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MBR now has it listed as "warning - last items in stock", does this mean it is about to go OOP since this was the second pressing? I was hoping to order it along with a few other titles that aren't in stock yet. Blast 
I dunno, but "warning - last items in stock" does sound like the last items, period, not the last items of a particular run. It's just 2000 copies of a highly esteemed Goldsmith score, which was last released by Silva Screen 29 years ago. I think this will be OOP soon.
When a Goldsmith release is announced, that hasn't been available in a couple of decades, and they are only pressing a couple thousand copies, you don't hesitate. You smash that buy button ASAP. If you have to think about it then it isn't a priority for you to own. Stuff goes OOP way too fast.
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Sid Sheinberg had a big 1985. As well as nixing the score to LEGEND and almost doing the same to BRAZIL, he tried to change the title of BACK TO THE FUTURE to SPACEMAN FROM PLUTO.
https://screenrant.com/back-future-spaceman-pluto-rejected-title-explained/
Sheinberg also ordered Universal's ad/pub department try and come-up with "better" titles for Brazil. Among their suggestions: "Nude Descending Bathroom Scale" and "If Osmosis, Who Are You"?
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Posted: |
Nov 27, 2021 - 10:45 PM
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By: |
c8
(Member)
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I am a lover of the movie but hadn’t watched it in probably a decade. The Music Box CD inspired me to order the Arrow Films BluRay to replace my circa 2004 (!) Ultimate Edition DVD and gibe the movie a once through.
A few things stood out to me:
1) Before I offer any observations, Arrow Films has done a stellar job updating the Universal releases with outstanding extra content and a well produced/updated package. Bravo bravo! Jeff Bond’s commentary isn’t too far from what was on The Goldsmith Odyssey podcast, which was also amazing and a must listen.
2) The (DC) movie wasn’t nearly so cheesy/bad as I remembered. It’s actually very good and as was stated on (I think) the Goldsmith Odyssey, its just maddening how much potential was squandered by Ridley Scott’s lack of faith in the work. My partner, who had never seen the movie, watched the DC with me tonight and said the “characters were all sort of creepy”, the movie was oddly paced (drags up front, goes too fast at the end), and it didn’t know what it wanted to be.
3) To that note, I reread the most recent of the scripts at FigmentFly (March 10 + new opening) and it does read as if it were the script that was largely shot. And as such, you get a sense of the impact of what Scott cut. He haphazardly tightened the death of the unicorns, the freeze, and the seduction of Lili in the dungeon, which I think speaks volumes as to why Lili, in my partner’s words, came across as creepy. Scott was trying desperately for Lili to always have this duplicitous streak going through her…even toward Darkness…and create her as some kind of unreliable protagonist (setting up the drama on if Jack really could trust her). But it all happens so slapdash in the DC that you never really get that (and that thread is just obliterated from the AC) and so Lili comes across as a circa-1985 Karen more than anything else.
4) I forgot how many hooks are left back to scenes that were cut. References by Gump and Oona to dancing Jack’s life away, the trek to Darkness’s Tree referencing numerous events of the original opening. It’s sloppy for sure (knowing the DC was never really finished per se). The Faerie Dance and original opening should have stayed. In fact, my partner turned to me and was like “why was Jack talking to Gump normally one moment and suddenly covered in sweat and bubbles the next” as a complaint for how unnatural some of it felt. I had to stop and explain the faerie dance.
5) The DC is so badly edited; I feel like scenes are cut off before their natural conclusion. Not sure if that would have been fixed in the final edit had Scott not gone to the film with a machete (I imagine not)
6) Now to Goldsmith’s score. Having freshly listened to the Music Box release, I was surprised how in-tact most of the early parts of the score are in the DC. But it also became obvious rereading the “shooting script” that what Goldsmith scored in early 85 already reflected some of Scott’s editorial tinkering, where he seemed to have already figured out most (not all) of the pre-dungeon sequences. The discussion on the Odyssey (and the notes on the Music Box release) explains to me some of the alternates in the film and why they’re missing. The extension of “The Freeze” when Jack dives after the ring is nothing but a pulsing synth. The Lionheart-esque film version of the ending to “The Ring” (or is it the beginning of Reunited; who can tell) is just My True Love’s Eyes keyboarded in by Goldsmith. The added synth whoosh in the Unicorns the same: its a synth stinger connecting parts of the recording. The synth droning that takes us across where the faerie dance should have appeared? Yep! After hearing that Goldsmith was in the editing bay with a keyboard “fixing the score” as the movie was being tinkered with it all made so much sense, as these moments act as bridges to other parts of the already recorded score.
6) Fry-Pan Fight would have worked marvelously for the scene it was meant for and from what I could tell would still fit. Hall of Columns would not fit, but reading the “shooting script,” it was clear that the scene was meant to be a much longer exploration of the seduction of Lili as many of the characters in the film catch sight of her. And frankly given how everything in the dungeon is all chopped up, cut down, and out of order, who knows how that scene would have played out with Goldsmith’s music.
7) Darkness Arises, however, would have overwhelmed the scene it was (likely) meant for and its omission was wise, even if the piece itself is stellar.
8) The kitchen scene really didn’t need music and honestly would have been better without the Psycho II nonsense.
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Well folk,
It seems that the Goldsmith Odyssey Podcast finally convinced me to purchase the new Music Box LEGEND 2-CD set (it arrived in the mail today). It will now stand proudly aside from the LIONHEART score from earlier this year.
Truly Goldsmith’s greatest work. Bar None.
With those two, it's been a great year for a certain type of his music, hasn't it.
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Strange I don’t recall the cue from Psycho II in the DC? Can you elaborate which cue is that - I’ll check out the movie again.
It's during the fight in the kitchen area. The cues "The Cellar" are used for the collection of the reflective surfaces and the "Main Title" theme is used when jack is looking up the chimney shaft. There's also a stock cue by Tim Souster during the actual fight.
Mr. Jack, is that in the Director's Cut? I've been led to think the Psycho II stuff was only in the European version, and the Director's Cut didn't have those bits and the stock cue, but I can't check the DC at the moment, and have never had the UK cut available.
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Whatever version is included on the new Arrow Blu-ray includes the Psycho II cues.
You're probably right. Among the wealth of info I gathered for the recent Goldsmith Odyssey episode, presently accessible to me is a pdf called LEGEND Score-summary - Bernard Kyer which I would love to link to, if I could retrace the source, but I can't! He backs this, meaning that I think he backs that the Psycho II stuff is in both cuts, which are indeed different. He details the music, in case it's helpful to anyone:
26) KITCHEN SCENE MUSIC - This scene is kind of an oddball. Most of the film had some
sort of score written for it but this sequence apparently did not. Goldsmith is recorded as saying
he didn't have time to finish the score to the film and its possible that this sequence which,
excepting maybe the final moments, works fine without music so it may have been left for last.
In the UK/Directors cut however, there is some music in the scene. Here is the breakdown:
1) Unknown tense string intro (Possibly Library Music by Tim Souster too)
2) Psycho II (Jerry Goldsmith) - The track 'The Cellar' is edited down for the middle section.
3) SLUGS: The Movie (Tim Souster) - Unknown track name to this unreleased score
4) Psycho II (Jerry Goldsmith) - The track 'Main Title' plays here after the fight and for the
reveal of 'Light
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In the UK/Directors cut however, there is some music in the scene. Here is the breakdown:
1) Unknown tense string intro (Possibly Library Music by Tim Souster too)
2) Psycho II (Jerry Goldsmith) - The track 'The Cellar' is edited down for the middle section.
3) SLUGS: The Movie (Tim Souster) - Unknown track name to this unreleased score
4) Psycho II (Jerry Goldsmith) - The track 'Main Title' plays here after the fight and for the
reveal of 'Light
Thanks, never saw it listed quite like that.
Anyway, it's grating how this music sticks out like a sore thumb. Ok, I already knew PSYCHO II when I saw LEGEND, so the music really had very weird associations when that music played in LEGEND, but even without background knowledge about the music: it just does not fit. It's a completely new and completely unrelated melody, that seems dramatically totally unmotivated.
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) The DC was acknowledged I think, to be a best effort rather than a true real ultimate edit.
