Superman III: (Ken Thorne) Finally rid of the last
influences of Richard Donner from the franchise, replacement director
Richard Lester and the producers of the early
Superman films saw
fit to take the concept where few wanted it to go by 1983: silly comedy.
After the dire subject matter of 1980's
Superman II, the third
film sought to explore lighter comic-inspired fare that dropped several
beloved elements of the original pair of films. Largely gone are major
supporting characters, Clark Kent's love interest, Lois Lane, replaced
as he seeks peace with his upbringing in Smallville. Just as he courts
high school flame Lana Lang (with so many potential suitors for Clark
with names each four letters in length and starting with "L," an adult
parody could not resist assigning him a girl named "Lick Long"), a new
megalomaniac decides to take over the world's coffee and oil supplies
for endless riches. Assisting him is a witless fool played by Richard
Pryor, a computer hacker who, in the 1980's could apparently use the
nascent internet to inadvertently cause havoc to systems across the
world. On the serious side,
Superman III did present an
opportunity for Clark Kent to fight an evil Superman thanks to a dark
Kryptonite subplot and, in a preview of the Borg from "Star Trek: The
Next Generation," a character is assimilated by the villain's massive
computer and turned into a freaky cyborg. Still, the idiotic comedy
infused by the presence of Pryor, as well as the utter ridiculousness of
the plot and a sudden influx of "Superman doing evil things" turned off
audiences and critics. While the film recouped its budget, it is largely
considered a disaster in retrospect, surpassed in futility only by the
subsequent film in the series. The change in the demeanor of the film
allowed Lester and
Superman II composer Ken Thorne to take the
music in more preferred direction. The previous entry had been a direct
continuation of the Donner and John Williams collaboration, requiring
Thorne to painstakingly adapt Williams' music from the first film into
the second. With
Superman III no longer as strictly bound to the
Williams foundation, Thorne was allowed far more liberty to write his
own music to supplement surviving ideas from the first score. He also
contended with a handful of pop songs written by popular Italian disco
and electronic music artist Giorgio Moroder, who was a darling of the
Hollywood industry at the time.
While the weak and dated Moroder songs are interpolated
throughout
Superman III, they don't directly impact Thorne's
score outside of the new love theme that the latter composer adapted
from Moroder's "Love Theme from Superman III" pop composition. The
presence of the songs, which diminished the need for as much original
source material from Thorne this time around, does reduce the overall
quality of the soundtrack as a whole even though the songs' overall
running time on screen is somewhat restrained. For Thorne, the smaller
ensemble and recording studio size remained as a holdover from
Superman II, though once again the sound of the mix is handled
well to expand the depth as best as possible. He and Lester determined
in spotting sessions which cues would retain adaptations of Williams'
material, and, not unexpectedly, these passages largely consisted of the
main fanfare and march in its expected placements, along with the
reprise of Thorne's action adaptations from
Superman II for
scenes of the titular character's heroics. The biggest difference
between Thorne's two scores in this franchise related to the comedic
style of several major cues in the latter and, perhaps more vitally, the
increased presence of synthetics in the mix. While Thorne admits to
being inspired by Jerry Goldsmith's use of electronics at the time, his
employment of them for the computerized element in the plot here is far
inferior. His high-pitched synthetic effects and related dissonance are
really awful in this score, the assimilation material in "Superman
Leaves Computer Cave" downright terrible and unlistenable on album. Both
"Kryptonite Sting" and "Superman Affected by Kryptonite" adapt eerie
early Williams Krypton suspense into electronic groaning that is not
much better. On the other end of the spectrum, the comedic elements are
just as questionable. The "Main Title" sequence, both in music and as a
scene overall, is controversial and annoying, with three minutes of a
cartoonish comedy tone before the listener receives even a hint of
Williams' themes. The silly "Main Title (The Streets of Metropolis)" is
fitting for a children's cartoon and, while it's an impressive
composition on its own, its jaunty motifs do little to directly connect
to or introduce the rest of the score. Thematically, Thorne reprises
Williams' main fanfare (and underlying rhythm), Clark's own theme, and
the crystal motif that Thorne had proven himself obsessed with in the
previous score. New in this work are the Moroder love theme and Thorne's
motifs for Pryor's character and the villain's computers.
With Lex Luthor and Lois Lane mostly absent from
Superman III, Williams' themes for those character are gone as
well. The loss of the love theme has a tremendous impact on this score,
stricken from the end titles march arrangement and Moroder's replacement
not inserted instead. (It's nowhere near as worthy, but without any
romantic interlude to the main theme, this doesn't sound like a proper
score for the concept.) Also jettisoned is the muscular Krypton theme,
Thorne once again latching onto Williams' minor crystal motif instead.
The main fanfare does appear in the bare minimum of places, with the
exception of the obnoxious opening credits format chosen by Lester. It
does figure in the latter half of "Main Title" with playful, bright
exuberance, but it's cartoonish and stupid in such an environment. It's
used in fragments in "Saving the Factory" until the major fanfare at the
end, the tone of this cue meant to closely match action from previous
films. The theme's rhythm builds suspense in "Clark Rescues Ricky"
before a brief fanfare burst, though it takes until the middle of "The
Final Victory," as Clark defeats his evil self, for the most noble
performances of the fanfare to return, in this case finally joined by
the idea's secondary phrases. Brief, upbeat snippets in "Superman
Coming" yield to full statements in "Rockets/Video Games/Big Missile"
that define its action, though Thorne meanders off-course into his own
action material, losing the Williams style along the way. Snippets of
the main theme recur in "Metal Vera," but the idea exits appropriately
with the hero in "Thank You Superman." The "End Credits" cue reprises
the march, but losing the love theme sequence makes the march more
repetitive and tiresome. Clark's own theme only makes one unexpected
entrance with exuberance in "Gus Flying With Superman," where Thorne
nicely adapts it to serve as the soaring replacement of the love theme
for the concept of flying. It's easily the highlight of the score.
Thorne's overuse of the crystal theme starts with menacing tones in
lower registers in "Vulcan" and creepy renditions that punctuate the
scheming in "Kryptonite" and "Searching for Kryptonite." It becomes an
evil action motif by "Tower of Pisa" and continues its representation of
the evil Superman in "Superman and Lorelei on Statue," a touch of the
villain material in
Superman II also contributing in this cue.
The crystal motif punctuates the atmospheric dread of the unpleasantly
electronic "Drunken Superman" and offers a major brass statement at 1:42
into "The Two Faces of Superman" amongst shrill fright; it continues to
define the dissonant noise that follows, Thorne carrying over similar
techniques with the motif to "The Struggle Within."
Not much else remains in
Superman III from the
prior score, though the percussive rhythms that accompanied the gang of
General Zod strike in "The Two Faces of Superman" for the self-battle,
and such rhythms extend into "The Struggle Within." It's a token
acknowledgement that the son of Jor-El is now the villain. Otherwise,
the new themes in this score range from uninteresting to abysmal.
Thorne's adaptation of the Moroder love theme is the best of the lot,
but it's barely present in the score. It's a pretty theme though a
little out of place in its pop-like romanticism. The idea opens "Lana
and Clark in Cornfield" on strings and low flute, with a brief reprise
of the same string romance in "Lana and Clark on Telephone." The final
and best rendition of the new love theme comes as the melody shifts to
solo horn in "Clarks Gives Lana Diamond Ring" over charming percussion
and strings. On the flip side, Thorne's original themes for the computer
and Pryor's character, Gus, are wretched in their structures,
instrumentation, and tone. The computer theme is a bouncing, plucked,
rhythmic ditty with floundering wind lines on top, becoming more
electronically threatening (and insufferable) as the score progresses.
It occupies all of "Gus on Computer After the Cents," opens "Pay Day for
Gus," informs the rhythm of "Gus Finds a Way," and takes on a tribal,
percussive personality in "Colombian Storm," building to an annoyingly
long crescendo. The computer theme becomes louder and more menacing in
"What Will It Do for Me?," with an awful, slashing end, and it embraces
its victorious electronic mode in "Boxes in Canyon." The idea is oddly
not present in "Computer" and "Computer Takes Over" late in the story,
but Thorne does return to it with force in "The Computer Comes Alive,"
becoming a lumbering rhythm for an assimilated character in "Metal Vera"
and "Computer Blows Up." Gus' theme often intermingles with the computer
theme, but Gus receives the personality of a carnival-like and quirky
waltz for comedic purposes. Debuting at 0:23 into "Pay Day for Gus,"
this silly idea is humorously teased in fragments until an oboe
rendition in "Gus Finds a Way," is nearly suspenseful but still trilling
at the end of "Montage," and quietly previews the computer theme in
"What Will It Do for Me?" It closes out "Gus Fights Ross" with an
irritating reprise of the initial quirky performance from "Pay Day for
Gus" and becomes swamped during the action of "Computer Blows Up." It's
no surprise that "Pay Day for Gus" represents the score's only rejected
cue, as it's a truly terrible expression of juvenility. The waltz for
the "Montage" cue is based on Gus' theme and is equally atrocious and
out of place with the character of surrounding material.
Not all is lost in Thorne's score for
Superman
III, though, for it has a few highlights outside of the surprising
Clark theme development in "Gus Flying With Superman." Also worthy of
attention is a lovely adaptation of the classic "Earth Angel" song in
the underscore of "School Gym/Earth Angel" (licensing reasons precluded
the actual song from being included on the soundtrack despite its use at
a school dance); this use pre-dated its more famous adaptation in
Back to the Future. A longer highlight of Thorne's work for
Superman III is his distinct, soaring motif for the hot air
balloons in "Preparing Balloons," developed further in "Superman Coming"
and a nice addition to the score. Otherwise, this entire soundtrack is a
loss, Moroder's songs badly dated and inconsequential while Thorne's
score abandons much of the gleaming luster that brought so much
entertainment to the first two scores in the franchise. While Lester can
likely be blamed for much of this debacle because of his insistence that
the movies take the comedic route, Thorne's original material in
Superman III is befitting of the most childish of comedies or
animated genre, his occasional interpolations of Williams material now
sounding out of place and forced because of this new direction. Expect a
significant portion of his music to be dissonant and unnerving, his
original action material in the final sequences particularly unbearable
in its atonal layers. If you subtract the periodic references to
Williams' themes, you would have little indication that this music
belongs to a superhero film of any stature whatsoever. The LP release of
the
Superman III soundtrack featured about twenty minutes from
the score and the five Moroder recordings, one of which an electronic
version of Williams' main title march that is best left in the dustbins
of history. This material was re-issued on a Japanese Warner Brothers CD
pressing in 1990. The full score was finally released in 2008, when Film
Score Monthly offered the first four
Superman scores in complete
form on a popular, limited set that included about 64 minutes from
Superman III. Featured on a separate CD in that product are the
Moroder tracks and a few alternate takes, though the label was unable to
license a few other source tracks placed into the film. In 2018, La-La
Land Records released the same presentation from
Superman II and
Superman III on its own product, again with the Moroder songs
included. The sound quality is the same on both of these albums. Seek
these products for the first two scores of the franchise, however,
because
Superman III, despite continuing Williams' themes and
containing a few singular highlights, is a massive and wretched misfire
that ushered Thorne out of the fortress.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
The 1990 Warner Brothers album contains no additional
information about the film or score. The 2008 Film Score Monthly album
contains arguably the most extensive information about the scores of a
movie franchise ever to exist in an album, with a 160-page hardcover
booklet that covers an extraordinary range of detail about the film,
scores, and album presentation. The 2018 La-La Land album's packaging
includes the label's standard level of analysis of the film and
score.
