: (Steve
Jablonsky/Various) Resoundingly poor reviews once again did not deter a
public of diminished intelligence from wasting money on the fourth entry
in the live-action "Transformers" franchise. With 2014's
came a pseudo-reboot of the
concept on the screen, the previous actors and Michael Bay refusing to
return after the original trilogy of films had completed. Lured back to
the director's chair for this film (but reportedly not a fifth) was Bay,
and the quality of the end result is as unfortunate as anyone might
expect. The concept remains much the same despite the reboot, the
storyline following basic parameters and characters from the original
animated show. Unrealistic and illogical plotlines involving humanity's
love/hate relationship with the robots are further explored in
, along with the scientific
elements that explain the existence of the robots to begin with. It
would seem that the franchise will milk suckers of the concept for all
it can while there remains a supply of characters to pilfer from the
history of the animated show, this time resurrecting Galvatron and the
Dinobots for continued warfare. It helps that veteran concept voice
actors Peter Cullen and Frank Welker are still alive and wagging those
tongues; without their contribution, there really remains no meaningful
connection to the franchise's roots. One can only predict that this
series of films will eventually tumble its way toward a conclusive
encounter with the famed planetary-sized transformer, Unicron, in which
Earth is consumed, robots shaped like Chevrolet product lines fly off
into the great unknown, and nobody has to keep fussing about whiny human
collateral. Bay's continued involvement with the franchise reassured
composer Steve Jablonsky's reprised role as well, though it was one that
eventually tested the stamina and patience of the composer. Largely by
Bay's insistence, there were yet more infusions of musical talent from
outside sources for
, yielding
collaborations that Jablonsky contends were career highlights despite
his contradictory statements that the creation of this score was a more
challenging than its predecessors and made him want to curl up in a ball
in the corner of a room.
The collaborators with Jablonsky for the
Transformers: Age of Extinction score were highlighted by
alternative Indie rock band Imagine Dragons and Sonny John Moore, an
electronic dance and sound design producer known more commonly as
"Skrillex." Their involvement with the project was not limited to just
the song offerings or specific cues within the score; their work
represented a true collaboration with Jablonsky in the integral
recording of the score itself. Also part of the equation was the usual
influence from the Remote Control universe that spawns these scores,
with Joseph Trapanese contributing material that sounds, not
surprisingly, like carry-overs from
Oblivion. Rumors about Hans
Zimmer's own personal involvement in
Transformers: Age of
Extinction abound, but given that all of these people emulate
Zimmer's general guidelines and trademarks for film music in this
generation, you could conceivably credit Zimmer as a co-writer on all of
it. That aspect of emulation is one of two major points to be made about
the score for
Transformers: Age of Extinction. There is, simply
put, very little intellectually new here. Learned film music collectors
will hear pieces of Zimmer's works from
The Thin Red Line
(descending violin counterpoint lines over the main new theme) to
Man
of Steel (incessantly abrasive, forward mixed percussive slapping)
in this score, with most of the foundation owing still to
Batman
Begins and its successors. Aside from the blatant emulation, the
simplicity of this music is astonishingly juvenile, the meters and
progressions remarkably childish and allowing only for different
instrumental colors to be filled into the existing templates. These
scores truly are like a "paint by number" exercise for a child; you
start with the skeleton of the picture, formed from the Zimmer library
of foundations, and any breathing composer can fill in the pre-chosen
colors. In this case, as in many, the colors include one token woodwind
performer and the support of the rock band or sound designer. The only
interesting new result to emerge from
Transformers: Age of
Extinction is the effective integration of the Imagine Dragons vocal
performances directly into the score, a move that actually makes sense
and is surprising to see so sparingly in these high-profile, vaguely (or
overtly) Zimmer-related collaborations. Some listeners may balk at the
merging of a soundtrack song directly into the score of "Honor to the
End," but it actually works quite well.
Aside from the collaboration for
Transformers: Age
of Extinction, the main point of intrigue of the score is the mutual
decision by Bay and Jablonsky to abandon the original trilogy's themes
and start from scratch. What possesses people to make such stupid
artistic choices? Clearly this is the same franchise as before and the
themes, no matter your opinion of them, deserve to persist. Fortunately,
the two men realized their mistake partway through the process and
inserted the protagonists' prior material in brief snippets during "Have
Faith Prime" and "The Legend Exists." Even franchises as devoid of
intellect as this one deserve thematic continuity, and Jablonsky's new
heroic theme, heard best during "Decision" and "Leave Planet Earth
Alone," is completely redundant with the prior power anthems for these
robots. The new theme for the bounty hunter "Lockdown" is an absolute
mess (try humming that one in the shower for entertainment) and the
romantic theme for the female character ("Best Thing That Ever
Happened") is generic and underdeveloped. These "Transformers" scores
are best when they embrace the dumb simplicity of their themes to the
point that they become listenable soft rock/new age material, as in
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. There is little of that in
Transformers: Age of Extinction, aside from the easy duo of
"Decision" and "Best Thing That Ever Happened" to start the full album
presentation, because Jablonsky and crew are more content to pound away
with the
Man of Steel percussion during otherwise tolerable
anthemic cues. When they dial back the percussion layer, as in "Dinobot
Charge," which includes, conversely, a choral layer instead, the results
are noticeably better. It remains truly unfortunate that Jablonsky
hasn't proven able to capture an industrial instrumental feeling (a la
Paul Haslinger) to represent these mechanized characters without
resorting to dissonant electronic layers and brute percussive force that
strays into dreaded
Battleship territory. Despite the asinine
nature of the films, these scores have revealed themselves as a
tremendous wasted opportunity for instrumental creativity. The score for
Transformers: Age of Extinction was somewhat delayed in its album
release, prompting Jablonsky to release an extended play of four
demo-like tracks prior to the laboriously obnoxious 78-minute full
album. The EP tracks, while they do isolate the main themes, are not
rendered in satisfactory fashion. The CD version of the full album (the
digital version was pulled after 15,000 commercial downloads because of
re-use fee limits) was limited to 3,000 copies by La-La Land Records and
is far too long for the quality of this score. There has to be a better
fate for this franchise than this.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Steve Jablonsky reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.2
(in 15 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 2.47
(in 11,924 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
