The Score Magazine - Archive August 2009 Issue | Page 34

The Score Magazine | Rage of the Machines
Transformers
New Divide
 Mrinal Rajaram
The second installment of the Transformers
franchise makes for ordinary viewing. Typical of
a Hollywood action/sci-fi flick, the soundtrack
fuses the larger genres of Alternative Rock, Al-
ternative Metal, Hard Rock and Post-grunge to
it. Through most of the film, you get the vague
feeling of not remembering too much music in
the background – apart from the made-to-order
tunes from the score.
The official single (and theme song) from,
‘Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen’, is a track
called, ‘New Divide’ by Linkin Park. The song is
rather catchy, and is almost as good as ‘What
I’ve Done’, from the first film. But, if you’re look-
ing for anything new in their music, you’re in for
a disappointment – ‘New Divide’ is your usual
Linkin Park track. Strangely enough, the song
never makes its presence felt during crucial
moments of the plot. It finally appears as the
end-credits begin roll. Not a great idea, if you
ask me!
Among the 13 tracks that comprise the OST, only
8 made it to the final cut. Green Day’s ’21 Guns’
is one, and is played in minor rushes from the
first half. The song’s okay – not much to write
home about. It succeeds in being remembered
due to a longer duration of screen time. Other
impressive tracks are, ‘Never Say Never’ (The
Fray) and ‘Burning Down The House’ by The
Used.
It is ironic that the tracks left out from the final
cut of the film, prove to be better than the ones
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that made it. Wonder what the film-makers
were thinking? Music from ‘Theory Of A Dead-
man’ (Not Meant To Be), ‘I Don’t Think I Love
You’ (Hoobastank) and ‘Avenged Sevenfold’ (Al-
most Easy) didn’t entirely deserve to be left out.
The music played by Bumblebee succeeds in be-
ing a comic relief – belting out tracks as famous
as, ‘I’m So Excited’ and ‘My Girl’ was worth a few
laughs. None of the songs have made it to the
album though.
The original score of the film was composed by
Steve Jablonsky who reunited with with director
Michael Bay to record his score, with a 71-piece
ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony at
the Sony Scoring Stage. As far as the relevance
of the music (to each scene) is concerned, the
score does a far superior job to the soundtrack.
Most films don’t feature entire songs in them.
On account of miniature screen times, the tracks
featured in Transformers 2, are very hard to rec-
ollect. Further more, many of the film’s scenes
weren’t backed up by the right songs. The track
list on the OST is good, but is wasted on bad tim-
ing. Maybe it would have helped had the view-
ing been enhanced– who knows!