The Sound of the Final Frontier

by Alex Hernandez

This is going to be about music. Yes, we’re still talking about Serenity (and “Firefly”), but I want to focus on the music for a moment. I’ve always been a visual person, especially when it comes to movies. Music has always played second fiddle, to the pretty things flashing on the screen. My auditory sense has been dulled by neoclassical scores and thumping electronic beats, but on May 26th I was forced to pay attention to the music. You see, the rough version of Serenity that I saw did not have a completed score, it was rampant with innocuous place-holder music culled from an array of mediocre movies, and that’s when I realized that something was off with the ‘Verse.

I’ll start by explaining the musical landscape of “Firefly.” Composer Greg Edmonson took a mix of Western and Asian music to create a unique sound for an entire universe, a universe composed of Chinese and Amerian cultures, a universe on the frontier. I think every fan of the show can recall a distinct twang accompanying shots of Serenity entering a planet’s orbit, rapid fiddles when our crew was rabbiting, or the ultramodern war drums signaling the arrival of Reavers. For the most part, though, the music was so seamless and so perfect that it melted into the background, something constant and vital that I took for granted, until it was taken away.

The insipid place-holder music I heard throughout Serenity wasn’t the problem at all. The problem came from the lack of this Western/Asian hybridized sound that is so fundamental to the reality of the story. Don’t get me wrong the story is still stupendous. Everything was just a bit off, though. Six-shooters and cowboy-speak sounded more than a little funny without that special brand of futuristic Wild West music underlining the piece. It was a bit like watching Unforgiven played to the tunes of Underworld. The Reavers, although physically grotesque, didn’t seem as threatening without the eerie pulsating mood music, again, like watching Jaws or Jason creeping up on their victim to the track of E.T. Basically, the western music that studio execs dread so much, is what subconsciously tells the audience, “Relax, you’re going to see a Spaghetti Western in Space so don’t freak out if things get a little weird.�? It’s what ties everything in this fictional universe together into one consistent experience. It’s the invisible soul of the show.

It’s a shame that Joss Whedon fought so hard to keep the western elements in his doomed program, only to have them stripped for the film. I’m not asking Universal to play Whedon’s brilliant theme song at the beginning of the movie (although an instrumental version would make a nice addition to the end credits), I’m simply pointing out the role an appropriate score plays not only on the screen, but in the minds and hearts of the viewers. Just listen to the cohesiveness of something like Kill Bill Vol. 2, western influenced music without going full out “Bonanza,” and tell me I’m not right.

We still have a few more months before the wide release of Serenity and I, for one, am hoping to hear some fiddles in the vacuum of space.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7