James Horner has to be one of the most
controversial composers working today. Indeed, to many people the terms Horner and rip-off
are synonymous. I have missed most of the first-person experience of listening to a Horner
score and going, "Hey, that sounds like..." mostly because I have so little of
his work. I skipped Titanic, haven’t located
Krull,
and loathed Deep Impact (which really doesn’t sound
like anything). Apollo 13 was a Horner score that I was very interested in,
but I steered clear of it once I found out there was dialogue in the music tracks, and
that almost half the CD contained pop songs. Thanks to those wonderful people at Universal
who mastered the Apollo 13 DVD (a really great disc overall), I was able to burn a
copy of Horner’s score without dialogue or extraneous tracks on CD.
Apollo 13 is the first Horner score where I encountered the
always lamented self rip-offs. But did that detract from my enjoyment of the music? Not
really. I even enjoyed the "tense" music which is almost directly taken from Genesis
Countdown of the Star Trek II score, mainly because
it’s actually pretty appropriate if you think about it. This score has a lot of great
moments, most notably the lift-off sequence and the music for the astronaut’s trip
through the Earth’s atmosphere at the end. In fact, the lift-off music took me by
surprise. I was expecting something wild and boisterous, but instead Horner gives us a
grand, inspiring piece. The use of a wordless female choir as the Apollo 13 reaches
space is also a great touch. The music underscoring the spacecraft’s flyby over the
moon is foreboding and mysterious and has a hint of sadness touching on the feelings of
the astronauts as they contemplate a lost chance to set foot on some truly foreign soil.
Another great moment is the return to Earth sequence. A trumpet fanfare, along with those
female vocals again, makes an appearance as the ship enters the Earth’s atmosphere,
which turns darker as contact is lost with the astronauts. The music builds on the tension
of the moment by turning into a sad refrain which goes on for a while and then bursts out
of it’s melancholy spirit with an exuberant playing of the main theme. This makes for
an excellent moment in the score, probably second best next to the launch music.
Overall, I was very impressed with this score. Horner does rip himself
off in places, but that didn’t really bother me. A score-only CD is a trifle
difficult to come by, but it is well worth searching for if you really hate dialogue over
the music. Of course, if you’re one of the fortunate that has a DVD player, you can
always get the disc, which is what I recommend. *****
