." It is accentuated to massively grand melodrama in the middle of "The Fate of Strange World" after becoming a little more harmonically streamlined in the revelation scene of "An Eye-Opener."

As expected, the main theme for Strange World returns to its original form in "Resurrection" and at 0:24 into "Farewell to Arms" with slower, more majestic wonderment that suggests additional existential discovery on the horizon. Those seeking a little more harmonically straight-forward exploration of the melody will appreciate the performance at 1:22 into "A New Perspective" as the theme punctuates the final moments of the closing fanfare. In "End Credit Suite," this theme is presented at a faster pace at 0:26 and in the interlude sequence at 1:36, its constructs struggling a bit more here to adapt to the accelerated movement of the other themes. Jackman's handling of this theme is truly exemplary, as its challenging harmonies make it difficult to adapt into lighter or more heroic variants. He manages to succeed well at this task, though, using the identity in unexpectedly adept ways throughout all corners of the score. Although the main theme is the most intellectually interesting, Jackman's other three primary identities are all equally sufficient at their task even if less memorable. The Clade family theme is adapted into an adventurous, retro march in the two "They're the Clades!" songs, and it informs the children's element of the score. Militaristic in the cymbal-happy action at 1:10 into "A Conflict of Visions," it turns to solo noble horn against the strange world theme's harmonics, and faint echoes haunt the end of the cue. It enjoys momentum at 0:34 into "The Tale of Jaeger Clade" against the main strange world theme, sparks an action burst at 0:12 into "Attack of the Reapers," conveys friendly optimism at 0:45 into "Voyage to the Heart," and persists at 0:37 into "Winning Ways" in prancing stateliness. The Clade theme is reduced to sensitivity on strings in "Like Father, Like Son," joined by the main theme, but heroic statements punctuate the latter half of "The Heart of Pando" and middle of "Change of Plan," solo horn version returning near the end of the latter cue. It's propulsive in the middle of "A Great Effort" against the main theme, announces a heroic conclusion early in "The Fate of Strange World," and becomes wholesome and redemptive against the main theme in the middle of "Farewell to Arms." After its fanfare closes on brass at 1:35 into "A New Perspective," the family theme opens "End Credit Suite" and returns at 1:52 in pompous glory.

Meanwhile, the Avalonia theme for their homeland in Strange World is meant to sound safer and contemporary, with electric bass, keyboarding, and guitar lending familiar warmth. Hinted in the latter half of "A Conflict of Visions," the theme's ascending, five-note patterns develop throughout "Avalonia Part I" and consolidate to more fluid movements in "Avalonia Part II" and a big statement on brass at 0:29. The Avalonia theme becomes an action motif in the second half of "The Descent," offers momentary soothing late in "Winning Ways," and is slight at the outset of "Resurrection," where it mixes well on brass with the main theme later. It is sensitive to open "Farewell to Arms," shifting to piano at 0:44, and goes back to its contemporary stylings in "A New Perspective." The idea adopts the Clade theme's swashbuckling brass at 0:55 into "End Credit Suite." The final theme of importance in Strange World belongs to both the leader of Avalonia, Callisto, and a general sense of adventure. Opening with a four-note phrase and answered by a spritely, five-note secondary phrase, this melody is the closest thing to a true swashbuckling theme in the score. Teased in quick references in the middle of "The Descent," it re-emerges late for the rescue in "Crazy Creatures," becomes subdued as a light march in "Callisto," and offers some quick moments of bravado in "Attack of the Reapers." Its fragments inform the action in the middle of "Winning Ways" and early in "A Great Effort," mixing with the Clade theme in "The Fate of Strange World." In "End Credit Suite," this theme is heard on brass and choir at 1:10. Overall, though, it's the main strange world theme summarized in "Strange World Overture" that will tickle the fancy of listeners tired of otherwise effective but mundane children's adventure music. The remaining elements in Strange World are adequate to the task and at times admirable, though the two vocal performances of the Clade theme's song over the opening and closing moments of the film are a tad obnoxious in their intentionally bloated exuberance. Most importantly, Jackman's narrative is extremely well maintained in his themes, and the balance of orchestral and synthetic layers is superb. On the 67-minute, score-only album, a lossless presentation illuminates the intriguing harmonic layers of the strange world theme in ways compressed alternatives cannot. This entry is more intelligent than most of its peers in the genre, a welcome engagement for the mind. **** @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Henry Jackman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.8 (in 25 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.79 (in 7,757 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.

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