Bill Wrobel's DVD - Film Score Rundowns

-Starship Troopers (1997) ** 1/2 [music ***]
http://www.amazon.com/Starship-Troopers-Special-Casper-
Dien/dp/B0000648WZ/ref=sr_1_8?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1293597461&sr=1-8
[reviewed Sunday, May 29, 2011]
This movie certainly has better production values and clarity and visual style than
the sequel, Starship Troopers 2. Nevertheless it still has too many Verhoeven ugly
qualities about it, goriness, shallowness. I cannot say I “like” the movie of course but I
can appreciate the effects, and I appreciate the music by Basil Poledouris (although I am
not a fan). He died in 2006, in case the reader did not know. Bearing the limited nature of
this film, his score is decidedly overt (and martial). The best cue starts I believe at dvd
00:34:21 when Carmen pilots the “boat” cruiser, and before that from 00:29:29 when she
first goes to the cruiser via the shuttle. There are elements of Horner there, some
Goldsmith.
Poledouris did indeed provide a commentary on the isolated music score option.
IT is informative but I preferred Goldenthal’s deeper focus on the Final Fantasy isolated
score commentary (see below). Poledouris is a competent, good composer but I feel that
Goldenthal is “better” with far more depth and nuances and intelligent judgments in his
choice of approach—but this certainly does not mean that I appreciate everything
Goldenthal has done! Far from it. While I pretty much like consistently what Herrmann
has done, it is more hit & miss with Goldenthal (more misses than hits, unfortunately, but
still quite interesting). With Poledouris I am just not crazy about his music. I would’ve
been interested in a Goldsmith score here. Goldsmith was a higher drawer composer than
Poledouris, but even with Goldsmith, he made some strange choices in his approach as
well. But at least I was overall largely enthusiastic about his works (gems include Star
Trek:TMP, Final Conflict, The Shadow, and many others). The absolute top-drawer
composers were Bernard Herrmann, Max Steiner, Miklos Rozsa, Korngold (top of
pyramid, very few numbers in this rank), maybe Tiomkin, and then (more numbers in
each succeeding drawer) closely followed in the second-drawer by Alfred Newman,
Goldsmith, John Williams, Elmer Bernstein, Waxman, and so on. Certain scores of the
latter group intermingled in great quality with the top-drawer composers. Third-drawer
composers would include Goldenthal (sometimes second-drawer quality scores),
Humphrey Searle, B. Kaper, Mancini, Jerome Moross, Leith Stevens, Alex North, John
Barry, etc. Horner started off third-drawer and is ending up 4 th drawer. Rosenman is a
mix of 3 rd and 4 th drawer. So is Frank Skinner. Contemporary composers like Poledouris,
Howard, Broughton, Stromberg, Morgan, Giacchino, Shore, Chris Young, David Arnold,
Elfman, and many others are very good composers, well-crafted and trained (for the most
part!) would perhaps be part of the fourth-drawer status. Some have proven themselves
more than others, less so for those unfortunately involved with terrible films! Older
generation composers in this drawer would be Raksin (he’s proven himself more than
many of the contemporaries), same for Friedhofer, same for Malcolm Arnold (with thirddrawer
or occasionally even second-drawer specific scores), Fred Steiner (unfortunately
he did very little for motion pictures), Gilbert, Ronald Stein, etc. Jarre is a mix of 4 th and
5 th drawer ranking.
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