I'm currently listening to the score from the latest in the Terminator franchise of films, 2009's "Terminator Salvation" which opens in the USA for early showings this Thursday, May 21st. It will have some (for reasons beyond my comprehension) tough competition in the more family friendly fodder of the latest waste of film to star Ben Stiller. Nope, I'm not saying the flicks name. I know from box office experience that it will likely win the weekend due to being more family friendly, so I'm getting a head start on being upset that it beat the new Terminator flick for number one that memorial day weekend. Anyway, like I said, I'm currently listening to the score from TS, and... I'll be honest, it's a good score. It's not epic or sweeping thus far, as I've heard. But it's solid, and thankfully, it doesn't sound like a typical Danny Elfman composition for the most part. Don't get me wrong, Elfman has talent - but when it comes to genre stuff, he should be banished to an island and never allowed near it with a ten foot pole. That said, he's managed to hide his normal tones and tunes - mostly - from TS. That all said... it's lacking one very critical thing. The one thing that every single true Terminator fan wants. And has wanted. Since 2003's disappointment of Terminator 3, and the more recent Terminator TV series. The god damn mother fucking theme song! ...Seriously. What. The. Fuck? There are not many films that have a sweeping and well loved theme song that become iconic. There really aren't. I mean, think of 10 and you've likely named them all. Star Wars. Star Trek. Godfather. Jurrasic Park. I can't go much further than that. Because there are not to many films with great iconic themes that are so beloved! When they didn't use it outside of the closing credits in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines... I was miffed. But at the time, I glossed over it, because it was Arnold as the Terminator again after a 12 year long wait. I was young, naive, and able to gloss over such a (at the time) triviality as the theme song. When they where preparing for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, I actually spoke with series compose Bear McCreary (one of my top 3 composers, btw) through e-mail and asked him, point blank: what was happening with the theme? He informed me they (FOX) where trying to secure the rights, and all those involved in production wanted to use it. Alas, all we ended up with was the thump-thump-thump-thump-thump drum beat intro. When I first heard substantial news of Terminator Salvation, director McG (shit name, right? He knows, he's not a pre-madonna, it's short of McGinty and a nickname he got as a kid because he's the third named Joe in his family, as I recall) first spoke of the film, he promptly addressed the themes. He said he loved them. He said he wanted them. When he hired Danny Elfman, he said he had instructed Elfman to use said themes. I rejoiced. I knew Elfman wouldn't use them constantly, I knew we would be lucky to have the opening and closing credits and maybe a specific moment near the climax of the film, but I relaxed as all seemed well and on track for the return of the great theme I'd loved since, literally, childhood. Yet here I am. Writing, ranting, and grinding my teeth as I listen to the score from Terminator Salvation and... do not hear the themes. None of them. Certainly not the familair "do-do-dooooooo, doo-doo-doooooooo" that so many of us love from the first two films. No, I'm listening to the latest Terminator score sans any Terminator themes! Again! I feel like pulling a William Shatner and, at the top of my lungs, screaming to the heavens like he did for Khan... McG! McG! McG! It's no use though. The film comes out in 5 days. There is nothing to be done except to feel a little bitter, a little betrayed, and a little more disenfranchised. And as I type those words, a little sickened too, as I just heard some classic Elfman chaos in track 7 that, to my ears, is nails on a chalkboard. Thankfully it was just a brief moment. Hopefully that's all it will be. But I guess it's "Hasta La Vista, Theme Song" for Terminator.
The score is quite good, and it has new themes. But... it's like trying to replace the Star Wars, or Star Trek, or Godfather themes. You know? Why isn't there more attention paid to the score?
If you don't like it, don't see it. Exclusion of the theme will not hamper my viewing pleasure or enjoyment of the movie if it is good. Including the theme means they give a nod to us fans, but if you truly need to listen, there are other alternatives. Yes, I am a bit upset they didn't include the theme, but hey, its not the end of everything.
More likely, it was a copyright or royalties issue, these things do tend to plague long-running television and film franchises.
The best thing to do would have been to coax Brad Fiedel out of retirement to do the new score. There's something about the tone of his music that's just hard to match and works perfectly for the Terminator films.
You do realize that the released soundtrack is not the complete score that will be in the film,right? That these things never are.
I'm quite aware of such. But the probability that they would have acquired the rights to the theme, utilized it only once or twice, fleetingly, throughout the film, and then omitted said tracks from the score? That's stretching it. There would be more fan uproar should such occur than to simply flip us all off as they've done. As I said, Elfman's score is good and it won't effect me seeing the film. I just feel mislead and disenfranchised.
As I said before, I will be really, really amazed if this film winds up being any good. I'm giving it a shot, but I'm not terribly optimistic, and though this (the score) is a small thing in the great scheme of the universe, it's still not a good sign.
It is hard to make out Fidel's theme in Elfman's score, but it's in there, opening track, time index: 1:08, and in many other places throughout the album, he plays it in a different key, faster and sounding flatter than Fidel's, once you identify it it's hard in fact NOT to hear it, and it gets annoying, because of course Elfman never plays it right (and you wish he would).
The tones were used but McG said around March that they would try to work the theme in, but it wasn't a big deal to him if they couldn't. He was more concerned with the Arnold and Hamilton cameos.
I wouldn't mind betting that it's not on the soundtrack because it only appears when Arnie does his little CG cameo. Incidently, when will people stop referring to orchestral pieces as "songs"? There are no lyrics dammit.
And what, exactly, makes you think you have the authority to simply decide what a "true fan" is? And who declared you could speak for them?
Did it ever occur to anyone that perhaps their licensing doesn't include putting it on the Score CD? Or perhaps Elfman wanted the released score to only include his music so that he can be the only one credited on the CD and thus makes more money?
Gotta qualify that. Elfman never plays an old theme exactly the way you originally heard it. That doesn't automatically mean "wrong". Just different. For me, the only thing I actually liked about the first Mission:Impossible movie was the way the opening was arranged. It wasn't exactly like the original, but I liked it.
McG seemed pretty adament on incorporating Fidel's theme but I do remember hearing from Elfman that he was planning on using it sparsely, so who knows what happened. Maybe it was the licensing, maybe it was McG's non-committal stance towards the implementation of the theme, or maybe it was Elfman winning out. Who knows. Honestly I don't think it's THAT big of a deal. I totally forgot about the theme when watching T3 and when the end credits came, I was like, "Oh yeah, that. I forgot about that!", so I don't think not having the theme there is going to really hinder it in any capacity; it would have been nice to have it there in some places, but with all the reboots lately saving the theme of said franchise until the closing credits, I'm actually getting used to the notion of big, lavish themes being left out until the very end (or in this case at all). It allows me to appreciate whatever new musically the composer comes up with.