Full transcript of “Transformers: What the Soundtrack Could Have Been”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 so transformers is interesting when I first saw it I thought all the actual like transformers were really cool but then there's some scenes where you kind of just sit there thinking why like yeah this is cool this not so much this is good now this is bad maybe not really kind of cool maxximum yes but all that aside the music in transformers was also interesting I mean it's a weird situation for example when you think of the music - transformers you probably think of arrival to earth [Music] which makes sense it's a significant moment in the film with what is arguably the main theme but when I revisited this film believe it or not I found a bunch of light motifs some of them made sense and some of them didn't like there's this light motif that represents the
0:47 Autobots for a time we lived in harmony but like all great power [Music] you risk your life to protect the cube no sacrifice [Music] all right I need just victus to get it into military hands when we hold them off a lot of people are gonna die the president has dispatched battle groups Arabian Gulf and Yellow Sea and then there's a light motif for Sam all right mojo I got the card I need the
1:32 girl dude are you sure we're invited to this party of course smile and there's a light motif for the Decepticons oh god what is that and then there's this light motif but like I don't know I guess it's just supposed to sound sad can't just beat the dye tops of human
2:20 experiment field no matter what happens I'm really glad I got in that Club [Music] I'm not sure it's sort of hard to tie down but what gets more confusing is that on the soundtrack this track is actually labeled optimist [Music] then there's this other theme that represents bumblebee trust but it also represents the Allspark carbon dating puts the cube here or
3:10 around 10,000 BC but what gets even more confusing is that there's also this other theme that you can argue represents bumble bee as well yes [Music] but on top of all that confusion you can actually see these light motifs eventually contribute to the narrative of the film overall like at the end of the film and Sam is running from Megatron with the cube you hear the theme that can be described as representing the Allspark alongside the theme for the Decepticons and this is kind of a detriment to not
3:55 having accurate light motifs when your light motifs are any kind of inconsistent it makes it difficult to assign all the narrative influence that they're supposed to have so for a first-time viewer the association between the story and the music might not make complete sense and the music won't really add to the story there's a chance that a lot of listeners missed out on this moment during the first time viewing but what's more is that not all these musical themes are treated equally some have melodies and some either don't really have any melodic content at all or just aren't as developed as other light motifs like if you look at Sam's light motif or the light motif or the decepticons there's no real melody it's more like an accompaniment or if you did want to call it a melody then it's a very basic note but if you look at something like the Autobots theme then there's a clear melody with phrases and complete ideas now we could sit here for the next half-hour and talk about what does and does not count as a melody and go over periods and antecedent and consequent phrases and cadential formula
4:41 but that can all get kind of dance and I'm not up for defining what qualifies is developing a motif especially because the track I want to talk about uses a lot of sequencing in short I don't want to get into a philosophical debate about what does and does not count as a melody so instead let's just say that there's some thumb attic material in the score for Transformers it's more developed than others so if you look at arrival to Earth it actually has like phrases to it it has melodic content in fact arrival to Earth is kind of fascinating it actually has got some similarities believe it or not to let it go it waits to break out a four chord structure until the big memorable part of the track in the case of let it go it's literally the four chord pattern [Applause] [Music] in the case of arrival to earth it's a slightly modified version of those four chords
5:29 [Music] but what gets even more intriguing is that this section of the melody uses a lot of chord tones meaning that the melody is made up of notes that appear in the chord progression all in all this gives us a super simple section of music with a super simple melody which is exactly what you're gonna want if you want your film to be as popular and accessible as possible and reach a wide audience and aside from arguably being the most developed piece of music in the whole film it also plays during a montage with very little dialogue forcing the audience to focus more on the music but where transformers gets really interesting is when you look at transformers as a series for example I just talked about arrival to earth being one of the more developed musical ideas and transformers having a simple structure and being played during a montage with almost no dialogue you can directly compare that with a scene in the second film where all the Decepticons are assembling but with a
6:17 less pronounced piece of music I would argue that this piece of music doesn't have as much of a developed melody as a rival to earth which in turn makes it less noticeable and when you get to the second film you can actually see that a lot of the light motifs stay consistent we still have arrival the earth functioning as the de facto main theme for the series [Music] we still hear that Autobots theme
7:17 don't we get one of the bumblebee themes [Music] and we even hear Sam's like motif reappearing as well but look at that track titled optimist in the first film it was used as kind of a generic sad theme and in the second film it's not really that different vacating in here you're better than this sloshed
8:03 [Music] [Applause] but check out this track from the second film called Prime [Music] the track Prime is a variation of the track Optimus had they used this Optimus track as an actual theme for Optimus then the theme for the primes would have actually been musically related to Optimus you might even say that the theme transformed cuz I was a terrible joke [Music] you will have fought for Optimus so
8:52 there's evidence that at some point during the creation of these films that there is actually some thought put into how these themes were going to function and develop but at some point for some reason everything kind of went off the rails because when we get to film number three we start seeing cracks in the foundation like we get to hear that Autobots theme when Optimus literally flies in and saves the day Deano report to Bay 23 and we hear the bumblebee theme when he shows up and then again later when he gets saved and again we hear quote/unquote optimist but it doesn't really sew up for Optimus
9:38 it's more of like just they're both math then what we should do is we should sell it in buy a house [Music] but we do here arrival to earth in this film when the Autobots reveal themselves Sam but the strangest part of this film is that we hear arrival of earth when the Autobots are boarding the shuttle and actually leaving Earth [Music] I was so wrong doesn't make it your fault just makes you human for a change but we also hear it again when they reappear it would have been cool to maybe see the theme like get played backward which is technically called retrograde or something like that when the Autobots are boarding the shuttle to
10:24 leave because the Autobots leaving is literally the exact opposite of the name of the track but maybe that's the point like it's supposed to remind the audience of the first time the Transformers arrived which still made it feel a little weird or even awkward for me when they played a rival again when the Autobots come back which I'm sure nobody in the audience saw coming so yeah we still get to hear a lot of the music that got used from the last two films who are gonna do whatever we can make it like a bug but this is where you start to see large sections of film that don't really feel like they have any musical connection to the universe that had been established and once the fourth film comes around the whole musical structure almost completely gets left behind like I heard a little bit of one of bumblebees themes from the first film when marky-mark finds Optimus
11:12 but I want to say the next time I heard familiar music was right here they're in trouble this isn't our fight and don't being an underdog abundant which is about two hours and ten minutes into the film now either my eyes glazed over at some point and I just tuned out or they really didn't include almost any music from the last three films it's really strange it's almost like they got rid of Shia LaBeouf and then they figured and there goes the main character time to completely rewrite the score even though all the Transformers that got thematic materials still appear in this film it's not like the film was called Sam and The Adventures of his magical car it's transformers but from what I was able to pick up the music that was established in previous films doesn't really show up and by film number five when the music from the first film's actually shows up
11:57 it almost feels like a cameo [Applause] I have not heard it since Cybertron fell [Music] we are going to steal Quintessa staff right now [Music] but then again at the very end of the film like literally the last two minutes of this two and a half hour film we hear three full themes back-to-back and then we get credits [Music]
12:45 and it's so weird to see so little musical information come back for these films that have such immense runtimes you'd almost think you'd want to start repeating music just to give yourself less work having said that the later films feel like they might have their own newer themes that show up but I was just trying to pay attention to the Transformers series as a complete work so if they're there I didn't really notice them like it just doesn't make sense to introduce new music and ignore what had already been established because it would only serve to separate these films from the franchise that spent the last decade developing it's not like these are two films - a sequel trilogy right did I miss a memo somewhere am I missing a point I'll let the comments section set me straight looking at the Transformers series as a whole it's kind of sad and strange to see how it unfolded like the fourth film has a whole plot about making synthetic
13:30 transformers it would have been cool to hear an alternate version of bumblebees theme to represent stinger or like the whole point of the fifth film is that King Arthur and medieval England was significant to the Transformers timeline which like I don't really get but then again why not throw some Gregorian chant into the mix I know that the big joke nowadays is that the Transformers series sucks and it's filled with advertising so they can break even or they're just trying to appeal to a foreign market so what's the point in even discussing the soundtrack now right but when you look at the Transformers series as a whole from a musical perspective you can see a very clear decline there's a lot of musical material in the first film that would have created a really interesting foundation to build on for the rest of the series but by the third film you could start to see cracks and by film number five there are almost no connections to be made with the first at least from what I was able to find it kind of makes you wonder if all the negative attention surrounding the Transformers franchise
14:16 somehow got to the team behind the soundtrack I honestly feel like the musical foundation and framework of the Transformers series would have been strong enough to develop into a really interesting series of film scores had it not been for the limitations of the film's themselves I feel like it could have worked I really do thanks for watching I'd like to thank my patrons for making these videos possible with a very special thank you to Anna Burch AAF and Matt Ethan Rooney Hayden Elza and Donovan Hodges if you liked what you saw here be sure to subscribe and check out my other videos follow me on Twitter and twitch to have your musical questions answered live and if you really like what I'm doing consider supporting the channel on patreon that's going to be it for me for now thanks for watching [Music]
