You all knew this was coming. I just made my first post about Howard Shore’s music to throw you all off. Mwa ha ha haaaaa. (“So that’s…coming along. I’ve been working with a vocal coach.”)
As some of you may know, Hans Zimmer has scored yet another superhero franchise, this time penning music for the mild-mannered man of steel instead of the Caped Crusader. And funnily enough, it’s called Man of Steel. “Hey…” you may be thinking, “that movie isn’t even out yet, much less the soundtrack!” Ah, yes, that is true. However, the sample clips of the soundtrack are out. Ha ha! If you’d like to hear them, here they are:
Usually, I don’t focus much on sample clips of soundtracks because it’s like reaching into a salad and just plucking random parts of it out. You may grab a tomato, a few pieces of lettuce, some onion, perhaps. But what if that salad had some glorious avocado in it, and you missed it entirely? Could you judge the salad accurately simply based on what you pulled out? Heck no. (Yeah, that analogy just happened. Let me warn you: weird analogies live in my brain.) That’s how I feel about sample clips – it doesn’t give you the entire picture. I mean, if someone had listened to the sample clip of “The Steward of Gondor” from the Return of the King soundtrack, they may have dismissed it as just a nice orchestral piece without hearing Billy Boyd’s fantastic singing during a very emotional moment for Peregrin Took that may or may not cause me to swoon every time I listen to it .
However, these samples intrigue me. I was a little worried, since Zimmer seemed to just jump from Batman to Superman fairly quickly, and I wasn’t too impressed by his score for Batman Begins. It was good, yes, but it got a bit flat and repetitive, and I knew Zimmer was capable of so much more than that soundtrack. He proved it by kicking out better and better soundtracks as the trilogy went on. I find that’s how it goes sometimes with his music if he scores a set of films together (example: the Pirates of the Caribbean movies – the first soundtrack was awesome, but with all the BAH BAH BAH BAH BAH of the horns, some tracks seemed to blend together and overshadow some of the subtler tracks, like “Fog Bound” or “Underwater March.” “Barbossa is Hungry” is my favorite of the bombastic tracks because it’s just bursting with swag personality). The clips from Man of Steel give me hope though, because they sound like the score from Gladiator meets Pirates of the Caribbean meets Star Trek-ish space music. Critics and fans have been bashing on this film ever since it was announced, but I want so much for it to be the Superman version of Batman Begins. (But then again, Snyder recently gave us Sucker Punch, so…) There’s an ethereal/Western start to the soundtrack, which is cool.
Though, okay, the original reason behind this post was the second track, titled “Oil Rig.” The sample (starting at :30) is nothing special if you factor in complexity; it’s just a constant banging of drums. But humor me for a second and listen carefully to those drums. Doesn’t it sound like those drums are oil barrels? And what is the track’s title? Uh huh. Genius.
I’ve also seen people complaining online about how the music sounds nothing like the original Superman theme. This is what I have to say to those people: Seriously? First of all, the Superman theme was composed by (the amazing) John Williams. If Zimmer borrowed from that score, it would just be lazy composing. He may not have wanted to do that in the first place, because I don’t know if composers have a sacred “Do not pilfer thy colleagues’ work” oath or not, but you just don’t do that unless it’s sanctioned inside a franchise (like other composers scoring Harry Potter movies #4-7, or James Horner scoring Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan after Jerry Goldsmith scored the first film). Second, it would be like expecting the “Na na na na na na na na…BATMAN!” theme in Nolan’s Batman films. (Although, I would have laughed if Zimmer had put that in somewhere!)
As with all Hans Zimmer soundtracks, I look forward to this one with great anticipation. Expect a second post once the full soundtrack is out and I’ve seen the movie. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some Pirates music to revisit. “Yo ho, haul together, hoist the colors high. Heave ho, thieves and beggars, never shall we die!“
Concerning Soundtracks 