This is another entry in my Complete Score Breakdown Series, focusing on the complete scores to films that have had abbreviated previous releases or have gone unreleased.
Today we are looking at The Bourne Legacy (2012) by James Newton Howard.
John Powell’s Bourne Trilogy of scores remain some of my favorite film scores of all time, and certainly some of my top action scores. They are quite brilliant and nearly perfect in their execution. While I was disappointed he didn’t return for 2012’s The Bourne Legacy, I was not disappointed in his replacement, as James Newton Howard is one of my favorite composers and I most always love his action output. While it was not up to the standards and heights of status achieved by Powell, it was a very good contemporary action-thriller piece and worked well as a younger brother of the Powell scores. I don’t think it was Howard’s finest hour in the the genre, but it served the film wonderfully and for me at least, provided a very enjoyable listening experience as I really like this kind of music. Technically it’s extremely impressive and does a fine job carrying the torch, but like the film itself it just doesn’t seem to capture the heart and soul of the original trilogy.
The CD runs just under an hour (not including the Moby song) at 58 min 25 sec, and considering the movie itself runs well over 2 hours, I thought there might be a fair amount of badass and/or interesting missing material to discover. After watching the film, it turns out the complete film score runs a substantial 89 and ½ minutes, yielding nearly 31 minutes of unreleased score. Plenty of undiscovered score to be enjoyed here for those who like this sort of thing, with a feast of tremendously layered synth programming, dark and edgy modern Fugitive chase music and ambient yet very pretty soundscapes to reflect Aaron’s struggle with his chemical makeup and struggle for survival. Probably the most exciting of the unreleased music is the 4 and ½ minute motorcycle chase at the very end of the movie between the LARX agent and Aaron and Marta, a killer relentless action track sadly left off the CD.
CURRENT CD RELEASE RUNTIME: 58min 25sec COMPLETE SCORE RUNTIME (AS HEARD IN FILM): 89min 30sec
UNRELEASED SCORE RUNTIME: 30min 50sec
Complete Score Cue Titles and Cue Times (unreleased cues named by me for the sake of identification):
+ – previously unreleased (or includes previously unreleased material)
1. Legacy (2:45) 2. Wolves / Sick Ric (2:19) 3. Mountaintop Medication (0:45) + 4. NRAG (1:00) 5. Simon Ross (1:20) 6. Over the Mountain (0:50) 7. Cut Losses (1:17) + 8. Chem Deprivation (3:00) + 9. You Fell In Love (1:24) 10. Program Shutdown (3:38) 11. Missile (0:38) + 12. Drone (4:10) 13. High Powered Rifle (2:55) 14. Wolf Attack (3:06) 15. Pamela Panic (1:26) + 16. Locked In (1:17) + 17. Murder Suicide (1:33) + 18. Foite Story (0:27) + 19. Aaron and Marta (1:27) + 20. Aaron in Chicago (1:21) 21. Cleaning Up (1:32) + 22. Doctor of What? (4:56) 23. They’re All Dead (2:39) 24. Virals in the Phillipines (1:34) + 25. Unintended Infection (2:30) + 26. Chem Talk (1:55) 27. Unidentified Body (0:55) + 28. Cognitive Degrade (2:32) 29. Rigged Passport (1:36) + 30. You’re Doing Fine (1:05) 31. Flight 167 (3:30) 32. Tracking Subjects (1:39) + 33. You Belong Here (1:07) 34. Located (3:47) + 35. Viralled Out (0:52) 36. Manila Lab (2:35) 37. Bangkok Backup (0:40) + 38. Flashback Pt. 1 (0:40) + 39. Flashback Pt. 2 (1:00) + 40. LARX Tarmac (1:40) 41. 17 Hour Head Start (3:27) 42. Aaron, Run! (1:00) 43. Magsaysay Suite (2:55) 44. LARX Motorcycle Pursuit (4:30) + 45. Aftermath (2:32)
Current CD Release Track Titles and Track Times:
1. Legacy (2:40) 2. Drone (4:15) 3. NRAG (0:59) 4. You Fell In Love (1:42) 5. Program Shutdown (3:00) 6. Over the Mountain (0:51) 7. High Powered Rifle (2:50) 8. They’re All Dead (2:48) 9. Manila Lab (2:40) 10. Wolves / Sick Ric (2:19) 11. Doctor of What? (4:28) 12. Aaron in Chicago (1:32) 13. Wolf Attack (2:57) 14. Chem Talk (1:35) 15. Flight 167 (3:30) 16. Aaron Run! (1:08) 17. You Belong Here (1:17) 18. Cognitive Degrade (2:49) 19. 17 Hour Head Start (3:51) 20. Viralled Out (0:58) 21. You’re Doing Fine (1:16) 22. Simon Ross (1:37) 23. LARX Tarmac (1:45) 24. Magsaysay Suite (3:04) 25. Aftermath (2:49)
