The music of Godzilla: King of the Monsters

[Dai]

[TerranigmaFreak]

When I first hear the Godzilla theme, it sounded great, but I didn't feel like it would work in this movie. I was was wrong when I saw it within the context of the movie. It totally worked.

[Benjamin Haines]

Thanks for sharing all of that content, Dai. That's a cool behind-the-scenes video of the recording sessions.

Bear McCreary's score is one of the highlights of Godzilla: King of the Monsters but the sound mix is one of the movie's biggest faults. Aside from the moments when Godzilla's classic theme plays, the music is nearly indiscernible most of the time. I hope that was just due to theater acoustics and the eventual BRD will sound more balanced. The soundtrack CD sounds magnificent blasting out of a car stereo.

[Rody]

Thanks for the link as well! It was a very interesting read, and I'll keep it bookmarked for future reference.

I might argue that the film's soundtrack is not only one of, but even the greatest highlight of the film - bogged down even as it is by the sound mixing. The distinct character themes were something I greatly appreciated; larger-than-life stories like these really benefit from having unique musical "voices", in my opinion (consider Star Wars, Superman, James Bond, etc). I liked Alexandre Desplat's score for Godzilla 2014 - and the "Godzilla!" opening theme is sampled throughout the soundtrack - but in terms of themes or motifs, I found the score inconsistent, or at least vague. KotM's score has no such issue. Each of the monsters, especially, gets their own recognizable theme to announce their presence.
Godzilla's "Fanfare" has never had more power behind it than here; and the "March" theme is used very carefully to excellent effect for it's couple of scenes.
Ghidorah's theme is probably the weakest for me, simply because it blends into the sound mix worse than the rest; but conceptually it's very neat.
Rodan's new theme is a blast: brimming with aggressive and chaotic energy. McCreary mentions the point in the theme when the drums change tempo as one of his favorites; I'm inclined to agree! ...But let's not talk down the great effect of those "screaming" brass horns, either*.
Mothra's theme, however, has to be the winner for me. You'd almost think Mothra was the billed star of the movie, the way she kept stealing the show! ...And it's largely thanks to the effectiveness of her classic theme. The instrumental choices really highlighted the difference in style and character from the other monsters and their themes. I kid you not: that motif almost moved me to tears, several times, in the theater - which is a rare feat for any movie by any measure!!

McCreary mentioned in the article that he wrote original themes for all four monsters as part of the process. I'd be interested in hearing whatever he conceived for Godzilla and Mothra; at the very least, they would have made neat bonus tracks on the CD.
I also look forward to the LP soundtrack recording; the CD sounds quite good to me, both on my computer speakers and our old stereo speaker setup, but I'm eager to hear if it's any stronger in vinyl. Hopefully it ships soon!


*It's interesting to me to see the Alien franchise mentioned here; the first time I heard part of James Horner's soundtrack for Aliens, one of my first thoughts was on how well this sound might fit a monster like Rodan!

[Dai]

Coincidentally, I was about to mention a moment in the KotM score that sounds like Aliens. Compare the first 30 seconds of Old Rivals to the main title music from Aliens:



When you hear such close equivalence in a modern movie score, it's often a giveaway that the older piece of music was used as temp score by the editor or director, and the composer was given the dreaded, "Make it like this, but different, but the same" directive for that cue.

Also, staying with Old Rivals, the string arpeggios that appear halfway through the track have a very Elliot Goldenthal feel again. If you listen around 1:30 in particular, it reminds me of the start of this track from Goldenthal's Final Fantasy score:


Now jump ahead to 2:10 on that Final Fantasy track, and compare it to The First Gods. Ignore those high strings in McCreary's track this time, and listen to the low end and the progression instead. It's more subtle, but has a similar feel.


I feel like someone in the production referred to Horner and Goldenthal quite a bit in building the sound for KotM. Whether that was McCreary's decision or his attempt to match pieces of temp score, I couldn't say. It's an interesting choice though, since it builds on the other-worldly atmosphere of the Alien movies to give the kaiju an eldritch, Lovecraftian feel.