Friday, August 12, 2011

The unifying sound of nostalgia

It had been a while since I'd seen Starship Troopers and I had nothing better planned for my ten hour shift, so I dove once again into the horrible, horrible acting and lovely, lovely special effects of the late 90s. In the end, it wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered and at one part I realized that the score was quite fantastic and sounded somewhat familiar. Not similar in the sense that I'd heard it before (as I had seen the film twice before), but in the way that I could feel the soul behind the music.



After the film I had no choice but to apply the palm of my hand gently but firmly upon my face, as the man behind the score was no-other than Basil Poledouris. Now, I'm sure most people have heard his works, but have never head his name. Those that do recognize the name might associate him with a number of flicks. For me, he will always first bring to mind Conan the Barbarian, as that is the movie I have seen more times than any other. I sure hope that the composer for the remake will at least come close to the original. I'm actually rather excited, as Jason Momoa ought to fit into the sandals of the black maned mountain lion better than Arnold. Of course, Arnold will always be the original Conan and his lines will live forever within my heart, but his character didn't really fit into the image of Conan that Robert E. Howard had created.


I also came to realize that the theme of Starship Troopers did remind me a bit of Basil's other composition, the battle theme from the 1987 RoboCop:


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