One of the greatest movie scores of all time, is also one of the most imitated. Intense, horrifying, unforgettable, heroic, triumphant, epic.... and beyond heartbreaking... Is James Horner’s, “Aliens”.
Indeed. Kind of remarkable, being able to compose that in such a hell of circumstances. And yeah, those horns...those horns man! They scare the shit out of me and makes me feel so uneasy every time! Those horns...James Horner? Lol worst pun ever xDD
Hardly. There isn't single idea of his own (there is even a Jerry Goldmith's Capricorn One citation which meaning still eludes me), however he was in a big time constraint here. Willow imho surpases this score. It is a medley-arrangement of other's ideas as well, but more coherent and you can hear he enjoyed it. However Krull or STII: Wrath of Khan must be objectively his best soundtracks.
I'm not Horner's greatest fan (Casper and Braveheart até quite nice), but I love his work on Aliens. He gets carried away with the snare drums and the military motifs, but then so does the movie. Tks so much for this.
David, I have loved following your channel - it has been incredibky instructive - but you have MADE MY YEAR by starting to dig into Aliens!!! It is a brilliant and powerful score and my favorite movie as a teenager. Please please continue with this - I am hoping you work your way through the rest of the main cues!
Horner admitted in the documentary _Superior Firepower: The Making of ALIENS_ that he *did* borrow from others, namely the "Gayanne Ballet Suite" just to fill space. He had so little time and Cameron and Hurd were giving him *no* leeway on the schedule. So he's admitted to borrowing or ripping off pieces of other music not because he was lazy or untalented but because he literally didn't have the time to come up with anything of his own.
I also read it! But I didn't remember him mentioning Penderecki - both the sound bands with ocarinas and what David called the "Alien Chord" are as much copy-paste of "Dream of Jakob" as the Gayanne Ballet Suite. This bothers me a bit, to be honest, but maybe Penderecki gave them the rights, who knows...! :)
Yeah, but Horner was always more comfortable with arranging other's ideas rather than inventing his own. You can count these on fingers of one hand...He did his job exceptionally tho. But calling him "composer" will always leaves a funny aftertaste in my mouth.
I already had a transcription of the first "Alien" score, then I recently bought "Als Jakob erwachte" (The Dream of Jakob) to understand how he achieved that initial swell with ocarinas, and last week I had to study the Khachaturian for a job as repetiteur: in this case I think the algorithm simply put everything together in one video on my home feed - really a great job David! lots of insights to "steal" from :)
Great writing ! IMHO it contains all primary compositional elements from Jerry Goldsmith's unused original "Alien" opening (1979). The low brass chromatic cluster (used by Jerry Goldsmith's opening) appears here all over the cue (and later in the entire film score), augmented with addition of French Horns and thinned out towards middle register. Steady timpani beat of quarter notes throughout was also featured in JG unused "Alien" opening. Woodwinds main figure on flutes with eight-note pattern is also derived from JG idea. Using of echoplex adds to the "continuation" of the franchise. If you listen to both scores one after another (as I just did), you will notice how closely they are really related ! This score is way simpler than JG, considering that JH had only about two weeks to score entire film - obviously he searched for an "instant inspiration". He found it in unused JG original "Alien" opening, and obviously in other works (Khachaturian's Gayane etc.). Perhaps both pieces : Jerry Goldsmith's "Alien" unused opening and Khachaturian's Adagio from "Gayane" were used by Ridley as temp tracks ? I am almost certain, that it was the case. JH got instanteneously several main motifs that served him for an entire film !
In the final cut, the music was suspended from the time the cutter started going through the door until the salvagers entered, which I think was a good choice, but the music for that interval is still very stong.
Here’s an interesting coincidence. Marching percussion aside, this opening is very close to the beginning of Penderecki’s piece “The Dream of Jacob.” In fact, looking at the score for each, the “Alien Chord” is very similar in orchestration to the opening brass in “Jacob.” Furthermore, the synthesizer patch for this opening is ‘ocarina.’ In “Jacob,” Penderecki has 12 ocarinas playing a non-tonal chord that sounds exactly like the synth here. This isn’t the first time Horner has borrowed. His score to Troy is very notably similar to Britten’s War Requiem in multiple parts.
Thanks David for this one, hope to see and hear another cue from this score...maybe "FACEHUGGERS" or "FUTILE ESCAPE" but I know how this music is complex and hard to analyzed.
I must have listened to this score over a million times and never realized an echoplex was being used. Guessing this is is same type of echoplex used on Patton? Has Horner or Goldsmith used the echoplex on any other works? Goldsmith used it in The Burbs for cue references to Patton for Bruce Dern's character.
My apologies if you get this question over and over again, but where on earth do you find these full musical notation scores? Thanks, and please know that I enjoy your work immensely!
It marvels me how Horner could write something that's supposedly atonal at the beginning, which then turns out to be quite enjoyable, and semi-tonal/tonal for that matter, at the same paying his respect to Jerry Goldsmith's original score. If you happen to know them, could you recommend me some less known Horner's soundtrack, for the sake of further listening? I'd be very grateful. Greetings.
Chris Siddall has a new engraved full score for the film that can be bought here: www.chrissiddallmusic.com/store/p56/Aliens_In_Full_Score.html If you're just looking for the reduction, I've got those available to $20 patrons at patreon.com/davidmccaulley
Great analysis, and very useful. Have to say that, when I first saw the movie in a theater in '86, I rather jumped on my seat, listening to what appeared to be a huge plagiarism both towards Penderecki (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5MEwiO563rY.html&ab_channel=MatthiasEllinger) and Khachaturian above all, in a sort of "Kubrick winks" galore :D Anyway, this is one of my Horner's favourite scores.
