I was excited by the notion of Daft Punk's opportunity to score this.
Besides their brew of often glitchy electro popping on the dancefloor, they have the costumes to fit in the world of Tron.
It is a fair soundtrack with some decent moments, however, it is lacking a spark that I was hoping to experience. I wonder what groups like The Glitch Mob would have created. I have featured a review by Jonny Trunk @ Fact Mag, who has great perspective!
Trunk Legacy: early impressions of Daft Punk’s Tron
The thought of Daft Punk making film music is an interesting one. The idea of getting this dynamic duo to actually score the new Tron film is even more inspired.
But would it work? Could they do it? It’s a long way from the dancefloor to the dark, cavernous movie theatre, and very few are able to make that transition. Clint Mansell has crossed over, but he’s one of the very few. You see film music should bring to life and add complex dimensions to moving pictures, and that’s not easy. It’s just easy to do badly.
The real trick is to make your film music desirable as a recording in its own right, which is no mean feat either. A good example of what I mean is the score to American Beauty. specifically that twinkly Thomas Newman track. It magically took on a life of its own outside the cinema, became this ubiquitous accompaniment to anything and everything and even morphed into a dance anthem too. Impressive work. Thomas Newman is a modern film composer and part of a Hollywood musical dynasty. Daft Punk, on the other hand, are global dance music legends, can build great tracks, memorable hooks, and this could well be the finest opportunity they will have to make movie history. The film suits them perfectly, it’s futuristic, weird and electronic. And the original 1982 score was penned by Wendy Carlos, an artist they will be all too familiar with.
So, two years ago the stage was set, and a buzz has been slowly building up around its release. The equation of Daft Punk + Tron = Something Very Special was a simple one to put together, and maybe, just maybe this could be a promising new direction for Hollywood scores to take. After all, the current state of film music is not all that healthy. Most scores are over worked, heavily produced, lack character and all blend into one great big orchestral racket. Alternatively they fall into either the tinkling reverbed piano style or the hit and miss compilation type. There are successes every so often, but only every so often.
What’s missing is maybe the pure electro beauty of say, Bladerunner, or the stripped back addictive simplicity of a John Carpenter score. Hear these and you hum them, sing them, want them. But with Tron: Legacy I really can’t remember a single distinctive melody. The original Tron score is not a major Carlos work, but none the less it has a memorable theme, which found its way onto the arcade game released in 1982. I can still hum it today.
Maybe Daft Punk wanted to play it more in their own style and were restricted by the Disney machine. Or maybe they really wanted to try their hand at proper classical scoring, in which case their attempt is decidedly average.
To sum it all up, I’d call it a listenable score but one that lacks character, real distinction and fails to break new ground. Which is something we all really wanted it to do. Oh well, we’ll see what else the future brings.
Jonny Trunk
