Ghost Rider (2007)

Composed by Christopher Young

In the pre-MCU days of superhero films, most Marvel adaptations to the big screen seemed to come from its “Knights” line-up. These were characters that normally wouldn’t be seen around the Avengers, and they were often urban crime-fighters. One of the more unique characters among this grouping is Ghost Rider, a man with a flaming skull who rides a motorcycle. In the movie Johnny Blaze (Nicholas Cage) struck a deal with the Mephisto (aka the Devil  played by Peter Fonda) to save his father from a mortal illness (it goes about as well as you would except with such a deal). Years later it’s time for Blaze to fulfill his end of the bargain. As the Ghost Rider he has to stop Mephisto’s errant son Blackheart from acquiring a contract worth thousands of souls.

It’s not a great movie, but it is fun and looks better in light of the overly-derivative superhero fare we’ve been getting over the past few years. One of its surprising strong suits is Christopher Young’s score. But perhaps it should not be a surprise, as Young is an accomplished horror film composer working on a horror-laced superhero film. For the project Young sought to synthesize three genres into one. There would be gothic elements for the supernatural elements, industrial rock for the cool factor of a fiery skull-headed motorcyclist, and western for the geographical setting.

Troy (2004)

Composed by James Horner

In the short-lived early oughties resurgence of historical epics (undone by the dual box-office disappointments of this film and moreso Alexander), Wolfgang Peterson selected the ancient Siege of Troy for a film project. The movie seeks to be more realistic by ditching the mythological aspects in favor of a pure tale of Greeks against Trojans. Paris (Orlando Bloom) runs off with Spartan king Menelaus’ hot wife Helen (Dianne Kruger). Conquest-crazy King Agamemnon (Brian Cox) takes advantage of this outrage to gather a massive Greek force and assault Troy. The lead heroes of both sides are the Greek rumored demigod Achilles (Brad Pitt) and the Trojan’s Hector (Eric Bana). It’s not a bad movie and has plenty of great fight scenes (even if the armor is ridiculously useless).

The story of Troy’s musical score is one of the more controversial ones. Peterson had chosen Gabriel Yared to compose it and the composer approached the project with gusto, working on it for a full year. To create authenticity he hired a Bulgarian choir and Macedonian singer Tanja Tzarovska. Then the test screening came. Yared’s music had not been fully composed yet and the sound mix was not completed either. The test audience complained that the music was too loud and old-fashioned. Instead of giving Yared and he sound editor time to tweak and perfect the music and sound mix, the studio asked for his replacement. Previously enthusiastic about Yared’s musical choices, Wolfgang Peterson caved under pressure and booted the composer from the film.

Scorpion King (2002)

Composed by John Debney

2002 saw the release of WWF (soon to be WWE) wrestler the Rock’s first starring role. Eventually he would use his real name Dwayne Johnson in an attempt to cement his identity as an actor rather than professional wrestler. The Scorpion King is a sword-and-sorcery spin-off of the Mummy films. Thousands of years in the past an eastern horde under Memnon steamrolls through the ancient world, winning battle after battle thanks to the help of a powerful, clairvoyant sorcerer. Mathyus, the titular character, is a mercenary of an almost-dead ethnicity noted for their incredible martial prowess. He’s hired to find and kill the sorcerer (revealed to be a woman named Cassandra and played by Kelly Hu). It’s not a great film, but it’s a fun way to kill a couple hours. The Rock was still an active professional wrestler at the time so the movie plays into him as a beefy action hero. In fact composer John Debney would incorporate the style of the WWF’s entrance themes in a couple of his cues.

Debney blends rock with bombastic ancient adventure styling, and surprisingly with no disjointed effect. In its “subtler” moments the rock appears as a percussive drumline underneath wailing trumpets, but it can also overtake the entire score, such as in the opener “Boo!.” Despite the ancient setting on-screen, the blasting guitars seem appropriate when paired with a still-young Dwayne Johnson. Personally I prefer the more straightforward orchestral sections, which do become dominant by the halfway point. This material is what’s expected: epic horns, woman wailing, and ethnic percussion. The rock-heavy cues are mostly placed in the first act of the film, when Mathyus hasn’t acquired his more noble motivations and audiences are still processing the presence of the Rock in a Hollywood film.

Prince of Egypt (1999)

Composed by Hans Zimmer

The Prince of Egypt was Dreamworks’ ambitious attempt to break into the animated film market. While Disney adapted fairy tales and historical legends, Dreamworks went for one of the world’s most famous religious tales, the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. Whoever’s reading this probably knows the story, but I’ll summarize it anyways. To control the exploding Hebrew population, the Egyptians enslave them for several hundred years. When the pharaoh attempts population control via the selected murder of firstborn sons, a mother sends baby Moses out onto the Nile in a basket. Incredibly he is found and adopted by the pharaoh’s daughter, thus growing up to be a prince. He eventually learns his true heritage, and then is tasked by God to be His messenger. God wants his people freed, and if Pharaoh Ramses, Moses’ adoptive brother, refuses, then there will be grave consequences.

Prince of Egypt is a wonderful and surprisingly sometimes forgotten animated feature. What makes it stand out in the various cinematic adaptations of Exodus is the portrayal of Moses and Ramses’ relationship as brothers. Commonly portrayed as enemies even before Moses learns the truth, this movie shows them tragically separated by circumstances. But this review is of course about the music, which fare well against the famous Disney soundtracks of the 90s. Hans Zimmer, who had years earlier composed the animated hit Lion King, took on scoring duties while Stephan Schwartz took charge of the songs. Apparently Zimmer was nervous about scoring a story that held great significance for three major monotheistic religions. As a Christian myself I have to say that he need not have worried, because I think his music wonderfully hits the right emotions for the Exodus event.

Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)

Composed by Brian Tyler

Although it was hardly well-regarded, the action-horror cross-over Alien vs. Predator still made enough money to garner a sequel. The first film is passable entertainment but Requiem suffers from the fact that most of the action takes place in a dark, rainy environment, making it difficult to see the new alien and predator designs. The characters are wafer-thin and there’s a certain maternity ward scene that was just a little too much for me. The film itself bombed. Not a failure is Brian Tyler’s score, all of which can be found on the soundtrack album. This is from around the time that Brian Tyler started getting the opportunity to create big action scores. The actual album presentation is horrendous, but I will talk about that later. First the actual music.

Tyler does a good job of using the style of the Alien and Predator soundtracks, especially the former, though he or somebody in charge decided that none of the franchises’ preexisting themes would be used. One of Horner’s motifs from Aliens does appear, but not much. One cue in which it materializes is “Coprocloakia”. A variation on the Predator theme plays in “Predator Arrival” and “Power Struggle”, with the percussive elements remaining, but the core theme replaced by a variation of Tyler’s Requiem theme. A couple tracks, “National Guard pt. 1” and “Taking Sides,” (the latter a quite good 13-minute piece) use a motif heavily reminiscent of Ripley’s theme from Alien Resurrection. The latter half of “Buddy’s New Buddy” has a call-back to Elliot Goldenthal’s dissonant strings from Alien 3’s “Candles in the Wind.” These are nice references, but it is frustrating that Tyler wouldn’t or was not allowed to actually make the franchise themes clash. At least he finds a way to reference them whereas Harald Kloser ignored them completely for the first AVP.

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1959)

Composed by Miklos Rozsa

The 1959 epic Ben-Hur is the third adaptation of Lew Wallace’s late 19^th Century novel. The story, as its subtitle suggests, takes place at the time of Jesus’ life in Judea. The plot of both the book and the film is that Jewish prince Ben-Hur’s (Charlton Heston) Roman childhood friend Messala (Stephen Boyd) has returned. Their friendship soon takes a bad turn when it turns out that Messala has fully imbibed Roman propaganda, while Ben-Hur wants Israel to be free of Roman rule. Later a roof shingle from Ben-Hur’s house is accidentally dislodged, nearly killing a Roman general. Messala sends Ben-Hur to the galleys while imprisoning his widowed mother and sister. Ben-Hur devotes himself to revenge against both Messala and Rome.

The movie is faithful to the novel despite rearranging and changing much of it. Having recently read the book, I think I prefer the movie. It gets me more in the feels, though it might just be because I grew up on it. One of my favorite films of all time, Ben-Hur deservedly won 11 Oscars, one for Miklos Rozsa’s musical score. Rozsa was no stranger to the epic genre, having previously scored Quo Vadis, another Christian tale in Roman times. This didn’t stop him from doing exhaustive research to catch what he believed were uniquely Roman and Jewish musical sounds. The end result was a triumph. Ben-Hur sports a massive array of themes and motifs, all of them great in their own way.

Gods and Generals (2003)

Composed by John Frizzell & Randy Edelman

Having scored a success with Gettysburg in 1993, both producer Ted Turner and director Ron Maxwell were keen to revisit the Civil War. They looked to Gods and Generals, Jeff Shaara’s prequel to his father’s novel on Gettysburg. The novel is great, but the movie ignored much of it while inventing new scenes and characters. The story covers the first two years of the war in the Eastern theatre, with Stephen Lang’s Stonewall Jackson serving as the primary character. The theatrical cut was a slog, despite good performances and battle scenes. The director’s cut is considerably better, dividing a longer film into five acts. Even then, Gods and Generals is poorly put together, with many scenes failing to gel together. It wastes time on pointless characters and scenes. This time should have been used to develop some of the primary characters (Robert Duvall’s Robert E. Lee disappears for a long section of the film) and acknowledge battles that are completely skipped over. It further controversially veers into pro-Confederate territory, to the point that most of the black characters are awkwardly happy Confederate camp servants.

The movie would have worked better as an extended mini-series, as many of the scenes and elements are quite good. This includes the musical score. Surprisingly Randy Edelman, the composer for Gettysburg, did not take charge with his familiar themes. A scheduling conflict disabled him from primary composing duties. Instead he filled out a score that was primarily designed by John Frizzell, a woefully underrated and underused composer (check out his haunting score for Alien Resurrection). Frizzell took a very different approach from his predecessor. Edelman used a heavily synthesized score that emphasized heroism. Frizzell goes for a more period-appropriate and epically tragic approach. With a full non-synthetic orchestra, he liberally uses violin, fiddle, and piano. Mark O’Connor, an acclaimed musician, was brought on board to work with the fiddle and violin in particular. Frizzell additionally infuses a good dose of choir, usually wordless but effective oohing and aahing that adds another epic layer. One example that shows the stark contrast between the scores is in the action scenes. Gettysburg’s were filled with perilous and bombastically heroic fare, while Frizzell scored much of them with more weighty choices that emphasize the noble, yet tragic nature of what the soldiers are going through.

Tombstone (1994)

Composed by Bruce Broughton

The year 1994, during a short-lived mini-renaissance of the western genre, saw two movies focused on legendary lawman Wyatt Earp. Kevin Costner’s three hour biography, released at the end of the year, was a box office bomb. Its rival, Tombstone, opened up half a year earlier to fair but not smashing success. It’s run on Cable TV saw it rise in popularity. It’s a tighter two hours and only focuses on Wyatt Earp’s time in and around the Arizonan mining town of Tombstone. This includes the famous Gunfight at the OK Corral and the Vendetta Ride. Wyatt Earp just wants to make money, but is drawn into violence by the actions of the Cowboys, a gang of cattle rustlers. It’s quite a good film, being largely accurate while condensing two years of events into a narrative that flows well. It’s also got a great cast. Kurt Russell plays Wyatt Earp while Sam Elliot and Bill Paxton portray his brothers Virgil and Morgan. Val Kilmer also gives a widely popular performance as Doc Holliday, Wyatt’s cool and not entirely scrupulous friend who’s literally dying of tuberculosis throughout the story. Others include the likes of Powers Boothe, Steven Lang, Terry O’Quinn, and Michael Biehn. Even Charlton Heston shows up for one brief part. The composer was Bruce Broughton, who infused a score that exhibits masculine power, but also has quite a bit of tender and light-hearted material as well.

Bruce Broughton was not new to westerns. His previous big entry for the genre was Silverado, which featured a rousing theme for a fun throwback to pre-deconstruction westerns. Tombstone is a more serious and dark film, not shying away from the blood and the brutal nature of criminal activities. While Broughton reflects this different tone with aggressive dissonance and eerie ambience, this doesn’t stop him from abandoning sweeping or heroic melodies.

Superman Returns (2006)

Composed by John Ottman

Around the time Warner Brothers and DC Comics retooled the Batman film franchise, Superman also made his return to the big screen, after a much longer absence. Bryan Singer, whose directorial star had recently risen with his work on the X-Men films, leapt at the chance to helm Superman Returns. He was a fan of the Christopher Reeves films, perhaps too much. Instead of rebooting Superman, he actually made a direct sequel to the originals (ignoring the derided third and fourth entries). He could have at least finally introduced an untapped villain from the comics, but instead we once again have Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) coming up with a deadly real estate scheme. This one involves using crystals from the Fortress of Solitude to create a new island, which in turn will cause ecological disaster along the eastern American seaboard. Meanwhile, Superman (Brandon Routh) has just spent years searching for other survivors of Krypton (he doesn’t find any) and returns to find Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) with a child and fiancé. Singer’s movie isn’t horrible, but it could have been much better. The ending certainly drags on. There were no sequels and people tend to overlook its existence.

Another fan of the Superman originals is composer John Ottman, a regular collaborator of Singer. He claimed that during his childhood he would annoy the neighbors by constantly playing John Williams’ score for the superhero. He now got a chance to do a sequel incorporating the maestro’s themes. In general he does a great job in this regard. He doesn’t overplay the themes, but makes them an integral part of the score. Often a new composer to a franchise will make a couple token references and then go off into his own original themes. For negative examples of both directions, let me mention two scores. For Matrix Resurrections, Johnny Limek and Tom Tykwer pilfered Don Davis’ memorable score to excess. The end result was that they misused his carefully crafted web of motifs. Danny Elfman, by contrast, ignored Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL’s set of themes when he came on for the DCEU’s Justice League. At the same time he sought to reference his own theme for Batman and Williams’ for Superman, yet barely did so that he might as well have ignored them. For Superman Returns, Ottman makes ample use of Williams’ themes while still using his own voice and identities.

Lost: The Final Season (2010)

Composed by Michael Giacchino

Lost’s final season was entertaining and in some ways emotionally satisfying. However it failed to provide a cohesive explanation for all of the show’s mysteries. It was evident that the writers and producers did not a hundred percent know what they were building. The on-island stuff, despite some ridiculousness, is very engaging, but the new flash-sideways are a sore point for me (more on that in a couple paragraphs). Any flaws in the season were helped by Giacchino’s wonderful score. After focusing more of his creative energies on major motion pictures in 2009, he came back with a vengeance, capping off his television masterpiece with suitably amped up material. While the story was not resolved to viewers’ satisfaction, Giacchino successfully weaved all of his thematic material for an epic conclusion. Almost every theme of note appears across the four discs (the outlier is the Freighter theme from Season Four, which did have a brief iteration in the series finale but not on disc; same for the heartwarming Rose and Bernard theme).

The release of music for season six was both surprisingly extensive yet also confusing. The Season Six soundtrack itself only contains material from the first 13 episodes (12 if you count the first two as one like the album booklet). This was soon followed by a limited “Lost: The Last Episodes” release. However Varese Sarabande, the record label, neglected to clearly state that there would be two double-disc albums and many buyers were legitimately concerned that an abundance of great material would not be released. Not helping is the presence of two “bonus tracks” on the first set. These include “The Hole Shebang” and “Moving On,” the action and emotional climaxes of the series finale. Varese Sarabande likely intended these for those who would not buy the limited edition Last Episodes release. This is curious thinking as anybody who picks up the first album would likely be familiar with the show’s music and not be worried about shelling out more money for the epic conclusion. I will not be covering the two bonus cues until my review for the Last Episodes album. As always there will likely be spoilers.