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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Howard Shore)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you seek a surprisingly conservative blend of the
contemporary tone of Carter Burwell's original entry and the piano-led
romanticism of Alexandre Desplat's sequel score, forming an adequate and
non-offensive new identity for the franchise.
Avoid it... if you're tired of the "rotating composer" effect on this or any franchise, starting fresh with new themes once again and lacking an increasingly cohesive sense of passion that the storyline demands.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse: (Howard Shore) The vast
economic recession that has crippled households and nations alike since
2008 apparently hasn't yet struck the population of teenage girls,
judged solely on the spectacular, record-setting box office performance
of their beloved series of Twilight films. Nothing about the
third entry in the franchise, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, is
really any different from the previous films; the entire exercise is
meant to infuse two super cool interests of teenage girls into one
package (vampire lore and a love triangle), and the only surprising
aspect of the whole thing is that some author and studio didn't think of
it sooner. The series has become a billion-dollar enterprise despite
having very few unique ideas and little intelligence in its concept, but
perhaps that's what you would expect from any set of productions that
promotes itself in Nordstrom and Burger King, the latter of course
making the girls too fat to ever look like the mannequins displaying the
Bella collection in the former. The insipidly juvenile plot of The
Twilight Saga: Eclipse basically resolves one threat of the nasty
vampire variety while giving plenty of excuses to allow the three leads
to gaze into each others' eyes. How that triangle, and a young woman's
choice, can be justified with such an abundance of screen time is truly
astounding; in real life, if decisions about teenage romance came with
such epic emphasis, nobody of that age would ever get laid! Such issues
didn't seem to hinder composer Howard Shore from approaching The
Twilight Saga: Eclipse with a genuine affection for the topic and
its romantic implications. His tendency to crank out music that broods
in the darkest regions of an orchestral ensemble's capabilities is
tempered in this assignment to a degree, in part an acknowledgement of
the franchise's previously existing scores. Regardless of the asinine
level of immaturity in any concept, a cinematic franchise deserves
consistency in its original music, if not in memorable themes, then at
least in tone. The first two Twilight scores did not have any
appreciable connections, Alexandre Desplat following Carter Burwell's
sparsely contemporary and challenging work for the 2008 film with
flowing romanticism on gorgeous piano in the 2009 sequel. Although
producing a score (or at least a primary theme) that was vastly superior
on its own, Desplat admitted that he was not interested in building off
of Burwell's original material.
When the rotating crew phenomenon brought Shore aboard for 2010's Eclipse, the famed The Lord of the Rings veteran took an entirely different stance. "I actually did some pretty thorough research. I like to read a lot, and I knew the story. I was really interested in it from a dramatic point of view," Shore stated. When asked about the previous scores, he added, "I found both guys' scores to be very good. Carter's was such a good score, and Alexandre's was just beautiful." It shouldn't be a surprise, therefore, that Shore's music, despite a clear decision to follow new thematic threads, combines the tone of the first two works. The Desplat piano performances directly carry over into a less classically formal structure more in tune with Burwell's, and the incorporation of synthetic elements, including electric guitar, from Burwell's music is reprised with some moderation by Shore. As such, the tone of Eclipse is a satisfying compromise that may not impress film score collectors that gravitated towards Desplat's highlights, but better serves the intended audience (even Desplat's more ardent supporters must acknowledge that his score was trashed by most of the aforementioned teenage girls, which arguably labeled the composer's direction with the franchise as a failure to understand the concept). There's nothing offensive about Shore's stance here, the romantic flair of his piano themes a bit more reserved and the action music more muscular. The cues of battle and rumbling gravity do resemble the Orc music from The Lord of the Rings, though not with the same propulsive cohesion. Also evident in Eclipse, not surprisingly, is a fair dose of ominous, deep string brooding more common to Edge of Darkness and other typical Shore dramatic thrillers. By "Mountain Peak" and "The Battle," the score generates metallic, pounding ambience that may equate the vampires in this story with marching Orc armies, but it gets the job done. Intriguingly, the brass in Eclipse are never afforded an opportunity to really open up the action material, leaving it slightly more atmospheric than hoped. Likewise, in his effort to restrain Desplat's overflowing romanticism, Shore does lose some of the gravity in conversational "eye gazing" sequences. These cues, which rely on strings, woodwind solos, and piano, could have used a touch of electric guitar, quite frankly, an instrument instead used as accompaniment to the evil Victoria in especially earlier cues. In "Riley" and, to a lesser extent, "Victoria," Shore employs distortion effects (on top of the guitar) that manipulate the music quite unpleasantly. It's odd that none of the three accomplished composers in this franchise has yet been able to really combine the standard romantic sound of a piano and orchestra with the pop elements that are clearly the other half of the soundtrack equation for the concept. The song compilation album for Eclipse includes pop songs that are littered throughout the film, and it's strange to hear a score from Shore that doesn't make an attempt to bleed the pop band elements into the romantic orchestral passages as the audience would probably prefer. That doesn't mean that Shore didn't make an attempt to do that; he approached the group Metric to collaborate on a title theme for Bella that would connect the score's main thematic content with the primary song of the end credits. Shore explains, "I worked with Emily Haines and James Shaw of the group Metric, and Metric was a group that I had researched and felt that they would be good collaborators for this project. I asked them if they would be interested in writing with me, and the three of us created the song 'Eclipse (All Yours).' I actually like the collaboration of working with different artists." The result is the alluringly simple theme for Bella and Edward's continuously developing romance. Their scenes together in a meadow are provided lightly symphonic renditions, led by "The Kiss." Shore also reduces the theme to piano solo in "Compromise/Bella's Theme" as a nod to Desplat. The "Wedding Plans" cue offers optimistic combined variations on the idea before transitioning into Metric's enjoyable vocal performance of the song. The only other significantly recurring theme in Eclipse exists for the final member of the triangle, Jacob, a character that Shore wanted to provide special thematic attention to given the events of this film. This surprisingly basic theme is foreshadowed several times on album before receiving its own piano solo in "Jacob Black." The most intriguing thematic moment in Eclipse comes in "The Kiss," when the main theme for Bella and Edward is intertwined longingly with fragment's of Jacob's theme, a very well developed cue of soft conflict. Overall, Shore's score is adequately rendered and features impressive sequences, but it suffers from two major drawbacks. The lack of thematic continuity in the franchise continues to haunt it, and abandoning Desplat's theme altogether seems unnecessary. Additionally, Shore's score seems mechanical in its performances, lacking any of the engrossing passion that exists on screen. The absence of rock elements in the romance material is a minor quibble that adds to a general sense of disappointment. It appears as though this franchise will never really obtain the musical identity it deserves, regardless of what you think about its juvenile content. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 61:52
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes notes from the director and composer
about the score and film.
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