Bill Wrobel's DVD - Film Score Rundowns

“flaw” for some people is the “music” or electronic tonalities. I discussed it long ago in
an Amazon.com review of James Wierzbicki's Film Score Guide No. 4 book:
http://www.amazon.com/Louis-Bebe-Barrons-Forbidden-Planet/productreviews/0810856700
Personally I truly appreciate the creative efforts of the Barrons. What a unique
“score”! Considering that this movie is not earth-based (unlike most of This Island Earth,
say) it would seem quite appropriate to have such an interesting electronic score. Even
the detractors of this score would probably agree that the electronic tonalities are truly
appropriate or “fitting” at dvd location 00:51:35 when Morbius inserts a capsule
recording of Krell music from half a million years ago for the Captain and Doc to hear.
The Main Title music is a fine patchwork of the various themes of the total score,
including the Robby the Robot theme. The very opening is synched very well with the
images on the screen. The yellow streamers leading to the “Forbidden Planet” title in red
are heard as a sort of crescendo low-pitched drone starting at 00:0014 leading a few
seconds later to the “Forbidden Planet” show card music of a rather alarming nature (after
all, it is a forbidden planet!). Previously for several seconds there was an establishing
shot of the starry vista with the starship cruiser appearing, so the music is rather neutrally
“spacey” in character but interesting to hear nonetheless. I like more the opening similar
star field scene in This Island Earth—far more bright and vibrant and alive! The Main
Title patchwork approach starts well but then gets rather awkward as it proceeds, so I
would not consider this “cue” one of the best.
The de-acceleration music starting at dvd 00:02:58 is “fitting” I suppose but it
tends to be not very pleasurable to hear. Why the cook (Earl Holliman) always has to
wear that silly cap and cook’s apron, I don’t know. There are many minor silliness
examples in this movie that can add up into one major flaw for some people. I understand
that. One includes Robby “gulping” down Cookie’s cheap bourbon. Then (dvd 00:33:12)
the robot burps as it analyzes the alcohol! That’s a groaner, purely meant for the kids—
not the sophisticated ones at that! Anyway, the close-to-Krell-Sun music section (dvd
00:04:27) with it’s rather heart-thumping nature is nice. It works for me. The Barrons had
a rather uncanny sense of what would “work” with a specific scene in most or at least
many cases. The orbit approach music (dvd 00:06:25) is also fitting to me. The slow
landing music (dvd 00:10:24) works as well, almost a sort of mechanical, grinding gearshifting
quality to the tonalities selected. It’s not necessarily pleasant to hear but it fits for
me. Robby fastly-approaching-music or dust-trail approach music (dvd 00:12:02) has a
hectic quality about it, so it again fits considering that Robby is flying like a bat out of the
Krell inner earth structure! The Robby theme is rather breezy and bouncy and fun. The Id
Monster motif is rather fitting with its slow plodding “walk” character. I liked the “love”
music 47 minutes into the movie when the Captain and Altaira
I just love the art direction, matte paintings, and especially Joshua Meador’s
visual color effects. He was loaned from Walt Disney to do the animation effects (blaster
shots, the Id Monster, etc) and he did a superb, memorable job. His work on the Id
Monster sequence is enthralling and quite atmospheric in that reddish night battle scene.
His creature is excellent, sort of a distorted MGM lion monster! I wonder if he had that in
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