I love this film, I love this story and I love the music in it... But as an example of how important the score is. If the fashion or trend in music at the time isn't taken into account, it can seriously date the film in years to come, as it does with Ladyhawke. Was this score cool in the eighties? Yup... Is it cool now? No... Is the music funny? Hell yeah!
shareWell, considering what passes for cool nowadays, I don't mind it.
I realize it clashes with the tone of the film quite jarringly, but it does have this weird "Trans-Siberian Orchestra" vibe that's kind of fetching. That '80s cheese is refreshing if not taken in great doses.
I sometimes like to call it "Phillipe's Theme", since Matthew Broderick occasionally seems a little out of place here as well. :)
This was my FAVORITE movie when it came out, I was 13. I watched it when it came out on VHS over and over and over again. Then I bought the soundtrack and listened to it constantly. Now when I listen to it, it brings back some sweet memories of those days, but it's soooooo dated. Very beautiful, but very, very 80's.
shareI don't think the point is that the music is necessarily "bad", it just doesn't fit into the themes, tone or overall feel of the film one bit. It clashes, quite honestly... which is exactly what a score shouldn't do unless you were trying to make it uncomfortable (ala Jonny Greenwood's score in There Will Be Blood.) I can say with complete confidence that an unsettling feel to the entire film was not the point, therefore making this score quite horrible.
That's my opinion at least, and I think that's why the score is pretty widely hated. I really like this movie, but it could have been 100 times better with a real score.
"I'm an ideas man, Michael. I think I proved that with *beep* Mountain." - Gob Bluth
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You love me music? Jesus christ it was amazingly terrible. I saw this movie based on this thread, eh..thank´s a lot. It was really bad im afraid. The music was a combo between the theme music for "falcon crest" and the intro from Miami vice . Nice swords though looked very real.. If someone feel the urge to see this movie, then don´t. See Willow (again) instead.
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The music was crap. It felt like i was in a 80's disco when i watched the movie.
Ruined the movie for me.
I loved this movie when I was a kid (I was 9), and never noticed the music.
It's been at least 18 years since I've seen it and just got done watching it now. And though I still love the movie...I agree--"Oh God, the music!!" Soooo terrible and rather distracting.
In a few places, the music reminded me of Tron. And this type of music is perfectly fine in THAT setting. Sure would be nice if someone did a "remake" of the score, but left the film intact, and then re-released it.
Anything happens to my daughter, I got a .45 and a shovel. I doubt anybody would miss you.
Not sure what the hell is going through the peoples' mind when they add music like this... another exceedingly stupid one is A Knight's Tale... wtf is with the music and the hairdos? Too bad, because it's a good fun story, but it looks like an extended episode of Star Trek: The Rock Opera.
shareTo be honest, the music just don't bother me that much. I LOVE this movie a lot, and the music doesn't distract me from the movie at all. I was fourish when I first saw it, thirteen when I watched it next (and actually remembered it). Ever since then I have loved it. The music doesn't bother me.
sharePretty 80's.
Reminds me of the score on Dune.
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I enjoy the score...i agree with an earlier post, most "cool" music today i woudldn't even call music.
"Oh Renfield you disappoint me so"-Dracula
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I had just finished and there I was, feeling pretty sick with cold excited about seeing a film that I have not watched since childhood, I even have it in my wishlist to show my girl, what did I find? A film with a couple of Brilliant British actors, a decently heroic Dutchman, Pfeiffer looking luminous and the most annoying two things in fantasy film history EVER! Matthew Broderick and the score!
I spent half my time laughing at the screen and the other half getting on with my book.
*sneeze*
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I just caught this movie today on cable, after having not seen it in eons and the music made me feel like Hunter & McCall were going to come running around the nearest corner. Problem with the score in this movie is what was wrong lots of music in the 80s: musicians had discovered the synthesizer and USED IT TO DEATH. Never once did they consider whether it was the right sound for a given situation or piece of music.
At least they didn't go all-out, full-on, gag-me-with-a-spoon 80s and give Michelle Pfeiffer huge hair...
My ears! MY EARS!
The awful pop tracks are as out of place in this film as Matthew Broderick.
shareI'm curious: how many of you people who say you hate the score of this movie have ever had any musical education of any sort whatsoever? How many were born after the movie was made and grew up during the rap-and-earbud era? Also just exactly what kind of musical score would any of you compose, with your impeccable personal taste and knowledge of music? Are you thinking that a movie fantasy filmed in the 1980s and set in 13th century France would somehow be better served with a 19th century Romantic orchestral arrangement? Or an Appalachian bluegrass score, or something more along the lines of zydeco, or perhaps reggae, or ska, or swing, or be-bop jazz, or fusion, or a 1990s hip-hop score, or what? It would be wonderfully enlightening if, instead of merely kvetching about the music with complaints as meaningful as "eww!" and "I don't like it!", you would all share your own deep conceptions of what the score to this movie should have been. I'm sure many of the rest of us would learn a great deal about music.
(Incidentally, if you're one of those who think the music in this movie is "disco", you don't get to have an opinion, because you obviously don't know anything whatsoever about pop music of the twentieth century. Alan Parsons and Andrew Powell made many albums, but there wasn't anything resembling "disco" on any of them. Failure to recognize this simple fact automatically disqualifies your musical opinions.)
jcosyn-1 - excellent observations about the people who don't like the score to this wonderful movie. I'm a big fan of the Alan Parsons Project and this movie was made during their peak years in the 1980s. I don't know how or why the producer or director decided to use their music for this movie; however, I never found it out of place or distracting. I think it enhanced the narrative.
And your point about the people mistakenly thinking the music is "disco" is spot on. Alan Parsons never made "disco" music - their music was experimental in electronic and futuristic musical genres. They had quite a number of top-ten hits in the late 80's early 90's ("Games People Play", "Time", "Eye in the Sky", "Damned if I Do", to name a few). They were really big at the time. Too bad the current "music" makers in the 2000's are so trite and boring. There's not anyone doing anything remotely experimental or interesting in this generation. It all sounds the same now, very vanilla and dull. And the sad fact is, the current generation doesn't realize it.
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I like the music too. I don't see the problem. I'm glad they didn't try to recreate chamber music for some "authentic" feel. Screw that. I want music that gallops when the horses do.
shareI want music that gallops when the horses do.
Ha ha ha!
If you think there's nobody making experimental music nowadays, son, then you're living with your head under a rock.
I hate reading the opinions of you old blowhards who can't figure out how to stay abreast of modernity and have just grown into dinosaurs. I bet I'm the same age as you, and yet I think the world of music now is as vibrant now, if not more so, than it ever was.
Sad, man. Real sad.
Well, genius, by all means. Don't just log on to call people names and make disparaging comments like a fool. Any troll can do that. Tell me who you think are musicians who are currently breaking ground in 2012 with new music that is progressive and interesting. As a real music lover, I'd enjoy checking out new musicians who are not cookie cutter promotions by the music industry.
Which means don't give me the usual heavily promoted, overly exposed and trite acts like Rihanna, Adele, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Christina Aguilera, Adam Levine, Flo Rida, Train, Maroon 5, Usher, Justin Timberlake, etc. Boring, boring and more boring. I want to hear completely new, inventive, and interesting acts. So, what do you recommend? Share your genius with us all.
I love the melodies; they're upbeat and bouncy. When they segue into strings and orchestra, they sound great. It's the synth instrumentation that bothers me. The synthesiser was a poor choice for a fantasy film set in a relatively believable mediaeval setting.
Compare the two different scores available for Ridley Scott's "Legend". I choose Jerry Goldsmith over Tangerine Dream.
Of course, this film needs a full treatment Criterion Collection-type clean up, and a new score would be an interesting optional extra.
So you're bashing others for having an opinion about music by bashing other people's taste in music? Wow. Just wow.
shareWhat a pompous dick. Am I right, or what?
The score was *beep* mate. Deal with it. And take your try-hard genre-dropping elsewhere. Pathetic.
Answers to your questions jcosyn-1: I was born in 1972. I am a huge fan of early 1980s new wave, a professor of medieval literature (Chaucer specifically), and for THOSE REASONS I detest the soundtrack for this film. It is characterized by an ugly, brash tone; it is nothing like the shimmering beauty of (for example) Chariots of Fire. Alan Parsons, producer of Dark Side of the Moon, was/is a prog-rock genius. That does not mean that he or his band-mates should have been anywhere near a fantasy-film soundtrack in the mid-1980s. I studied music theory at university and my wife and I both have classical voice training (she wanted to be an opera singer). In grad school I studied filmic representations of the Middle Ages, and obviously most filmic representations of the Middle Ages have a significant fantasy element. When scoring film, the most crucial issue is the relationship between image and sound (music). I am a fan of silent film, and I know how crucial music is to the successful progression of a narrative on the screen. The music does not need to be period-appropriate in the sense of using only music that fits specific time-bound content, such as medieval polyphony in fantasy films, but it MUST BE consistent on an emotional level.
The issue that I have with Ladyhawke is that there are radical shifts in tone in the script, which are then aggravated greatly by the poor scoring. This results in the fact that nearly every scene that uses the harsh, up tempo synth sounds garish and borderline absurd, Monty Python in its effect on what is happening on screen. Re-score -- in your mind -- Star Wars or 2001 with disco (real 1970s disco) or bad 1960s euro pop in the latter case. How well would those films have worked then or work now despite other aspects that actually do date the films? Yeah, exactly.
"I love those redheads!" (Wooderson, Dazed and Confused, 1993)
I completely agree with the OP, it was dated when it was written ( I saw it living in Japan in 1985, when it came out )...I thought so then and still do now... it was not an eighties sound, it was sort of late 70's funky upbeat whatever.... the synths sounds were not current for 85, the digital era had arrived ...mixing synths and orchestras is always problematic, and never a good idea unless you really know what you are doing...sadly in this case it really does take a good film down.
Ohh, , and yes, I have a musical education , and am quite capable of composing and scoring music. I do so on a daily basis.
regards
Fitvideo
The music is dreadful. So dated and cheesy.
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