first time poster here... great contributions here BTW...
I find it odd, really really odd that the actual score's release is debatable. I would guess that since the album was released, that there were no plans for a score. That somehow releasing a cd with songs that for the most part have nothing to do with the movie, is what the fans want. Its totally the music suits trying to pedal some new tunes onto the consumers. its like a throw back to the '80's where t as harder to get the actual score, and often you got some pop album. Seems like this is because some 55 year old exec guy with a cigar in a smokey room thinks the youngsters want to listen to this crap. I hope they put the score up for an oscar, because then the extended score gets released to academy people and then we can wish for a bootleg release. I wanted the score to "Ultraviolet" (don't ask) and settled for a bootleg release.
Yeah, I luv the score... however I have to say that when I first saw the film, I thought it was a little bit overdone on the autobot section, as jablonsky did in The Island. It is ironside that comes out of the pool, yet the music becomes reverant like its a pivotal characters... like optimus. perhaps there is something in the mythology of that character that I missed. However, in the past, especially with Bay films and the Media ventues / remote control group, the music is always a bit over done for almost the sake of it, and not exactly tied into the film, hence the "discrepency" that is being discussed here. Its kind of like that pivotal chior piece played during lukes defeat of vader in "Jedi" being played over like an ewok cheering instead because the deathstar blew up. Nice music, but a little misplaced.
Its a bit of a criticism I have with the whole Hans zimmer posse. Don't get me wrong, i love the tunes and they are my most listened to. However, they are almost like Techno anthems on steroids: symplistic melodies, very familiar sounding because they are based on quite common and desirble (predictable) trends in the tunes. I guess they kinda go along with the desirable and predictable films that they go with. Probably the track to "the Contender" TV show is the best example of this. Fun catchy tune, but really shallow. I mean, you can modify it to be a melencholy tune to something heroric, but the theme is unchanged, just played differenty. It doesn't evolve. However, something like Lord fo the Rings just keeps evolving.
I bet you if you were to put together all of the media ventures themes from zimmer, jablonsky, badlet, etc from the past 15 years, you would still end up with less motifs than what was in Lord of the Rings. You could almost take the tracks from dozens of scores (Crimson tide, the rock, Pirates, King arthur, and now batman begins, the Island and transformers) and score your own movie with enough similarties between the themes to feel like a cohesive score and STILL have less themes than LOTR!!!!!
Despite all of this, i don't fault jablonsky... i hope he gets a film to call his own, worthy of his emotional scoring, the way Badelt got to score "the Promise", really making it his own, as well as Brian tyler with Children of Dune. Too bad its "wasted" on films like "the Island" and "transformers" which owe much of their "depth" to, really, Jablonsky's score.
I bring up LOTR because, while needing it to grow on me first, it really is a masterpiece of scoring. It really is a delicate blend of evolving motif's that reinforce the films theme of not being able to go back. While themes do remerge, they are rarely repeated. In fact you get themes that exist just for the moment on screen. A good example is in the Two towers when Gandalf summons Shadowfax, the Lord of all horses, a gorgeous majestic theme that is used just once. Same goes for the opening when he's figthing the balroc (sp?) as he falls down. It starts with the chanting from the first films and evolves to a huge climax of its own. Also the delicate Gandalf sacrifice theme from the first theme is reused, but properly, and still evolved, when he talks to one of the hobbit's about the afterlife, and then later when Frodo is leaving on the boat, hence the afterlife. The same could be said for the music at the very end... its an evolved hobbit theme.. because you can't return to the first theme because so much has changed with the characters.. and its really about Sam being a bittersweet survivor, forever changed by his experience, now hopefully finding peace. Tolken's own experience with being a war survivor and having lost friends ground his fantastical story with that poigniant and delicate reality. I think Frodo represents that lost friend in battle, or perhaps that friend who's left as an empty shell after the war, all but lost. Without that sense of loss, I think the story would have been cheapened. And I think the score captures that loss of innocence, and that inability to return to the past, with its evolved thems. Had it been a Media ventures score you would have heard the hobbit theme over and over and over again like an action cue in a game!!!
So to use transformers as an example, remember that kewl theme used when the AWACS orders the A-10's to attack? Well its used when the Autobots charge into battle. hmmmm... next is the autobot theme.. appropriate used in the opening with the allspark theme, but then again when John voight gives his speech to the programmers about the importance of their mission (I think unless its the bublebee theme, I forget). Hmmmm.. seems not necessarily conflicting, but, like the "shadowfax" theme in LOTR, it could have used its own stand alone theme. Similar, perhaps.. but not the theme for the autobots. Then there is the bumblebee theme, first hinted as a tease when bumblebee sends out a beacon, then used as the chior piece for the autobots decend, then quite appropriately with the bumblebee capture with a nice modification (if you don't recall->
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2ViZKjISzo from 2:15 to 3:07) to Prime's speech about how bumblebee is a fine soldier and his sacrifice through to the roll out command.
So I get the feeling that they come up with a theme, a damn good one...whew!... and then they paste it in places... we call them Media Ventures anthems. So while it may have represented a poigniant moment for character "a", it then becomes a poigniont theme for character "b"... so its not really a theme for either character...its a poignant anthem "inserted" into poigniant "moments". So relating to LOTR, imagine Gandalf's poigniant death scene music used later for every sad moment in the film: sam's near death, aragon's near death, The king's son's death, the king;s death, etc... I mean thats what would have happened if media ventures did the score to LOTR.
t:
I think Badelt did a great job on "the Promise" where he really tried to keep his motifs both evolving and with the character's, not just the moments. In fact the ending goes from the slave's theme to the generl's to the girl's to its own delicate mini-motif for the slave's sacrifice, and then to its hero crescendo. Had it been jablonsky, it would have just been bumblebee's theme all throughout!
t:
Even with all of that said, i'd get the score to Transformers tomorrow!! I do love how both in the Island and in transformers, jablonsky places this kind of majestic reverence to his scores. perhaps too reverant to fit the films. Its like he scores for himself.. i.e. he wants to make the best music possible, but it dosn't marry the films in broad scope. When I first saw The Island, I thought the score had this kind of exotic sexiness to its percussion as well as instrumentation that felt kinda out of place to the film. where as badelt approriate instrumented "the Promise", as did tyler in "Dune" and Williams in "Ryan" and "shindler's list", even I dare say Badelt/zimmer with the priates.. at least it was swashbuckly. I mean whats kewl is that jablonsky has this nice progressive sounding score in general that he manages to invoke a majesty to it... I'm just waiting for the right film for jablonsky, but in the meantime i don't mind his Island or transformer's score even if they are a bit miss-cast.
I do like the small subtle piece that Jablonsky does when you see bubblebee summon the autobots with a beacon, you can listen to at this link from 3:40 to 4:10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOKGXDyuqug . Nice editing too. I think Jablonsky does this kind of stuff really well, and his instrumentation offers a haunting, mysterious sound... something that, to me, seemed a bit too majestic for a transformers movie, but I still love. I think this is what makes the hans zimmer group stand apart from more "traditional" composers. Silvestri, Newton-howard, even Williams don't offer little moments of "awe" like this in their scores...they are a bit too "stiff upper lip", while the Hans zimmer posse relatively wear their emotional scoring on their sleeves. I just wish there were more micro-motifs like this within a zimmer/jablonsky score.
