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| This is a comments thread about FSM CD: Logan’s Run (1976 Feature Film) |
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Goldsmith fans must not miss this title. Because it shows the incredible range of what the composer could do for a film, even when it is a medium-weight sci-fi spectacle.
What I enjoyed most about this cd is that it showed me parts of the the score that I thought were sound effects were ACTUALLY music by Goldsmith. It also illuminates music that is very different from what appeared on the LP.
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It was a marvelously innovative score in many ways. That old MGM lp caught the "orchestral gloss" of the score, adding that little "Disco Logan" thingy tacked on for the 1976 masses, of which I was one. It left off so many serial compositions that reeked of pure early Goldsmith. This is another case of a score designed for something better than it represented.
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What I enjoyed most about this cd is that it showed me parts of the the score that I thought were sound effects were ACTUALLY music by Goldsmith.
There's an effect like that in STAR TREK:TMP. In the movie you just think, "That's the sound V'Ger makes." You don't realize how much your music man is adding to the show.
A more obscure example is the wonderful sound that composer Joe Harnell came up with for the evil "Alex 7000" computer in an episode of THE BIONIC WOMAN.
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I don't care for the purely electronic cues such as Love Shop. But the bulk of this score is absolutely fantastic.
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Posted: |
Mar 12, 2011 - 9:47 AM
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By: |
AlexCope
(Member)
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The guys over at the offbeat Aquarius Records have once again made an FSM release one of their recommended albums of the week, giving another lengthy write-up. I was wondering when they might get a hold of this one, as the retro-electronic portion appeals to their musical taste. Kind of funny the difference in audience: how the synth portion can turn off many people here in the symphonic camp but be the main draw to others with the symphonic portion being excused. "Sure, it's symphonic. It's a score after all." Still, it's good to see them introducing this to a new generation:
"Released in 1976, Logan's Run remains one of the coolest and most fantastically stylized sc-fi cult classics EVER. If you haven't seen it, go rent it now, you won't be sorry. It's the tale of a future world that is all about hedonistic pleasure, free love, recreational drug use, routine plastic surgery, random sexual encounters, the only hitch is that when you turn 30, you go through a ceremonial slaughter. Each citizen has a small jewel implanted in the palm of their hand, and when 30 comes it begins to blink. Logan's Run concerns a certain guard, who gleefully hunts down runners, people who decide to try and escape their fate, and drag them back for execution, until he falls in love, and begins to question the system, even moreso when his jewel begins to blink, and thus he decides to run. Outside the city, they discover a ruined Washington D.C. overgrown with plants, a post apocalyptic wasteland, and, well, without giving more away, it's trippy and psychedelic and totally cheesy and over the top. The set design is classic seventies futurism, lots of neon, and crystals, and sparkly clothing, and the holographic entertainment is outrageous and again super cheesy, the ladies are beautiful and are dressed in wild futuristic gowns (Farrah Fawcett plays the plastic surgeon's assistant, and is appropriately seventies hott), and there's a robot that they meet in an ice cave, and okay, if you haven't decided to rent it already, we're not sure what's wrong with you! Needless to say, a tripped out psychedelic vision of the future like this needed a similarly futuristic psychedelic soundtrack, which it did indeed get, courtesy of Jerry Goldsmith, and the whole thing (and then some) is reproduced here. And what with the current craze of sonically worshipping John Carpenter and Goblin and that whole retro-futuristic thing going on, it seemed like the perfect time for people who were maybe not even born at the time to get a load of THIS, which sounds in many ways like what lots of folks now are doing.
Sure it's symphonic, it is a score after all, but there's lots of sci-fi / electronic weirdness, in fact the whole soundtrack starts with a pulsing bit of buzzing synth, before slipping into some soaring strings, but then it's right back to some creepy spaced out ambience, all bleeps and bloops, electronic squiggles and alien melodies, and the whole score sort of slips back and forth, from traditional orchestral score, to avant freaked out psychedelic electronics, often melding the two brilliantly.
"Flameout" is all analog synths, and twisted effects, super cheesy and eighties, but also ominous and mysterious, Theremin like melodies, electronic rhythms, atonal cascades of 8 bit analog crunch. "Fatal Games" begins with some sort of processed electronic rhythm, pulsing, motorik, before strange liquid ambience oozes into the picture, and suddenly it sounds like some sort of lo-fi analog alien electro. And so it goes, strings soar and shimmer, electronics buzz and warble, synths whir and thrum, some tracks are goofy and over the top, others are ominous and intense with wild Bernard Hermann like string stabs, while others are super jagged and atonal and dramatic, and still others are swoonsome and melodic.
Such a great movie, and such a great soundtrack. Released on the same label that gave us The 5000 Fingers Of Dr. T ( a recent Record Of The Week) and the killer Klute / All The Presidents Men soundtrack, which means, like those, the presentation is elaborate, with a huge booklet, rife with amazing liner notes, pictures, production stills, photos, not to mention super detailed notes on each track, describing the track itself, and then what's going on in the movie while said track plays. Wow."
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It was finding a (bafflingly still sealed!) copy of this in a secondhand shop that got me into collecting soundtracks. The sheer scope of this score is astounding.
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Posted: |
Mar 13, 2011 - 12:45 PM
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By: |
RoryR
(Member)
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"Released in 1976, Logan's Run remains one of the coolest and most fantastically stylized sc-fi cult classics EVER. If you haven't seen it, go rent it now, you won't be sorry."
Oh, yes, you will be! LOGAN'S RUN is one of the worst "major" SF films ever made. It's right up there with BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES, DAMNATION ALLEY, THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR and WESTWORLD as examples of tired, trite and dumbed-down "Hollywood" SF movie junk food. If it wasn't for the Goldsmith score, I'd say burn every copy of LOGAN'S RUN. It's crap.
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Well done, Rory! You've just mentioned five of my favourite movies! And they all have greeeaaaaat scores!
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And let's not forget that Jenny Agutter gets her clothes off. Again.
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Ah! THE OMEGA MAN! Great film! Great score! I forgot that one.
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I love "Logan's Run," not only for the grand adventure I used to think it was when I was little, but also for the unselfconsciously campy (if that's possible) cultural document it accidentally became.
The movie thinks it has something profound to say about the far-off postapocalyptic future. What it really turns out to be about, all these decades later, is . . . the Seventies & Eighties: the generation(s) of people who grew up at the mall (these people all basically live in a huge domed shopping mall) and their worship of youth, narcissism, sex and consumerism above all else.
The hilarious wide-eyed innocent ignorance with which Michael York and Jenny Agutter encounter the monuments of Washington, D.C. is also unfortunately frighteningly close to what kids today might be saying about such sights.
(These same kids today are surprised to hear that the sinking of the "Titanic" -- in 3-D! -- was a REAL HISTORICAL EVENT, right? That's what they're texting each other on their previously unimagined high-tech futuristic devices, anyway. . . . Okay, maybe not ALL the kids.  )
"Logan's Run," the biggest hit sci-fi movie before "Star Wars" demolished such records a summer later, is still enjoyable, and in more ways than one. Its score, besides its noteworthy electronic effects, also has one of Jerry's most memorable and romantic melodies ever.
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I like it! 