Spacehunter is notable for many things, one of which being the sheer amount of massive talent on the cast & crew, either already very famous or who were just becoming massively famous - The effects crew of Fantasy II and the make-up of the Burman family being prime examples.
For Metalstorm, we have Richard Band, whose main claims to rising above soundtracking for a list of general schlock movies, low-budget horror and video games comprises: minor work on Stargate SG1, Walker Texas Ranger and Star Trek Pinball...
Compared to Spacehunter's Elmer Bernstein, famous for: The Magnificent Seven, Twilight, cape Fear, My Left Foot, Legal Eagles, Spies Like Us, Bolero, Heavy Metal, The Bridge At Remagen (an otherwise attrocious film), Wild Wild West, Devil In A Blue Dress, The Grifters, The Good Son, Slipstream, Ghostbusters, Trading Places, Airplane, The Great Escape, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Ten Commandments and a good few hundred other productions...
And you'd gun for the first one??!!
I've seen Metalstorm maybe seven times and still can't recall the music from it. Spacehunter has been with me since I was perhaps 10 years old!
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mike_cable
11 years ago
I love Elmer Bernstein's original scores for Ghost Busters, Saturn 3 and Airplane (Flying High). They get frequent rotation in my playlist, even though all the tracks for Flying High can be a bit short at times to enjoy, and the Saturn 3 master is of a very low quality unfortunately. But I found his score for Spacehunter to be a bit too generic (it's probably just me), and prefer Richard Band's Metalstorm score out of the two. While not an amazing film, it did have an over-the-top score which for some reason gets me every time, especially the opening music.
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cinedude
11 years ago
I agree with Mike; those scores are some of Bermstein's most solid in that period. Other faves for me from that late '70s-'80s period are ANIMAL HOUSE, MEATBALLS, STRIPES and HEAVY METAL.
SPACEHUNTER was a bit generic and perhaps not quite as memorable a score as Richard Band's for METALSTORM, but the former was overall a better film. The latter did however feature Australian actor Mike Preston. He was a good guy in ROAD WARRIOR, so it was interesting to see him play a villain in METALSTORM.
Thinking about the films now, not having seem them since the '80s, from memory, both scores are somewhat cartoon in style, the main themes are fairly simplistic, with a repetitive and driving approach, not unlike Brian May's work on the first two MAD MAX films.
An aside, I wish more of the old 3D films would be remastered with modern tech for release on blu ray so we could enjoy them again. If they could manage CREATURE FROM BLACK LAGOON and DIAL M FOR MURDER, I guess maybe it'll happen.
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ttaskmaster
10 years ago
those scores are some of Bermstein's most solid in that period. Other faves for me from that late '70s-'80s period are ANIMAL HOUSE, MEATBALLS, STRIPES and HEAVY METAL.
Did you notice that all those films you mentioned are Ivan Reitman productions, co-incidentally just like Spacehunter was!
both scores are somewhat cartoon in style, the main themes are fairly simplistic, with a repetitive and driving approach
Given how Wolff spends half of Spacehunter actually driving around the planet, I think that's no accident. The cartoony side is probably also a good match for a film that is intended for most (if not all) age groups. I think it's around a PG rating.
it's actually not as good as I used to think. And I hate that it (spoiler).
Things from years past rarely are as good as you remember. The A-Team, Knight Rider... attrocious these days.
WRT Metal Storm, I hated that it's subtitled 'The Destruction of Jared Synn', yet Jared Synn doesn't actually *get* destructed... perhaps the producers meant 'distracted' instead, heh heh!!
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