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