| Back to the Future Part III |
| Composed by Alan Silvestri |
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Orchestrated by James B. Campbell Conducted by Alan Silvestri Produced by Alan Silvestri and Robert Townson Release Date: 1990 |
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With the third entry into the Back to the Future series, it seems that there was a desire to get away from all the dark business in the last film and deliver a fun romp that would end the story arc in a satisfactory way. The third time being the charm, this film primarily takes place in the Wild West era of American history, at the time of Hill Valley's founding. While probably the weakest of the three, it still serves to entertain and it ended the overall story in a way that worked quite well. For the final go-round, Silvestri also adapted his music into a style that still fit the the last two films, but that would evolve to take advantage of the new setting. The Western style that Silvestri adopts seems to be more in keeping with the traditional scores from more classic film eras, though with hints of Morricone and other more modern composers tossed in for good measure. In addition, he also dropped the heavy usage of the main theme and incorporated three new themes to add a little variety to the music. The result is a score that sounds more original and works better than the score to Back to the Future Part II. Though at the same time, it still doesn't approach the fun factor that Silvestri achieved with the music from the first film. The first of the new themes appears within the opening track, as Silvestri decides to launch into it as opposed to the typical performance of the main theme as he did with the previous two scores. This new theme is quieter and more reflective of characterization than the heroic brass fanfares of the main theme. It's light-hearted tone gives a nice coloring to the overall tone that Silvestri is shooting for with the score. The second major theme is for Doc's love interest, Clara. It pops up immediately following the opening cue, though it's presence does not appear so quickly in the actual score. While the previous two score releases followed a pattern of arranging the cues in chronological order, this release makes no such pretense. While the arrangement works well as far as a listening experience goes, I find it quite irritating that the tracks do not follow the film's ordering. The middle section of the score, like the previous one, tends to bog itself down in the middle, though at least those moments here are comprised of quieter, more romantic cues (since romance plays a big role in the last film). It's not that these moments are bad by any means, but they do sound a bit out of place in a Back to the Future score. Do take note in that by middle section, I am talking about the score as it evolves in the film, not on the CD. The altered track arrangement takes care of that problem more or less.. Where the score really gets hot is in the train sequence. Silvestri masterfully takes this sequence as a method of culminating all of the major themes from the series, including the endlessly repeating strings from the Tunnel Chase cue of Back to the Future Part II, which works much better in this instance. It's too bad that all three parts to the sequence are not arranged in order, but it's nothing that a simply track-list programming on any typical CD player can't accomplish. The next-to-last track includes source music composed by ZZ Top, but lest one begin to worry, it's actually an acoustic version which was arranged by Silvestri and is quite interesting (and it is in the film after all). After faltering a bit with the second film, Silvestri manages to recapture some of the spirit that made the first score such a classic. Given the wider range of material here, this is the best Back to the Future score to get if you have to pick just one. ***1/2 |
| Track Listing - Total Running Time: 44:52 | |
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