With so many film franchises getting booted and rebooted, made and remade, the film music fan is invariably going to watch with interest who is going to take over the scoring reins. It can be difficult to separate sequels from reboots, but I'll be deliberately vague and arbitrarily decide what counts and what doesn't. That seems fair...
It was the discovery that Patrick Doyle is to score the upcoming reboot of the Planet of the Apes series that prompted this column. This is one series that began with a much loved and critically acclaimed score by Jerry Goldsmith. The sequels largely ditched what Goldsmith did with the original and went their own way, even when Goldsmith himself returned to the series for Escape from the Planet of the Apes. Wikipedia claims that the pending Rise of the Apes is a sequel to the original franchise, sidestepping the Tim Burton remake of 2001. For all that was wrong with the film, Danny Elfman did some fine work, with suitably elemental percussion and brass, even if it doesn't reach the iconoclastic status of Goldsmith's original. I can't even conceive a Doyle score for a Planet of the Apes film, even if the concept (apes on present day Earth) is rather different. Should be interesting.
Jerry Goldsmith's was once again followed when The Omen was remade in 2006 (and presumably with the intention to produce a new series, which never materialised), whereby Marco Beltrami supplied the music. Where Elfman did his own thing, so too did Beltrami but with considerably less success. Elfman's Apes score may be nothing like Goldsmith's, but it apes (haha) the spirit of the original and refashions it in his own distinctive musical voice. However, Beltrami does little of interest for the Omen remake. It's just standard 2000's horror scoring that doesn't even attempt to homage or somehow reference the original. Same goes for Angelo Badalamenti's score to the remake of The Wicker Man which is modern horror dross, instead of the imaginative use of pseudo folk employed by Paul Giovanni for the cult 70's original.
Comic book character franchises seem to be rebooted every few years these days. After one good to great original, the sequels tend to start cancelling themselves out, notably Superman, Batman and Spider-Man, at least after the first sequel. Third time is rarely a charm. Technically, Tim Burton's Batman was a reboot of the original TV series and spin off movie, although aside from the character names and situations, they might as well be a separate franchise. Having said that, Burton's film is as comic book as the original, but with an entirely different tone. Elfman's music is serious without taking things seriously and the main theme is still one of his most famous and memorable. When Joel Schumacher took over for the second sequel, Elliot Goldenthal took over scoring duties and upped the wackiness to dizzying new heights. Goldenthal has always struck me as a rather serious composer so it's almost a surprise to see him on a film like Batman Forever and the celluloid atrocity that was Batman & Robin.
Since everyone else realised that, while Batman Forever was passably fun, Batman & Robin was beyond redemption so it had to wait for Christopher Nolan's artful and deeply serious reboot. Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard formed an unlikely collaboration to compose the score which is about as tune free as film music gets. The main theme is essentially two notes played with enough orchestra, synths and percussion that is required to make it seem meaningful. I won't quite say drivel. OK. I will. Drivel. I doubt the upcoming finale to the trilogy will change approach much. If that's the end of Nolan's contribution to the series, one wonders whether someone else will take over or Batman will hang up his cape for a few years. Then again, given the acclaim of Nolan's films (somewhat unwarranted from where I was sitting), any reboot is going to have to be pretty bloody amazing. Unless they get Joel Schumacher back.
Men, both Super and Spider are considered in Part 2.
No comments:
Post a Comment