Intrada Soundtrack Forum

Although it is rarely disputed that Jerry Goldsmith's score for Total Recall works well within the medium for which it was intended, for years it has been quite a divisive score when it comes to listening to it as an album. This poll is your chance to voice your opinion.

IMO I find the score exciting, Jerry sure had a great run in the 90's.

WHERE'S YAVAR!?

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I-love-Goldsmith, yes-I-do...
I-love-Ber-nard-Herr-mann-too! EVERYBODY SING!!!

I don't remember being bored by the original Varèse Sarabande CD. The one thing I didn't like about the cover art is SCHWARZNEGGER sprawled loudly across the top like a banner with Jerry Goldsmith's name in much smaller print under the title, have always thought the name GOLDSMITH should have been there instead.

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"I used to worry about losing my mind. Now that I've lost it I don't worry about it anymore." -Wavy Gravy

Goldsmith remains my favorite composer, but I've never shared either his own enthusiasm for this score or that of so many other fans. However, I still feel the cue "The Mutant" is one of his career peaks. (More than once I have played that showcase cue to demonstrate for non-soundtrack friends why I loved that man's talent.)

It's been a while now, but when I pull that disc off the shelf I'm likely to listen just to "The Mutant" -- maybe two or three times in a row! Perhaps it's time again.

I honestly find the expanded edition of this score more exciting than the original. In fact, I think Goldsmith selected some of the less interesting cues for the original album, like "The Big Jump" and "Where Am I" (in lieu of far-more interesting cues like "The Mountain" or "Remembering").

A friend of mine was present in the studio in London when Goldsmith was assembling the original 1990 CD -- and was devastated to witness Goldsmith completely gutting the score, rejecting cue after cue as being "noisy", and whittling down the presentation to 40 minutes (when a CD could have held twice that).

How can anyone say Goldsmith was less inspired in a decade where he composed such gems as Basic Instinct (his best thriller), Total Recall (his best SF action score), Forever Young (his best romantic score), Bad Girls (his best western), First Knight (his best medieval score), Powder (his most owerwhelming theme), Mulan (his only Disney animation score), Small Soldiers (the Gremlins from the 90's), The Mummy (his best adventure score),... ?

Well I accidentally left off a key word by mistake...I meant to say "less often inspired" which makes more sense with the context of what I wrote, in which I was actually standing up for Goldsmith's post-Total Recall work.

That said, I would assume the answer to your question is: someone could say that because they don't agree with your assessment(s).

I personally love Bad Girls and stand up for it a lot when people trash it, but I'm mystified that someone would consider it his best western ever when he wrote so many great ones. It *might* just make my top 10 Goldsmith westerns. But the straightforward renditions of the theme on dated synth keyboards definitely drag the score down for me, despite all of the awesome stuff in it. And even at its best I wouldn't say it holds a candle to 100 Rifles, and that's not even Jerry's best western score in my view...that would be Lonely Are the Brave. Bad Girls isn't even remotely in the same stratosphere as that.

I would assume many folks would disagree that The Mummy is Jerry's best adventures score, while The Wind and the Lion is around (and The Great Train Robbery also has adoring fans). I might prefer The Mummy as long as we leave out about 25 minutes of rather samey horror/suspense scoring from the playlist.

Personally, Jerry's Verhoeven collaborations leave me rather cold...I can admire them technically rather than enjoying them emotionally.

I love Small Soldiers but I'll take The 'Burbs any day...and I love First Knight but if I had to choose it'd be Lionheart for "best medieval score" *any day*.

But wouldn't it just be boring if we had all the same opinions?

Yavar

We agree to disagree !
My best western score of his in the 70's is Wild Rovers, but Bad Girls beat it in every aspect, in my opinion. I truly love Bad Girls !
The Burbs is a very different thing compared to Small Soldiers. It cannot compete against all the action-adventure stuff in Small Soldiers.
Lionheart has a nice 80's feeling, but First Knight is more massive and classical. His theme for Lancelot is just awesome and the choral moments are the most liturgic thing he ever composed. Definitely his Carmina Burana.
I know the love for The Wind the Lion, but The Mummy has richer sounds and tone in my opinion.