Intrada Soundtrack Forum

Maybe it's just that 70's and 80's movies were more experimental and audacious and were calling for a distinct score with special techniques and strange sounds. In the 90's movies were really becoming more realistic, with the advent of digital sound and imagery, and were calling for a simpler and clearer musical approach. All the composers had to evolve in the 90's. Silvestri kinda let down his synths and adopted a more dramatic and/or a broader symphonic style, John Williams adopted a more classical style, more dramatic as well. Danny Elfman and his 80's quirk sound (Beetlejuice) had to compose such cleaner scores as Black Beauty, Sommersby and Mission Impossible, etc.

Total Recall perfectly embodies that change. The score still has some of the original sounds Goldsmith loved to experiment in the 80's and presents a new lush orchestral sound that announces the realistic 90's.

Elliott Goldenthal completely embraced this new crave for realistic films/music like with Alien 3, which was much more classically dramatic than the two previous ones.

Jerry Goldsmith had never been so experienced than in the 90's. Maybe you're assuming that the lassitude won him over and that the last years of his life/career have been the weaker ones. That would be extremely sad and I don't agree at all. He had gained such experience and knowledge until the 90's. He had climbed all the ladders of success and he was on the top of Hollywood. Every major score he composed in those last years was proving that he had become one of the most accomplished film music composer in the world.