Timeline – music by Jerry Goldsmith
If there’s one eternal truth that every composer of film or TV music faces sooner or later, it’s the rejection slip. Everyone gets one eventually. And even a composer of Jerry Goldsmith’s stature gets them, such as the one Goldsmith received when he turned in this score to the already-troubled time travel flick Timeline. However, as much as I love Goldsmith’s work in general, listening to this CD of his rejected score, released by Varese Sarabande, I came to one conclusion: there’s a reason Brian Tyler wound up scoring this movie.
For whatever reason, Goldsmith’s take on Timeline winds up sounding like, well, reheated Goldsmith. Now granted, even well-worn works by this particular composer make for good listening, but there are whole passages that sound almost exactly like music from Star Trek: First Contact. Given that this was one of Goldsmith’s final scores, I almost expected to hear stuff that was more like Star Trek: Nemesis, and thought that maybe I’d find a few things that he salvaged from this unused work for that movie. Nope. There are big stretches that sound a lot like, in particular, First Contact‘s “The Dish” cue, particularly the percussive, guttural battle music. (Ironically, I now realize that even when working on First Contact, Goldsmith used a particular kind of action music that dates back to the Logan’s Run score.)
The element that’s unique to Timeline is a strange approach to a brass theme, a clarion call that occasionally dips just far enough out of the dominant key that it seems to be at odds with everything else behind it. It sticks out just enough to be distracting early on, and one can only imagine the reaction of the movie’s director or studio head upon hearing that.
Sadly, I can’t say this is one of Goldsmith’s finer works; as a limited release, it’s clearly intended for Goldsmith collectors and completists only, though even that crowd may find themselves wondering what one of their favorite composers was thinking when working on this one. Then again, at the risk of overlaying my own opinion onto the proceedings, the source material – the movie itself – doesn’t appear to have been terribly inspiring either. This soundtrack-that-never-was is a curiosity for the late maestro’s faithful followers.
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- The Dig (4:10)
- Cornflakes (2:05)
- No Pain (3:10)
- To Castlegard (1:27)
- Find Marek (1:55)
- The Rooftop (4:21)
- A Hole In The Wall (2:27)
- Move On (6:58)
- Be Careful (1:28)
- Ambushed (1:12)
- Setting Up (2:12)
- Greek Fire / Light The Arrows (2:32)
- Prepare For Battle / Victory (11:12)
- To My Friends (1:40)
Released by: Varese Sarabande
Release date: 2005
Total running time: 46:49
From the team behind Kagakuninjatai Gatchaman (known to the English speaking world primarily as Battle Of The Planets) came another, slightly more obscure creation later in the 1970s. Though it’s not meant to occupy the same “universe” as G-Force, Tekkaman shares many (perhaps unavoidable) similarities: the artists at Tatsunoko Studios devised a very similar look, complete with a tinted motorcycle-helmet-inspired visor, immediately inviting comparisons with the character designs of Gatchaman, and Tekkaman’s adventures were scored by Bob Sakuma, the inventive composer behind the original Gatchaman music. Still in “Chicago mode” for his new assignment – Sakuma has openly admitted that the jazzy rock-disco stylings of his 70s anime scores were inspired by the American rock group – Sakuma still manages to create a slightly different musical setting for Tekkaman. 
new twists on the style Sakuma had established with the earlier series. But for the most part, if you enjoyed Bob Sakuma’s original Gatchaman music, Tekkaman makes a nice companion piece to it. This is one of those cases where a “sounds like…” or “customers who bought this also bought that” recommendation are probably right on the money.
on the original game music. “One O’ Clock Galaga ’88” is actually a good example of not relying on the original music very heavily at all, merely using it as a springboard.
It takes some nerve to try to follow up on a legend whether you’re talking about movies or music, but in this case it’s a double whammy: music for a sequel to an all-time classic movie – a movie which defied convention by taking a pass on an outstanding work-in-progress Alex North score in favor of existing classical and avant-garde choral works. As if 2001 itself wasn’t hard enough to follow up on, how could its sequel’s music hope to compete with the likes of Ligeti and Kachaturian and “The Blue Danube”?
Debuting in the 18-month gap between Doctor Who’s 22nd and 23rd seasons, The Tripods was the BBC’s adaptation of John Christopher’s trilogy of children’s novels about a group of young people joining up with rebels in the fight to rid Earth of an alien race which has enslaved humanity. In many ways, The Tripods fared little better than the show it had been intended to replace – it got cancelled after a second season, leaving the show in a permanent major cliffhanger (which itself seems to be something of a BBC science fiction tradition, just ask any Blake’s 7 fan) when the adaptation of the third book was cancelled. Still, both the books and the 25-episode television series left behind a strong cult following. One of the products of that following is this soundtrack collection, consisting of a full-length CD and two CD singles with dance-oriented remixes of the show’s theme and assorted incidental cues.
Embers Of The Freemen (1:50)
Tripods: Limited Edition Remix
When I first heard about this one, I was eager to get my hands on it, hoping it’d turn out to be something like the Namco Classic Collection remix album.
What a wild, weird and misunderstood musical score this is! Let’s set the record straight – this was a movie about video games. Not Mortal Kombat or Doom, but games from the era of Donkey Kong and Pac-Man. The era where an Ensoniq sound chip capable of polyphony was quite a major coup for a quarter-grabbing arcade machine. The music is supposed to be electronic-sounding! And it’s not as if traditional instrumentation was nowhere to be found – there are numerous helpings of orchestra and, in some of the more inspired moments of the score, some choral textures bring out an element of the story which was buried by special effects and the script. Some of the least-recognized moments of this score are the most mesmerizing when heard away from the vision of Bruce Boxleitner and Jeff Bridges cavorting around in fluorescent tights. “Water Music and Tronaction” benefits from a truly haunting arrangement – when I dug out my battered LP about a year ago and listened, I was hooked all over again, and the Tron motif is used most effectively here outside of the main theme. The “Magic Landings” cue is a gem because the best parts of it – cartoonish action music for Jeff Bridges’ clumsy handling of a robotic vehicle – were mixed out of the movie altogether! “Tower Music” is perhaps the most noteworthy track due to its brilliant subtlety and use of choir to underscore the religious nature of the scene. The end credit music is also 
It took a while for this music and the movie from which it sprang to grow on me, but I now enjoy both of them immensely. I’ve heard a few complaints about the hodgepodge of styles utilized by Mark Mancina (who also scored Twister director Jan de Bont’s previous hit, Speed) in the space of a single score, but I find the resulting contrasts to be satisfyingly appropriate. The juxtaposition and combination of rock and contemporary classical elements fit the tone and pace of the movie, and the result – which in places bears more than a passing resemblance to Aaron Copland’s “Rodeo” – suits the Oklahoma venue of the tornado-chasing mini-epic. If anything detracts from the experience of listening to the music alone, it’s the scarcity of thematic material (which is more the movie’s problem than that of the score). Three basic themes fill out the score from Twister: a joyous, all-American-sounding motif for the “good guy” storm chasers led by Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton, a more urgent and stacatto sound for Cary Elwes’ competing crew of uniformed, professional chasers, and choral overtones ranging from heavenly to menacing for the various tornadoes encountered in the movie. That’s really it. There is no thematic development for individual characters, and perhaps I’m asking too much in hoping for such material. All in all, for the purpose it needed