Outlandish

My recent acquisition of The Ron Jones Project has led me into a dangerously expensive area. I've always been a film score junkie. But now, from finding that box set, I've learned of several web sites that put together limited print runs of more obscure soundtracks. And far too many of them have been "must purchase"s for me.

One recent example was a 2-disc set of the full original score Jerry Goldsmith wrote for the film Outland. This was an early 80s sci-fi film that was essentially a futuristic remake of the western High Noon, starring Sean Connery. (In fact, locating the soundtrack sparked my interest in seeing the movie again, which I hadn't viewed in... I might have to say decades. Plural. Yikes. But I'll discuss the movie itself in another, later post.)

Jerry Goldsmith is quite possibly my favorite composer to ever work on films. He's not as widely known as say John Williams, nor did he create quite as many hummable and memorable melodies. He didn't even receive as many awards or accolades, winning only one Oscar in a career spanning forty years. But the man was truly gifted.

If you're reading my blog, then the work of his you'll probably know best is his theme for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, later appropriated as the theme for Star Trek: The Next Generation. (He also did the theme for Star Trek: Voyager.) But he also contributed the awesome "Satanic liturgical" music for The Omen, wrote sultry and insinuating scores for Malice and Basic Instinct, was the best part of L.A. Confidential, and much, much more.

His score for Outland came just a couple years after his amazing score for Alien, which is undoubtedly the main reason he was sought for this film. But the score here is not a mere copy of Alien, nor simply a precursor for Total Recall, which he'd do several years later. (Though you can detect the "common ancestry" in all three works.)

Goldsmith's Outland score has moments of creeping suspense, sequences of pulse-pounding action, and even a piece of tender sweetness (though this last was cut from the finished film, to be restored only here on the all-inclusive version of the soundtrack). It may not be his career best, but you get a very broad sampling of material very much like his career best. I've been listening to the soundtrack quite a lot since picking it up, and will continue to do so for some time.

The music is way better than the movie from which it comes.