It’s been over two years since John Williams graced the theater sound systems with his brilliant music, and now he’s finally back to score Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. All three of Mr. Williams’ previous scores for the franchise have been Oscar™-nominated, and have been favorites with fans for almost three decades. Does the new score measure up? What should fans expect?
Familiar Themes
Several of the terrific themes from the original trilogy are back, and in style! Indy’s theme, the famous ‘Raiders March,’ opens the album in grand fashion, book-ending an arrangement of Marion’s theme. They’re just as stirring, lovely and evocative as ever, and they benefit greatly from the digital recording technologies that weren’t available in 1981. Both of these themes pop up with some regularity during the remainder of the album, but never so often that they become redundant and annoying. They are handled with restraint and ingenuity.
The Ark of the Covenant also gets a brief thematic mention in the beginning of Track 6, ‘The Spell of the Skull.’ The Ark’s theme is directly lifted from the famous ‘Map Room’ sequence in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark,’ and lasts for about 40 seconds until the music moves in another direction. It’s a short but welcome display of intelligent musical continuity, and helps close the 27-year gap between the first and fourth films in the series.
New Themes
The concert arrangements of the new themes for ‘Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ get the album off to a solid jump-start, comprising three of the four opening cues. Each of them is very different and each one adds an entirely new dimension to the score.
‘The Call of the Crystal’ introduces the Skull theme, an eerie six-note figure which lends itself easily to terrifying crescendo. Several times on the album it builds into a monumental blast of brass, and shakes the walls with delicious abandon. It bears an oblique similarity to the Ark of the Covenant’s theme, but is far more foreign-sounding and subliminal.
‘The Adventures of Mutt’ introduces Mutt’s sprightly, rousing theme. It seems a bit disjointed in places and is rather hectic, but it has an undeniable appeal, especially to fans of Williams’ scores for ‘Far and Away’ and ‘Hook.’ This is good, classic, innocent, adventurous Williams music.
‘Irina’s Theme’ is the last of the new themes. The saxophone and lush strings give it a serious film-noir feel, capturing the sensual and sinister aspects of the femme-fatale cliché nicely. It’s often paired with a strong brass military figure which seems to represent the Russian communists as a whole. The Russian aspect of the film was a missed opportunity here: Williams didn’t really musically develop the concept as much as he could have. There's a glimpse of what might have been during the last track, ‘Finale,’ where some genuine (and brilliant) Russian ethnicity shines through for a very brief period, but then it’s gone in the blink of an eye.
Highlights
The remainder of the score is mostly variations and combinations of these themes, using plenty of different rhythmic and tempo devices to spice things up. A bunch of cues stand out: the South American source music (complete with pan pipes and guitar) in ‘Journey to Akator’ is very catchy and a nice surprise. The percussion in ‘Grave Robbers’ and ‘Ants!’ is strongly reminiscent of Williams’ two ‘Jurassic Park’ scores (and that’s no bad thing). ‘The Jungle Chase’ is the strongest action cue on the album. The score wraps up with the end credits suite, ‘Finale,’ in which all of the themes get reprised and, to some extent, expanded (except the Skull theme, which for some reason is totally absent).
Conclusion
If there are any complaints to be made about the new Indiana Jones score, they have to do with how well it compares to the original set of scores. For one thing, the new themes aren’t quite as memorable as each of the earlier films’ music. This is made worse by the heavy reliance on old themes in this new score (due to the nature of the film’s story). Also, the orchestrations are more complex and flighty than in previous Indy scores: there’s none of the straightforward, focused musical set-pieces like ‘Desert Chase’ from ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ or ‘Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra’ from ‘The Last Crusade.’ But no artist can remain stylistically static: Mr. Williams’ musical voice has necessarily changed and matured in the last 20 years. Yet his talent, intelligence, and skill remain indisputable. How much fans enjoy this new ‘Indiana Jones’ score will depend on how seriously they take John Williams’ music, and on how grateful they are that he hasn’t retired yet. It may be one of the thematically weaker scores in the Indy canon, but it’s nevertheless a fine, entertaining album and a worthy addition to any film score fan’s collection.
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