It’s hard to review a film’s score when the film itself is yet to be released. With only still images and leaked footage to be used as reference, the lack of context is a tough bit to chew. Ridley Scott’s Prometheus is still about three weeks away, but the anticipation for this thing is close to making the kettle burst. It’s THE film of the summer for me. After finally seeing the full trailer in 3D when I caught The Avengers last week, I’m convinced the movie is going to be visually spectacular, and I’m holding out hope that the story will be equally impressive.
So setting aside all analytical talk of trailers, TV spots, cast interviews and promotional pieces (such as the Peter Weyland speech and the creepy as hell “David” commercial), it’s time to focus on the film’s score, released just this week on iTunes and composed by frequent Scott collaborator Marc Streitenfeld. The Prometheus soundtrack has no discernible replaying theme to speak of, but I still found quite a bit to appreciate in it. The score often feels like an homage to the music from the other four films in the series, and at various points while listening, I would find myself remembering cues from the other films. There’s one obvious cue in the track “Friend from the Past” that Jerry Goldsmith fans will gladly eat up. It pretty much torpedoes Scott’s claims that Prometheus relates to Alien only in passing.
Some of the busier, frantic-sounding tracks remind me quite a bit of John Frizzell’s work on Alien Resurrection, but, strangely enough, I feel that Streitenfeld’s score has the most in common with Elliot Goldenthal’s fantastic Alien 3 score — just without the boy sopranos and the uncontrolled, industrial wildness it reaches at certain points. Goldenthal’s score is my favorite of the bunch, and I think Streitenfeld was affected by that score somewhat as well. The similarities are there. They’re just sometimes very subtle.
From what we think we know of Prometheus‘s story at this point, the score seems to follow all of those beats. There’s that sense of wonder at the beginning — music that sounds like something you’d hear on one of those BBC miniseries like Planet Earth or Life. Very fitting stuff for the promise of discovery of sentient life on other worlds. As the tracks progress, it starts blending into moody, exploration-type music, getting to the spooky stuff fairly soon. It’s not a spoiler to say that things will go to shit for the characters in Prometheus when whatever horrors Scott has concocted finally emerge, and the score reflects that in tracks like “Hammerpede” (that name alone gives me the creeps) and “Infected.”
My only complaint with this work isn’t even with the music itself; it’s that the track titles assigned could be considered a bit spoilery. Still, with all that’s been shown so far, I think the film’s course of events have been mostly telegraphed already. If you’ve been following the pre-release coverage of the film closely, it’s probably not that big a deal.
I’ve listened to this soundtrack three times already, and it’s clear that it stands very well on its own while at the same time complementing the images of the film that I’ve seen thus far. There’s an obvious respect here for the other scores of the Alien series, and that level of acknowledgment helps to reserve the Prometheus score a well deserved spot among those other established works.
My favorite of the “bunch” is by far James Horner’s Aliens. For me, none of the others come close (even though Horner told me personally that he really hated his own score for Aliens due to being rushed into producing it in only 2 weeks. Of course, he also said he hated James Cameron for it and would never work with him again after that, and look how that actually turned out). I haven’t heard Prometheus yet though based on what I’ve been reading, I’m thinking Aliens will still be no.1 for me. Nonetheless, Prometheus’ CD will sit on my shelf 😀
Don’t know if you’ve ever seen the featurette on the Alien Quadrilogy set or the Alien Anthology set with James Horner talking about all that stuff but if you haven’t, it’s a great piece. The “Aliens” score is a very close second in my book. The track “Futile Escape” is not just an amazing track, it’s one of the best cues in any film, period. You just can’t help but feel the urge to charge forward when you hear that. “Alien 3” is my favorite however, simply because it’s just flat out beautiful in such a different and unexpected way. The “Prometheus” score fits in perfectly with the rest of them but don’t go in expecting the bravura of “Aliens” and I think you’ll appreciate it like I have.
Lack of any themes is really bothersome to me. Whilst its very well orchestrated I wish he had come up with a few good motifs to carry thru..too bad.
There are good little motifs in Prometheus but the score seems to work very similarly to the others, in that there are these little themes that do repeat but nothing that takes charge as a main theme or that carries through from one film to the next. There isn’t one single cue that repeats throughout the entire series, unless I just happened to miss it. Or if you’re counting low rumbling.
A DIFFERENT SPOOKY CREAPY and WEIRD VISIOUS TONE TO IT.
Being a Movie score Fan since 1977, I just listen to the Prometheus score and it is interesting listenning, very diferent from what we heard of in the Alien universe. Of course it is not Jerry Goldsmith music, ( who can think of someone that can replace the Meastro) but still is very ambiant and atmospheric space-feeling from Marc Streitenfeld. I am very optimistic that this score will become a classic too, but from this era. I cant compare to great score in film music we had in the 50’s trough mid 90’s. I kind of feel sorry for movie music magic now days. Sorry but there is no Theme anymore. For this particular score you can feel a different spooky, creapy and weird visious tone to it. Just like Goldsmith, but different. Yess there are too many layers to it and it does not deliver the great Neverending TERROR of Jerry’s wind section instruments. Maybe the film does not need it. My favorite cue was Friend from the Past, but still is very spoily
( WHAT? Is that a new Weyland team sent right after the Nostromo crew? Is that LV426 planet? Is that a second Derelic Ship? My favorite track is probably Debris, very short, but still something that can be taken out right from Goldsmith’s imaginary mind. I like NOT HUMAN, TOO CLOSE and HAMMERPEDE and PLANTING THE SEEDS. I have to relisten the score and can not wait for the premiere of PROMETHEUS. AS A KID IN ’79, I could not see the Alien fillm because of my young age, now I can 🙂
Probably the most eagerly film of 2012 maybe in a decade.