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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of WarGames (Arthur B. Rubinstein)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you seek a valiant attempt by Arthur B. Rubinstein to
capture the somewhat schizophrenic nature of the film's duality,
balancing light parody and synthetic pop style with ballsy orchestral
mayhem for the threat of nuclear war.
Avoid it... if you have difficulty accepting scores that challenge you with a wide range of technical intellect and melodic constructs instead of simplifying their personality to capture your heart with cohesive ethos.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
WarGames: (Arthur B. Rubinstein) It's not
surprising that the filmmakers involved with the 1983 cult favorite
WarGames couldn't decide what type of movie to make out of its
script. Director Martin Brest departed from the production because he
believed the nuclear war comedy was meant to take a darker path. When
John Badham took the helm after shooting had already begun, however, he
encouraged lead actor Matthew Broderick and others on the set to adopt a
more casual attitude, reinstalling the lighter atmosphere that the
film's comedy genetics seemed to demand. Ultimately, the concept behind
WarGames was so frighteningly new and realistic that audiences
viewed it as just another one of the Soviet scare entries of the era. It
had the mannerisms of a humorous parody of its more serious
counterparts, but its anti-war message and exploration of budding
technologies at the time gave it the heart of a deadly serious thriller.
Broderick plays a high school deviant with poor grades but spectacular
hacking skills, and when he accidentally logs into the computer put in
charge of the missile defense systems at NORAD, he inadvertently
activates the computer's simulation mode that depicts an incoming Soviet
nuclear attack to the live operators of the system. Teaming with the
disillusioned creator of the system, he eventually ends up at NORAD and
encourages the computer, which has fooled the Americans into declaring a
top DEFCON status, to engage in games of tic-tac-toe and thus teach it
about the concept of futility that applies to nuclear war as well. While
movies showing teenagers brilliantly and comically using technology were
popular in the 1980's, WarGames struck a far more terrifying
nerve, wowed critics, and received three Academy Award nominations
completely out of the blue, combining with strong box office success to
earn itself a lasting reputation as a movie well beyond its time. Some
of the technological concepts conveyed almost in jest in the film have
become industry norms, including firewalls and brute force password
attacks.
When Badham took control of the picture, he brought along his regular composing collaborator at the time, Arthur B. Rubinstein. While Badham's career included work with John Williams and Hans Zimmer, his projects with Rubenstein represented some of the composer's most notable feature film music. Although they had just come from the impressive Blue Thunder at the time, they were primarily television artists, and Rubinstein's career is highlighted by his duo of 1983 feature scores. He was known at the time for his abilities in combining synthetic and orchestral sounds, especially in their catering to standard pop culture styling. In many ways, WarGames is a comprehensive display of his wide range of talents, in part because of his extraordinary depth of motific development but also in its highly disparate instrumental ranges. This score is, in short, all over the place in terms of style and tone, caught inescapably in the same dilemma that faced the film as a whole. You can hear Rubinstein struggle to balance the contemporary tones of the teenagers' world with the strikingly serious militaristic angle, the whimsically lyrical Americana side, and mischievous parody chase material, all sometimes at play in short succession. For the teenage hacker element, the composer goes the route of electronic pop silliness, the ultimate in early 1980's cheese that is even less tolerable than most of the looped music for video arcades of the era. The NORAD scenes feature extremely abrasive, rhythmic, orchestral force, highlighted by relentless layers of percussion and an abnormally large brass section. As the protagonists contemplate nuclear annihilation during the island scenes in the middle of the film, Rubinstein responds with harmonica-led tones of sincerity that remind of Jerry Goldsmith's Westerns of the 1960's. The somewhat dainty chase material, meanwhile, includes affable woodwind rhythms that offer a tad of Williams' mischief built into their style. As if these disparate tones of the score don't cause enough of a whiplash, Rubinstein reinforces them with a huge selection of motifs in WarGames. Broderick's hacker receives two themes, each translated into eerie, highly synthetic song variants performed by the composer's band, "The Beepers," early in the WarGames score. These simplistic progressions of three of four notes are extremely obnoxious and are barely recognizable when they turn serious in the latter half of the score. The NORAD computer and its creator receive a couple of often intertwined themes, the more sensitive one for the computer a lovely piano melody that is too seldom utilized to really appreciate. The aforementioned harmonica theme in WarGames is translated into the "Edge of the World" song that is featured prominently and has become the soundtrack's calling card for mainstream viewers. The mischief, military, and action motifs all dutifully pop up in their expected places, the action motif the most interesting in its brutality in "Helicopter Pursuit & Launch Detected" and "Winner None." Rubenstein is at the top of his game in the climactic "Winner None," the cue's brass lines answering each other in pounding Alan Silvestri fashion to accompany the horrifying scenarios being played out by the computer at the climax. A few singular motifs in the score, such as the Russian choral material in "Confidence is High," further fragment its narrative, however, confirming WarGames as a truly schizophrenic work. It's not hard to appreciate the technical mastery in some of Rubenstein's highlights, and the Americana theme for "Edge of the World" is easily digestible, but WarGames remains a very challenging score to casually enjoy on album. The early synthetic tones for the lead character and the hacking element are downright insufferable so many years later, regardless of the audio quality, and the thematic assignments that follow are compartmentalized to a great degree, never evolving to mingle with each other intelligently. It's almost as though Rubenstein wrote a score too complex for what the film required, though the indecision about whether to make the overall personality light-hearted, a split parody, or completely serious likely doomed the music more than it did the film. On album, it took a long time for WarGames to be treated properly. The original LP presentation contained the highlights of the score riddled with dialogue, and its only official CD representation for a long time was in a little over twenty minutes on Rubenstein's rare, personal 1998 promotional set from Super Tracks. In 2008, Intrada Records finally provided the complete score with a couple of bonus tracks that brought the presentation's time to almost 70 minutes. Sound quality on this 2,500-copy release is surprisingly good, though while that clarity enhances the action material, it doesn't do much justice to the purely synthetic portions early in the score. Some strange placements of players in the soundscape will cause stereo oddities in a few places. It was Rubinstein himself who chose to re-mix this 2008 presentation as he wanted for it to be heard in the film; the director had dialed down many of the synthetic vocal lines that Rubinstein had intended to carry the melody of several cues. The product sold out and has fetched obscene prices, and it remains relevant despite a 2018 revisiting of the score by Quartet Records. For their 2-CD presentation of the WarGames score, Quartet chose to remaster both the film and original LP album mixes of the score to populate its two CDs, throwing some of the alternates onto the end of the second CD. Expect a different listening experience on this product, the sound quality roughly the same but cues separated and emphasizing the mix preferred by the director and better known by listeners. Of particular interest is the version of "History Lesson" without vocals. Given that hardcore enthusiasts of the film are the intended audience for this album, opinions about which mix is superior will vary widely, and some may even prefer the original LP remastering that continues to include a plethora of dialogue tracks. The 2008 album will remain viable for these ardent fans, however, given its distinct presentation. The 2018 product was limited to 1,000 copies which sold out relatively quickly, prompting Quartet to re-issue the product by 2020, this time eliminating a stated limit to the pressing's quantity. Overall, WarGames is among Rubenstein's most respected career works, and given its highly disparate components, it's likely best that you preview the music in the context of the highly entertaining movie before exploring either of the albums blindly. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
2008 Intrada Album:
Total Time: 69:18
2018 Quartet Album: Total Time: 133:30
NOTES & QUOTES:
The inserts of both the Intrada and Quartet albums include a list of performers
and detailed information about the score and film.
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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 WarGames are Copyright © 2008, 2018, Intrada Records, Quartet Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 8/23/11 and last updated 9/1/20. |
