If you're as far up the ass of Daft Punk as I am, then you're bound to think that their deep innards lead to some kind of kaleidoscopic dance floor heaven, populated by glamorous blue-skinned groovers. Being the divine French robots that they are, I felt that Guy-Manuel and Thomas could do no wrong. Their luminous dance music has had such a dynamic, satisfying and (most importantly) -fun- flair to it over the years, you never wanted to see it end. Unfortunately, it did. It turns out they are "human after all" to very much intend an awful, awful pun. The proof? Their score for Tron: Legacy.
Being an original film score, you already have a primer for visualization and emotion. At least, you think you would. While the score certainly does evoke a sinister science fiction universe, it doesn't bother to fill in the crucial details. "The Game Has Changed" is a perfect example of this. You can't really decide if you're in the world of Tron or of Inception (or The Dark Knight) until the excruciatingly curtailed synth chords plod in, almost an after-thought to the generic tornado of strings and foghorn brass. It's not as if the orchestral arrangements are just plain awful, but they are so painfully similar to half the blockbuster films that have come out in the last two years. At this point, there's a voice in your head and it begins repeating over and over, "so, basically they could have hired Bob the composer for 3/4 of this soundtrack, then left two songs to Daft Punk."
Sure, "Derezzed" and "End of the Line" offer Daft Punk swimming back to the thumping shores of analog funk, but honestly, it almost feels like an insult to see them included. After all, this is not the next Daft Punk album, it is a film score written by Daft Punk. So why even tease us? The real question is: were their musical sensibilities so incompatible with scoring a film that the duo couldn't find more of a distinctive or intriguing compromise? Generic scores are a cancerous growth on the ass of cinema - why not try pushing some boundaries? We know you have the talent for it, Daft Punk, we know you do. Instead, we just lose you, then find you, only to lose you all over again.
As it stands, Tron: Legacy is a mediocre film score created by an orchestra that just happened to feature two automatons with keyboards.
I wonder how much of the score was purely their creative choice and how much was the director saying, "I'd like something like this or more like that." I haven't seen it yet, but I've listened to enough of the soundtrack to get an idea of what you mean.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking that, too. Maybe there was a needling Disney executive looking over their shoulder the whole time. It does....kind of sound like it.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we'll know someday.
ReplyDeleteTrue. Today I noticed Thomas Bangalter also does the soundtracks for Gaspar Noe's movies "Enter the Void" and "Irreversible". I'm kind of wondering if he, by himself, fared better in the indie/art house realm.
ReplyDelete