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| Goldsmith |
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| Tyler |
Timeline: (Jerry Goldsmith/Brian Tyler) Director
Richard Donner's films have included a plethora of sequel-inspiring
ideas, from
Superman: The Movie and
The Omen to
Lethal
Weapon. The Michael Crichton-written
Timeline was not
destined to be one of them. It's rare that films with such promise are
so overwhelmingly terrible, devoid of practically any redeeming
characteristic whatsoever. The time travel concept in
Timeline
involves a secretive multinational corporation that has invented a
method of reverse time exploration, and the characters who test the new
technology end up fighting for their lives in 14th Century France when
things, naturally, go wrong. The movie was a nifty excuse to place
tomorrow's technology in the setting of knight and castle warfare,
though its employment of an absolutely inept ensemble cast with no stars
was often blamed for muting any interest the concept may have had.
Paramount knew they had serious problems with
Timeline even
before test audiences confirmed their fears, and the project was delayed
several times so that the director could rearrange the narrative into a
form that wouldn't put audiences to sleep. Donner and Crichton projects
had been accompanied by the music of veteran composer Jerry Goldsmith
over the previous twenty-five years, from
Coma to Goldsmith's
lone Academy Award winner,
The Omen. The composer's involvement
with
Timeline stretched for a frustrating seven months, starting
after the conclusion of work on
Star Trek: Nemesis and continuing
until his involvement in
Looney Tunes: Back in Action, another
film plagued by post production problems. Goldsmith was forced to record
music for
Timeline in both December of 2002 and March of 2003,
with some reports indicating that a certain amount of re-scoring took
place in the interim. After the composer submitted his revised work for
Donner, Paramount and the film's producers realized that the movie
needed even more extensive work to salvage it.
As Donner rearranged
Timeline once again, Goldsmith
was given the opportunity to essentially write yet another score for the
film. Understandably, the composer considered his job finished and
walked away. Such circumstances aren't rare in Hollywood. Goldsmith had
both excused himself and been fired from projects before. But
Timeline was different because of the composer's advancing age,
declining health, and Donner's high praise for the score. While
Goldsmith claimed that the schedule of
Looney Tunes: Back in
Action interfered, it's difficult not to imagine that health
concerns played a role in his decision as well. The project consumed the
majority of the composer's last two years of productivity and is
therefore remembered with a fair amount of irritation by his collectors.
Knowing that his prospects for creating music was slowing by 2003, those
fans immediately bootlegged Goldsmith's score, circulating 74 minutes of
recording session material in 39 short tracks on unsanctioned CDs. The
composer, who often conveyed an opinion that too much of his music was
released on album, specifically approached Varèse Sarabande
producer Robert Townson and asked him to shepherd through an official
release of
Timeline. That release came not long after the
composer's death, available as a specialty product sold through the
label's site in September of 2004 before eventually experiencing a
limited commercial distribution at the end of that year. The hybrid SACD
pressing was treated like one of Varèse's Club titles, and it did
eventually go completely out of print. The Varèse presentation
edited the score's short cues into a more coherent 48-minute album,
missing only a handful of notable recordings from the sessions and
offering stunning sound quality. A few of the cues ended up mislabeled
in the assembly of the Varèse album, though, for the most part,
almost everyone was happy with their offering. When discussing the
merits of Goldsmith's work for
Timeline, it's difficult to
separate this score from the real-life timeline of Goldsmith's death.
The Varèse album was the last "new" Goldsmith score ever to be
released, and it therefore holds some sentimental value.
Objectively speaking,
Timeline isn't among the
Goldsmith's very best action scores of the Digital Age, as some have
claimed it to be, but it is indeed a solid work worthy of placement on
screen. Both this score and
Looney Tunes: Back in Action together
bid competent farewells to nearly the full range of Goldsmith's talents,
and almost any collector of the composer will find material in these
scores with which to be satisfied. If you're hoping for a
Lionheart-level classic in the case of
Timeline, like many
fans falling for its original hype, then you may be disappointed.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the ultimately unused score for
Timeline is its homage to the venerable but somewhat dated style
of Goldsmith's early 1980's action writing. Both the recurring motifs
and their instrumentation remind mostly of works from that era, raising
the tone of the composer's most straight forward, ballsy adventure
music. The balance between orchestra and synthesizers is heavily
weighted towards the organic, with none of the composer's rambling
electronic rhythms assisting major material in
Timeline. That's a
bit of a surprise given the technological element of the story's
futuristic mechanisms. There are synthetic horn-like sounds that remind
of the wobbling effects in
Legend, however, and these sometimes
carry the score's primary action motif. While it may not be particularly
fluid or original, that motif does lend a strongly cohesive element to
the score. Beginning with a consistent, rising three-note figure and
then alternating between complimentary supplements, this idea has its
genesis in
The Wind and the Lion, though it will most likely, in
its somewhat harsh synthetic and brass renderings, remind listeners of
Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend. Heard first on the Varèse
album in the latter half of "No Pain," this idea may initially seem too
derivative for some Goldsmith collectors to appreciate in this context,
but its employment is so thoroughly integrated into the entirety of the
score that it is, at the very least, a functional tool to signify the
action of the period. The composer's slight alterations to the motif
after the opening three notes, as well as the vast difference in the
tone of its performances throughout the score, assist in keeping it
fresh.
More appealing is Goldsmith's love theme for
Timeline, a tonally pleasing idea that merges progressions from
Rudy and
Star Trek: Insurrection and, in its bombastic,
full ensemble applications, begins to resemble
First Knight.
Heard on delicate piano and flute in the middle of "Move On," this idea
highlights score's arguably most attractive duo of "Be Careful"
(mislabeled by Varèse as "Setting Up") and "Light the Arrows."
There are, as to be expected, techniques from Goldsmith's substandard
action works of the 1990's heard here, but heightened intensity
compensates. The piano and bass string arpeggio in "Light the Arrows"
and "Prepare for Battle" builds a kind of tremendous momentum not often
heard in such underachieving scores. On the whole, Goldsmith's score is
distinctly derived from his established styles from several eras of his
career. As such, it's a satisfying listening experience in its
consistency. But the somewhat tired action motif and understatement of
the love theme restrain its effectiveness. It is a score that allures
you with its almost perpetually roaring character rather than any truly
magnificent highlights. In a way, it summarizes Goldsmith's career
action sound without adding anything really unique to the equation, and
in these regards, the lack of a more enhanced role for the composer's
synthetic elements is a disappointment. That said, it's also music that
any veteran Goldsmith collector should have on the shelves, but it
appeals as a piece of nostalgia more than the highly entertaining form
of action that Goldsmith's classics had become. Listeners also have to
reconcile with the fact that the replacement score for
Timeline
is fairly decent competition. Upon Goldsmith's departure, Donner turned
to Brian Tyler, a young composer for whom 2003 had been an outstanding
year of discovery. His work for Paramount's
The Hunted landed him
this job, but in addition to his collection of thriller music for
lesser-known projects, Tyler hit the jackpot in 2003 with his
best-selling score for the television science fiction series
Children
of Dune. With a fresh new sound of bombast, Tyler creatively wove a
multitude of large thematic ideas into one explosive result for that
series, and film music collectors who discovered the young composer with
that score were likely to be enthused by similar output for
Timeline.
Along with all of the romantic elements of battle and
passion available to him for
Timeline, Tyler was able to whip up
a frenzy of ripping action material and a few electronic accents for the
technological aspects of the story. Ironically, the finished result
sounds remarkably similar in style to the basic foundation of
Goldsmith's effort, and given the younger composer's immense respect for
the master (then and still years later), it's no surprise that something
of an homage resulted. There is tragedy, perhaps, in the fact that most
average, mainstream movie-goers likely wouldn't notice any difference
between the two scores when heard in the context of the film. It's
almost unfortunate that Tyler didn't interpolate Goldsmith's material in
the same way that John Debney would extend the veteran's work in
Looney Tunes: Back in Action, because there's a certain amount of
futility in the reinvention heard in Tyler's music. Outside of subtle
electronic rhythmic devices in "Enter the Wormhole," "Transcription
Errors," and a few other places, the technological elements of the
present locale of the story, as with Goldsmith, are largely underplayed,
but they are more distracting in the replacement score when employed.
For the destination in France, Tyler follows Goldsmith again by avoiding
the path that a composer experienced with the Middle Ages might have
explored (like Basil Poledouris and his primitive or folksy rhythms and
percussion), instead tackling the six hundred-year gap by forcefully
applying rather basic action material to the setting. (Still, listen for
a brief but explosive Poledouris nod from Tyler at the start of "The
Battle of La Roque.") In this environment of epic battle, Tyler succeeds
in generating almost as much power as Goldsmith had. If you recall the
more propulsive sections of
Children of Dune, carried by lengthy
sequences of snare ripping, timpani pounding, and tonal blasts of the
brass, then you may be able to appreciate an extension of that sound for
Timeline. Tyler once again offers several themes, with three
developed well and a fourth obscured within the layered depths of the
considerable action material. One has to be mindful, however, that the
track titles and corresponding cues were ultimately fouled up by
Varèse in their initial treatment of this score as well, so
properly attributing names to the themes long posed issues.
From Tyler, a ripping theme for determination, best
capturing the adventuresome spirit of the journey, marks the original
album tracks "Battalion" and "Enter the Wormhole." A more awe-inspiring
idea is offered for the grand vistas of battle, announced by heavy snare
drums and an electronic choir in "Galvanize the Troops" and "Night
Arrows." A tender love theme (superior to Goldsmith's, really) is
provided by the strings and woodwinds in "Lady Claire and Marek" and
"Eternal" and begs for fuller renditions or a soaring B-phrase on
strings. The less cohesive battle theme, heard over the main titles, is
perhaps muddled by its own enthusiastic performances, which is less of a
complaint than a comment about the frantic level of activity in the
score. This idea has the most potential throughout the second half of
the score, and one could get the sense that it is the film's primary
identity, but it simply fails to take flight. Singular motifs, such as
the announcement of the arrival of battle in "Night Arrows" that does
its best interpretation of a James Horner score from the 1980's, are
spaced throughout the work as well. Tyler's hyperactive posture is
interesting at the very least, though its major detriment comes with the
employment of violins to produce a high dissonant effect that tarnishes
several cues. Another drawback is the lack of consistent employment of
the themes; at best, you'll hear each one fully only twice in the score.
The young composer showed immense lyrical talent in this composition but
didn't develop those ideas to any true level of satisfaction. On its
initial 2003 album, Tyler's music doesn't come across as the most
sophisticated of action scores, but it didn't have to be, and it put a
flourishing end on an already impressive year for him. A 2025 expansion
to 79-minute adds a few fleeting moments of interest for the love and
battle themes, but the product exposes the full breadth of the
composer's really weak material for especially the early scenes in the
film. Don't be surprised if your impression of the score diminishes
because of the longer presentation, the 2003 product a much better
listening experience. An "End Credits" assembly does pull together many
of the score's better parts into one long track, however. Ultimately,
Goldsmith wins on consistency, and one still can hope for a fuller
presentation of that score to be released someday, but Tyler's
replacement wins on singular, ball-busting highlights. Neither score
deserved a home in this wretched film.
@Amazon.com: CD or
Download
- Music as Heard on the 2003 Brian Tyler Album: ****
- Music as Heard on the 2004 Jerry Goldsmith Album: ****
- Music as Heard on the 2025 Brian Tyler Album: ***
| Bias Check: |
For Brian Tyler reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.22
(in 42 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.11
(in 21,143 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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