I thought maybe you guys could help me out. I am right now watching MISSION TO MARS. The movie is... okay. But the score is really great. Now, I once had the cd, and didn´t get quite warm with it, because it was fairly poor edited. I just ordered it again, to give it another try, because the epic stuff is really great.

So, what are your thoughts on Morricone´s take on 2001 eehh, Mission to Mars?

Best to you

Found it somewhat inappropriate during some scenes. Though I loved the suspense created by the organ track.

The only thing that slightly irritates me (besides the organ) is the recording. Dan Wallin's recording is, well, a Dan Wallin recording. His approach works fine most of the time, but this score is just itching for more players and a less close-miked sound.

Great music. Lame film. Pick up the disc.

Oh, and make sure to listen using André's film sequence for this CD. I think the music makes much more sense this way.

The point is, this was a great score, quite easily in the top five of 2000. Absolutely magnificent. The film... well, I actually liked it when I first saw, but have liked it less an less with each successive viewing. I guess that means I should stop watching it. :P I still play the CD quite often, though.

And for the record, I love that organ cue.

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Originally posted by TimT:
The Organ is one of my least favorite instruments

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Originally posted by TimT: And I admire some aspects about it, but The only real think I didn't like was the Organ.
The Organ is one of my least favorite instruments, and he used it in the most uncomfortable way. And no I didn't think it even worked in the movie. Other than that and some long drawn out filler music such as the end title (Track 1). I like it.

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Some people fussed about this score simply because of the organ. I didn't really like the organ piece either, but I think it's a bit idiotic to judge a score simply by one cue. (Not that you were doing this.)

I don't really see the end titles music as long drawn-out filler music. Morricone takes his time developing his music, and that cue is very well structured. I admire that approach. In Morricone's 2001 score to Padre Pio, he delicately develops one theme slowly over 9 minutes, adding instruments at just the right time, and it's great.

And, like the first time I heard it, I'm baffled that the score ever caused so much controvery; how it was declared by a number of people as one of the worst scores of the year, well, it's just beyond me.

On the other hand, I don't consider this a great score. It's unconventional and far more subdued than most sci-fi scores of its type, yes, and in that area it gets points; it's so refreshing to hear a score in this genre that doesn't sound like everything else.

The brighter parts of the score are the thematic bits, naturally. "A Heart Beats in Space", "A Martian", and "Sacrifice of a Hero" are all splendid, the latter being my favorite. Just pure Morricone magic that can't be beat.

At the same time, the score does tend to drag a bit at over an hour, and doesn't really bring enough diversity with it to warrant that long running time. It's hugely repetative (though because the theme's so wonderful I'll hardly complain), and the 10 minutes of harsh, organ cues are pretty unbearable to these ears.

"Brian DePalma's MISSION TO MARS got a bit of a critical roasting, and even some fans have indicated that Morricone's score must shoulder at least some of the blame. I'm still in two minds about that, but it's a fair point that, in films when the most gloriously exuberant music accompanies a cornily written scene, the results can be dangerously close to parody.

Away from the film though, much of the score is a real treat, while still being a bit of a mixed bag as a whole. The melodic material is truly wondrous, the composer's familiar shifting bed of strings serving as underlay for some stupendous orchestral themes, filled out with beautiful touches from harp, synth and trumpet. The trumpet work even recalls some of the more patriotic moments from 50s and 60s SF like DESTINATION MOON and ROBINSON CRUSUE ON MARS. You can bet your life that this wasn't intentional. Backing up the sound on many tracks is an unearthly choir which, when combined with the the emotionally climactic moments on strings, is reminiscent of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS. No betting of lives on whether THAT was unintentional, though again it probably was (unintentional, that is). That said, Morricone is always Morricone: he has one of the most distinctive sounds in the history of film music, and nobody could ever mistake him for John Williams (or Leith Stevens, or Van Cleave...).

His mysterious material is also completely distinctive in everything he does, and this is where for me MISSION TO MARS falls flat. Here there is some effectively eerie stuff: throbbing electronic pulses, cosmic wafting sounds, half-note meanderings which go up...then come down again, brass stabs which punctuate the wall of sound at irregular intervals, etc, etc. But although one may think "Hmm, how interesting" at first, these passages seem to go on forever. And it's not easy to skip these tracks because if you do you often miss out on some of the best stuff. For example track 4 "And Afterwards" opens beautifully, but at the one minute mark it turns to doom and gloom - for the next five and a half minutes. This is obviously totally subjective, but I can think of a dozen other composers whose spooky music is more satisfying than Morricone's.

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Originally posted by Graham Watt:
"Also, the sequencing seems to be all wrong, and is certainly different from the order of music in the film."

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Yes, like in all other Morricone's albums...

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Originally posted by odinatheforestcat:
You know... this soundtrack is the reason why I'm now so into film scoring. And as weird as it may sound, it is the organ cue (track 6) that caught my attention. I love that cue. I love it. What's wrong with using an organ to symbolize outer space? I think that it worked wonderfully.

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I have to say, I thought the film was imaginative, ambitious and largely successful as well. I guess most people were expecting some sort of shoot-em-up. Two things strike me as ironic about Mission to Mars - one, that the same people who moan and groan about modern action blockbusters lacking a brain criticise this one for that very reason; two, that the same people who moan and groan about scores all sounding the same and lacking imagination criticise this one for not sounding like they would expect it to. That's one of the things that makes it so good: Morricone was able to bring an approach to this movie that no other composer would have done, and write a score that genuinely sounded nothing like people had presumed it would - but one that still works. How many other recent scores are like that?

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Originally posted by Southall:
Still, I'm sure the army of detractors will be out before too long.

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That being said...the organ music is still horrible. It does not fit the scene, the context, and just does not sound good to boot. Ackk....it ruins perhaps the most intense scene of the film for me.

Just brutal stuff.

But I never think about the film when I listen to a film's score. With "Mars," I always just put it in and play the first four or five cues over and over for an hour or so...I really love that main theme, just incredible and moving. As I said, one of my top ten favorite cues of any score I've ever heard is track 2 on the album.

With that said, outside of the first third or fourth of the album, I can't say the rest appeals to me so much. I ADORE the organ (my favorite Goldsmith score is Seconds, my favorite score of all time is Herrmann's Obsession) but Morricone's organ music here seems really campy and cartoonish, as opposed to being gothic and surreal/ethereal (which I'm sure almost everybody would've preferred).

It's a must buy for the cues that use his main theme, but the sequencing is very curious as I don't know why the gorgeous main theme dominates the first third or fourth of the album, then never re-appears again. Is that how Morricone wanted the album? Perhaps the rest of the score would be better if it were properly arranged, and some thematic development was established in the work? However, just spending a while with the cues that include the main theme is always a rewarding and often beautiful listening experience for me.

Dylan

Now things that suck ass and shouldn't be allowed in scores:

Singing words. It's okay if they are in another language, but when I hear "Waaalll-maaartt" and "Roooboocop" I want to break the disc in half.

The harmonica. It is rarely used effectively. Horner is the only one I know to use is right.

Electric guitars. Agh!!!!! It ruined Small Soldiers!

Just listen to "Rest Stop" from John Ottman's Halloween H20 (aka Portrait of Terror) and tell me it's not one of the freakiest things you've ever heard.

And I agree that electric guitars are mostly severely misused when the pop up in film scores, but they can be effective if they're used in a proper, non-cheesey context. Think of Bernard Herrmann's subtle use of the electric guitar in The Day the Earth Stood Still. There's also John Zorn's wonderful employment of the instrument in Invitation to a Suicide. Michael Nyman's rejected score to Practical Magic had some fantastic guitar parts as well.

As for sound effects, again, it's all about context. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, John Williams makes fabulous use of the ticking of a clock in one of the tracks.

And Dylan's right, take a listen to Herrmann's "Night Digger" for an astonishing use of the harmonica. And let's not also forget Goldsmith's sensitive use of it in A Patch of Blue.

Kirk