Michiru
Oshima, showing immense promise from her score
for Godzilla
vs. Megaguirus (2000), breaks all boundaries
on her work for the 26th Godzilla film and manages
to craft one of the best bodies of work on a single
movie that the series has seen to date.
Oshima runs the gambit with her work here, creating
both subtle and boisterous themes for the movie. Her
music is also aided tremendously by the fact that
Toho outsourced the orchestration work to the Moscow
International Symphonic Orchestra, under conduction
supervision from Konstantin Krimets. Although this
was primarily done to reduce production costs, the
ending effect is actually a much more rich musical
experience as the Moscow based Orchestra is many times
larger than anything the series has experienced before.
Oshima's Godzilla theme, a returning cue from the
2000 film, has never sounded better either as the
music seems to come to life with a huge amount of
depth and power achieved by the larger orchestra to
truly give the title creature a very epic quality.
The CD has a number of stand out tracks past Oshima's
Godzilla theme. This includes one of my personal favorites,
which is the breathtaking "Prime Minister's Recollection".
The cue starts out quietly enough, building tension,
before letting loose with a wonderful closure that
seems both subtle while at the same time grand, as
Oshima strikes the perfect balance. The range of the
composer's talent is also on full display here, as
the disc contains the more pleasant and cheerful march
for Kiryu while at the same time featuring some great
"knock down" battle music in the form of
"Intense Fighting" and, although the music
wasn't used for a fight in the movie, "Running
Wild".
This release includes a 42 page booklet, which is
why the CD case is oversized. The booklet includes
some background on the Mechagodzilla character and
composer Oshima, while also featuring several storyboards
from the feature film.
Now as far as this release goes compared to the one
in the Perfect Collection (G-026),
they are pretty similar. The Perfect Collection release
is the superior one, due to having a lot of outtakes
from the production, but the main score is there in
each. This one does prefer a "suite approach",
by combining a few cues together into a single track,
which the other release avoids. So if one has a choice
between this and the Perfect Collection version, go
for the other one in the box set. Although it should
be mentioned that this release does contain sound
effects, which the other does not.
Bottom line, this is arguably one of, if not thee,
best score in the Godzilla series, and works fantastically
from beginning to end as a stand alone experience.
If someone is a fan of either Oshima or the Godzilla
franchise they owe it to them self to seek out this
score.
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