Today I listened to the new soundtrack by John Williams to the forth coming Steven Spielberg sci-fi summer blockbuster
War Of The Worlds. At first I really did not know what to expect and was suprised to hear that both the begining and ending of the film will include narration from Morgan Freeman . . . . .
"No one would have believed that in the early years of the 21st century, that our world was being watched by intelligancies greater than our own. That as men busied themselves about there various concerns, they were observed and studied the way a man with a microscope might scrutinize the creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinate complacency, men went to and from about the globe, confident of our empire over this world. Yet across the gulf space, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded our planet with envious eye's, and slowly and surely they drew their plans against us" . . .
. . .and his closing narration of the doomed invaders . . .
"From the moment the invaders arrived, breathed our air, ate and drank, they were doomed. They were undone, destroyed after all of mans weapons and devices had failed by the tiniest creatures that God in his wisdom put upon this Earth. By the toll of a billion deaths, man had earned his emunity, his right to survive amoung this planets infinate orginismns. And that right is our's against all challenges, for neither do men live or die in vain."
Maybe I have been listening to Jeff Wayne's album too long, but Freeman just has not got the same impact as Richard Burton, though his performance is good, I did find it to have less impact than Burtons haunting narration from 1978.
The music score from John Williams has all the trade marks of Williams decades of musical expertise, but sadly lacks impact of recent films such as
Jaws,
Indiana Jones,
Jurrasic Park. Too many of the tracks sound the same, with minor fluctuations and changes through out in style, but nothing that would have a lasting impression on the listener. The score is haunting and will fit superbly into the film, but its does not have quality and backbone of a soundtrack to be played on its own. I found it to have far too many thunderous dins of musical notes, basses, strings, horns and drums clash together, a musical performance of a thunder storm with no actual rythem that you could associate as a defining score but which seemed to remind me of his early years of scoring to such disaster films such as
The Poseidon Adventure. The score to the intersection scene does have a set of familiar notes in the same style as
Jaws. Calamity, the impact of a world being destroyed by alien invaders are heard during the chaotic score of a disaster film based melody. This is certainly not one of John Williams best scores, and personally I think he could have done better, but it is worth the listen.
* Contains narration from Morgan Freeman.
1. PROLOGUE*
2. ESCAPE FROM THE CITY
3. REACHING THE COUNTRY
4. THE INTERSECTION SCENE
5. RAY AND RACHEL
6. THE FERRY SCENE
7. PROBING THE BASEMENT
8. REFUGEE STATUS
9. THE ATTACK ON THE CAR
10. THE SEPARATION OF THE FAMILY
11. THE CONFRONTATION WITH OGILVY
12. THE RETURN TO BOSTON
13. ESCAPE FROM THE BASKET
14. THE REUNION
15. EPILOGUE*