Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (soundtrack)

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the score album to the 2014 film of the same name. Directed by Matt Reeves, the film is a sequel to Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) and the second installment in the Planet of the Apes reboot franchise. Reeves' frequent collaborator Michael Giacchino, who previously worked in Cloverfield (2008) and Let Me In (2010), composed the film's score. He significantly created themes deriving his own compositions from Lost (2004–2010) and Super 8, and had referenced Jerry Goldsmith's themes from the original 1968 film. The soundtrack was released by Sony Classical Records on July 7, 2014, and received polarising reviews with praise over the score's integration and criticism directed on the album length and lack of significant themes, with some comparing it as inferior to Giacchino's compositions.^[1]

Development

Composer Michael Giacchino began working on the score during January 2014 at the Newman Scoring Stage. He employed a 89-piece ensemble from the Hollywood Studio Symphony orchestra and 70-person choir, for recording the score, which continued till late-June 2014. As like the previous instalments, percussionist Emil Richards played the score, while Giacchino's son Griffin Giacchino, had written an additional cue theme for the film.^[2]

While discussing with the music, Giacchino and Reeves had listened to Jerry Goldsmith's scores for the first Planet of the Apes franchise and Danny Elfman's score for Planet of the Apes (2001) for referencing, who felt "the monolith kind of music that you think of, that really tonal, eerie choir music", Reeves opined that it feels really elemental that "you are seeing the new dominant species on the earth. They’ve inherited the earth" and several references, from visuals, sound and music were originated from the first film and Stanley Kubrick's filmography.^[3]

Giacchino said that Goldsmith's score for the 1968 film was "one of the greatest scores" feeling that "I definitely want to tip my hat to what he brought to the table, but at the same time create something new that is relatable to the characters we’re now dealing with. You find yourself trapped when you’re paying homage to something and you’re not paying attention to what you’re supposed to be doing for the characters sometimes; it will create a disconnect for the audience" adhering to his collaboration with Brad Bird, he learnt that "director and composer need to be hand-in-hand every step of the way telling the same story, or else the audience gets to this place where they’re thinking something we don’t want them to think".^[4] He wrote a "big sweeping, orchestral score" even before the final edit, where Reeves suggested him to write the piece he hears and include in the final edit. Giacchino composed for several sequences despite some being cut out from the film.^[5]

Track listing

Reception

The album received polarising reception, with some praising for the score being well-woven into the film, while other criticising the album presentation and lack of thematic structure. James Southall of Movie Wave wrote "The score falls down in two ways – firstly for being so close to the Lost world and consequently losing a little of its impact; secondly from the album presentation, which is just far too long. It would be churlish to focus on that, though, when there’s undoubtedly plenty of quality to be found – the atmosphere is carefully constructed, the core material is very strong, so with a better album production it could have really shone.  As it stands – very decent but not really as spectacular as you always think it should be."^[6] Jonathan Broxton wrote "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is one of those rare scores where it works really well in the film, but suffers slightly when removed from its visual inspiration. There are many outstanding moments, most of them involving those aforementioned sequences of high emotion, but there are also far too many periods of curiously dead air, where nothing seems to happen for quite lengthy periods of time, causing the album to drag. I was disappointed by a Michael Giacchino score, because lord knows his disappointments are significantly superior to a large number of other composer’s best works, but that’s the price you pay for having the kind of stellar filmography Giacchino has established over the past decade. Fans of Lost and Super 8 will undoubtedly enjoy this continuation of the style, and although others would be advised to approach with a tiny bit of caution."^[7]

Movie Music Mania wrote "Michael Giacchino's score bears little resemblance to that of its predecessor, but the film itself is such a departure from Rise of the Planet of the Apes that this change seems warranted. The biggest drawback to Giacchino's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, though, is its accompanying album release. Clocking in at over an hour and fifteen minutes, the album exacerbates the tediousness of some of its quieter moments and spreads out its highlights a little too much. The score has a lot of worthwhile material, but it's also one that, save for the propulsive action music, is quite slow paced and (in a rainy-day sort of way) oddly soothing. Its darker moments boast references to Goldsmith's Apes, as well as frequent quotations of Ligeti's dissonant choral work (which, considering Desplat's Godzilla, seems to be all the rage this year), but this is a Giacchino score through and through. Some may take issue with how familiar it all sounds, but if you can get past that, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes may actually surprise you. In this reviewer's opinion, its one of the better scores to accompany a blockbuster this year. Just don't get bogged down in its more stagnant moments."[10]

Accolades

Personnel

Credits adapted from CD liner notes.^[12]

References