Preview’s of the Daft Punk score from Tron Legacy are up at 107.7 The End.
The six selections that are available sound a bit like Daft Punk is incorporating some of the electronic sounds of the original’s Wendy Carlos soundtrack, but combining them with orchestral sounds, too.
Check it out and let me know what you think!
A most striking difference — of what's been released so far — is that these previews largely contain melodic minor modes, which is common in contemporary electronic dance music. There are some cool parts, but so far, the ostinato-rich riffs sound reminiscent of Philip Glass or even Hans Zimmer's work for Inception.
Bursts of feedback and characteristic "Daft distortion" aside, what Daft Punk are missing from Carlos' unique score is that she explored many exotic realms of awkward intervals, dissonance, and in her broader work, microtones. While I tend to be a bigger fan of Carlos' more hummable stuff, understanding this — the alien aspects of the music complementing the then-new computer animation — is key to understanding why the original Tron score worked for the movie it supported. Of course, virtual reality is a lot more familiar to a mass marketplace today.
But still, the visual aspects of Tron: Legacy looks like a sensible extension of its predecessor given today's technology. So far, the music isn't equivalent. I keep hoping for Daft Punk remixes of the original Tron theme.
I think this was a better idea on paper. Its just so much typical soundtrack fluff most of the time. I think we let our imaginations get away with us on this one.
OR
Perhaps the director and producer had some input and asked for changes? I seem to remember the same thing happened with the original tron soundtrack. The bigger a movie gets, the more the studio will ask for changes to all aspects of a film. The director really has no clout of any kind to insist on anything on a show of this size.
DP have not really done much since 2007 and a lot of people were hoping for something amazing.