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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Brad Fiedel)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you seek a more technologically advanced variation on
some of the ideas primitively expressed in the previous score, including
two solid, muscular performances of the franchise's famous title
theme.
Avoid it... if you expect to hear anything with the depth of meaning to suggest that a compelling dramatic story is unfolding under the chase on screen, because Brad Fiedel's library of screeching and grinding metallic sound effects over pounding, brutal percussion ineffectively addresses the concept.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Terminator 2: Judgment Day: (Brad Fiedel) Did
anyone really think that the second film in the franchise of The
Terminator would be the last time audiences would see Arnold
Schwarzenegger's naked butt rising out of a funky sphere of lightning?
It likely seemed to many that Terminator 2: Judgment Day would
have been a good place for James Cameron's bleak vision of the future to
resolve itself, with perhaps a small hope that armageddon at the hands
of the sentient machines is not inevitable. That, and the fact that the
aging bodybuilder would eventually have to use a stand-in for those
famous nude scenes. The Oscar-winning, box office shattering 1991
spectacle was a technical marvel, with Cameron taking the
liquid-morphing technology he introduced in The Abyss and
dazzling audiences with his T1000 terminator villain in this sequel
film. The reunion of Schwarzenegger and actress Linda Hamilton was the
major selling point Terminator 2: Judgment Day, lingering
distrust from the desperate struggle in the original story and the
transformation of Hamilton's once innocent 80's girl into her own form
of war machine both compelling continuations of the concept. The
franchise would include multiple films and a television series in the
2000's, but without Cameron's direction and the lead actress' return,
the drama of these subsequent entries is largely lost. When considering
that the original The Terminator has been raised to an ultimate
level of cult status and the record profits of the first sequel, it's
hard to think of soundtracks for such high profile films that have
raised so little mainstream interest. It's also difficult to say
definitively that this lack of popular longevity of composer Brad
Fiedel's two Terminator scores is due to the nature of their
challenging constructs, or even perhaps their poor rendering and
execution. But, in either case, there was some worry when Terminator
2: Judgment Day first was announced that Cameron would return to
Fiedel for the job of scoring the sequel, despite experiencing success
(on screen and not necessarily personally) with the likes of James
Horner and Alan Silvestri.
Indeed, the score that Fiedel produced for Terminator 2 is largely a technological update of the first score, utilizing some of the same motifs and synthetic effects, and there are positives and negatives to this retained identity. On the positive side of the equation, Fiedel did have a knack at the time for conjuring obnoxiously effective electronic sounds that frightfully and adequately represent some of the alienating, technological horror you witness on screen. Additionally, the carry-over of the existing primary theme and supporting motifs into any sequel is important, and Fiedel does an adequate job of incorporating some of the elements from the first score into the second one. Whether or not you embrace Fiedel's bleak style and harsh musical accompaniment for the movie is an entirely different affair. Regardless of where you fall in that debate, it's widely agreed upon that Fiedel seemed more comfortable in this environment that he did in the orchestrally more demanding one for Cameron's otherwise successful True Lies a few years later. If you appreciated the stark, metallic atmosphere of the first Terminator score, however, then Terminator 2 will surely impress you. The memorable title theme is expanded upon in two fuller performances, and the distinctive, staggering, hammered five-note motif introducing that theme makes its triumphant return. Several of the rhythmic progressions from the first film's chase scenes, including the fake orchestra hits over the top, return immediately in "Sarah on the Run." Unfortunately, Fiedel for some reason completely drops the ball when reintroducing Sarah Conner to the T100 style of terminator she eluded in the first film, failing to even briefly resurrect the deep, four-note heartbeat-thumping rhythm for the character. Instead, Fiedel concentrates on the new villain and proves himself the master of slashing and grinding metallic sound effects, conjuring a fresh screeching sound for the T1000's morphing that is a distinctive motif for the relentless killer. A repeated, low, and almost distorted groaning effect utilizing a minor-third structure is officially this shape-shifter's identity, a competent altering of pitch to match the physical morphing. Its urgently incessant repetition is among the score's few truly intriguing, effective ideas. The pacing of the score is also a functional basic ingredient worth mentioning, setting the nonstop chase to a bed of pad thumps and various percussion (led by almost constant manipulations of cymbal effects). Fiedel seemed to focus his attention on a sense of movement rather than one of compelling meaning, allowing slower scenes to be served with simple bass region droning to basically signify downtime. The problems with the Terminator 2 score are numerous, however. The film has a significantly more developed human element than the first, and yet the tone of the music has become even colder. For a film about two machines relentlessly tearing at each other, this score is sufficiently emotionless and brutal. But for the future of humanity, embodied by the young John Conner and the transformed Sarah (whose ripped biceps deserved a subtheme alone), Fiedel treats them with no regard. Scenes in the desert, in Sarah's narration, or those in which the T100 terminator is conversing with the boy, are scored with absolutely no hint of warmth. No new thematic ideas are explored for these plotlines. The mechanical chase scenes are more effective in these regards, but a lengthy cue such as "Escape from the Hospital" is built to thrill you with sheer noise and sound effects rather than intelligent music, and such cheap methodology is more likely headache-inducing than impressive. The application of false vocal tones for the apocalyptic element of the story (fake male choirs before the mid-90's and Hans Zimmer were often laughable) is a perfect example of how the inexpensive, synthetic route for this score betrays the larger moral issues of humanity's relationship with machines. As effective as this score can periodically be in parts (and some of Fiedel's ideas, like the T1000 identity, truly are useful and intriguing in the context of the picture), this score gets the point across by pounding you into submission or inelegantly expressing a generally simplistic notion of dread rather than exploring the infinitely diverse landscape presented by Cameron. Not only is its one-man performance team cheap in its limited palette of electronic instrumentation (and do not let the rather primitive software for producing synthetic scores suffice as an excuse, especially considering what Fiedel's peers were doing at the time), it's also cheap in its application of its identities. For a film of such immense size, it's still hard, decades and multiple sequels later, to imagine the music for Terminator 2 as anything other than a wasted opportunity. That doesn't mean that the score needed to be a big orchestral affair; that would have defied the personality of the concept. Instead, it means that even in the electronic realm, there were so many possibilities left unexplored that could have yielded a fantastic synthetic score. The title theme remains Fiedel's best and most lasting contribution to cinema and yet the composer did not make any substantial attempt to manipulate it for the purposes of suspense on screen. In terms of the album's listening experience, the highlights are not surprisingly the only three full renderings of the original film's theme. The striking title cue, the tingling "John & Dyson into Vault," and the emotional "It's Over" cue are all fuller electronic performances of the great theme, and all are worthy of compilation consideration, especially the final track. And yet, that theme serves as perhaps the most significant evidence that Fiedel (and maybe Cameron) missed the boat with the direction of this score. When you step back and examine it, the franchise's theme is a hopelessly optimistic one in its rising, romantic structure. Even when masked by the electronics that are performing it, the theme conveys the hope that humanity will survive the onslaught of the machines and venture forward. And yet, nothing in the rest of Fiedel's score utilizes this appropriate emotional response, leaving listeners to only contemplate the ways in which his sound effects mirror the slashing and screeching of the machines themselves. The deleted "happy ending" epilogue to the film would have been a perfect opportunity to wrap up the love theme, but even here, the score fails. Marco Beltrami and Danny Elfman would succeed no better in the following films, providing orchestral/synthetic mixtures that would also fall well short of the demands of the films (and disappointingly marginalize and finally ignore Fiedel's franchise identity). After the original 1991 Varèse Sarabande album for Terminator 2 and its various international re-issues fell out of print, a pair of remasterings in 2010 (Silva Screen) and 2017 (Universal) revived the same contents with crisper sound. All of this said, despite its dated sound and extremely primitive rendering, the original Terminator score remains the best balanced. Movie franchises, and especially cult favorites, deserve musical continuity, and while Feidel's follow-up score does technologically advance his material from the first film, it doesn't really reflect the depth of the concept. **
TRACK LISTINGS:
All Albums:
Total Time: 53:41
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert of the 1991 Varèse album includes no extra information
about the score or film. The 2010 Silva and 2017 Universal albums' inserts include
a short note from Fiedel about the score.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Terminator 2: Judgment Day are Copyright © 1991, 2010, 2017, Varèse Sarabande, Silva Screen Records, Universal Music and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 9/24/96 and last updated 8/19/17. |
