Why your Nostalgic Reboot Musically Sucks

0:00 okay so before we go anywhere I want to establish the difference between a sequel and a reboot a sequel is a movie built in the same universe as the movie that came before it whereas a reboot is a movie that completely reinvents the universe from the movie that came before it and ignores all continuity between the two films now sequels are am amazingly easy to work with when it comes to music because as long as all the producers have done their jobs you don't really have much to do outside of like re-recording and rearranging everything what I mean is you don't have to come up with a completely new soundtrack because you're trying to maintain as much of a connection to the original film as possible like Let's Take Back to the Future for example here's the main theme from Back to the [Music] Future and here's the main theme from Back to the Future Part

0:45 [Music] Two and here's the theme from Back to the Future Part [Music] three I'm sensing a theme here now it makes sense that these themes get a little bit of a makeover like part three gets kind of a western feel to it to fit in with the Western Vibe of the movie in general but overall you're dealing with the same actors playing the same characters doing the same thing in the same car why would you not want to have the same music playing all over that still not convinced that writing music for a sequel isn't less work let's take this movie that a couple of you might not have heard of so just look at the trailer to episode 7

1:31 [Music] okay maybe it got reorchestrated and rearranged and re-recorded and maybe it has a synthesizer added to it or something like that but no one is going to listen to that and think oh yeah John Williams had to write a brand new theme to Star Wars I mean I haven't taken a super in-depth look at the film or the score or even sat down and watched it since it came out in theaters cuz [ __ ] you but I mean the only super noticeable piece of music that I picked up on that was brand new was Ray's theme so like writing music for sequels isn't really that bad comparatively for writing an entirely new score for a brand new film unless like you end up losing the rights to the original film which would have the exact same effect as losing anything else from the original film I mean did you lose your leite actor then yeah nobody's going to care about your new [ __ ] like that time when War Machine got a facelift and yeah

2:17 it doesn't make a lot of sense in terms of continuity and that's going to bother people but the same thing is going to happen for how effective your soundtrack is if the audience doesn't recognize the main theme it's not going to sound like your sequel is taking place in the same universe like when Tim Burton and Danny Elfman left the Batman series Batman and Batman Returns had elfman's theme the one that most people associate with Batman and Batman Forever and Batman and Robin do their best to mimic the tone but it's just not the same okay but that's sequels let's get to reboots which I will admit are not only harder to do than sequels from a musical perspective but in many cases can be harder than just writing your own score to a brand new intellectual property that is of course if you give a [ __ ] so before I start seeing it in the comment section I just want you to know that this isn't going to be a blind hate speech against Michael Bay I'm trying to make a point point and a few of the

3:02 films he's been a part of really prove my point because they reboots of intellectual properties from the late 80s and early '90s that had theme songs all right so the deal here is that these new reboots have like zero musical information or musical references from their Source material in a lot of instances when getting the rights to a property they might not also be able to get the rights to the theme music or any other miscellaneous musical rights because it didn't come as a part of the package or as just too expensive or timeconsuming to get which is understandable and unfortunately kind of makes your job a little harder but it still isn't possible like okay let's look at Transformers as an example musically there's nothing I've been able to find in my quick Google search and re-watching of the film that musically links it to its original 1984 cartoon more specifically there's no reference to the theme song because for a lot of cartoons back then that was basically all the music that was involved in

3:49 making a cartoon and this is kind of a big deal you're trying to reinvigorate a franchise why not take as much of the original Source material as possible especially a medium like a cartoon show see theme songs started back in the radio show days to let you know your favorite show was starting think of it as an alarm clock that you actually wanted to hear go off but over time it began to include like Exposition or information that was important for first time listener in order to understand the story think of the intro to avatar the Last air bender for example and then the Fire Nation attacked now you know it's up and you can follow with the story but right around the 9s the era where we're talking about here theme music really made a push to try and establish the tone of what you were about to start watching like look at Batman the Animated Series it has a direct reference to the 1989 Batman film and generally sets a very dark if heroic tone for the series so theme music's

4:34 really important like dude the Transformers and Bam if you used to watch Transformers as a kid you are now in Transformers mode you are ready to transform Autobots [ __ ] roll out which sucks that they couldn't include any of that in the film like not even make the score electronic with 80s equipment kind of like what they did for the Deadpool soundtrack I thought it was great to use sounds and musical ideas that in the'80s were perceived as very serious but now in hindsight when you play them back they're actually very funny that was the trick with this movie even as an homage to the original cartoon like just have Optimist say Autobots roll out and then have a synthesizer follow with the main theme of the cartoon like that would be cool like in movies like the new Star Trek scored by Michael Gino it makes sense to have an orchestral score because an electronic score might confuse the

5:20 listeners to what sounds are a part of the soundtrack and what sounds are coming from the ship which a lot of people call diagenic versus non- diagenic music but with Transformers wouldn't an electronic score help make Optimus seem more robot or at the absolute very least make the tone of the film seem more like it fits into a stem field I don't know maybe they're just all going for that big Han Zimmer Pirates the Caribbean sound now because it worked for them and now everybody just wants to deliver on what people expect when someone hears the phrase big summer blockbuster like remember here I'm not bashing the composers those guys are always doing everything they can with what they're told to do and the resources that they have access to the only way a composer can get his and or her best work on the screen is if they're best buds with the director like the these two okay so back to bashing directors so let's take the new Teenage M Ninja Turtles now this one's actually

6:08 tougher the original theme is dated I mean it's way more dated than Transformers I'm pretty sure you can get beat up in most high schools if you call somebody a radical rat he's a radical rat so dropping the theme song into the film wouldn't really work unless it was dienic like it was somebody's ringtone or something so if you're going to include the original theme you have to invent it and that's if you want to include the original theme so why the hell does this movie have an entirely chestal soundtrack like I don't know if I need to remind you but the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are teenagers mhm Pizza dude's got 30 seconds mhm and the only teenagers on Earth that listen to the kind of orchestral music that you have in this film grow up to be me yeah it's going to date your movie but you don't seem to have a problem with that anyway just go with something

6:54 that's super popular and relevant with the era you got Juicy J Whiz Khalifa and Tai dollas sign to do the main selling point of your soundtrack I don't know their price tag is or was when you made this movie but that theme they did for the film should be playing while the turtles are kicking [Applause] ass not at the end because that theme doesn't really reflect the original theme song to The Turtles the original theme was really about delivering Exposition it tells everybody who the turtles are what their individual personalities are like where where they come from and who the bad guys are if you're looking for a Turtles theme that really managed to reinvent that theme but maintain its purpose and still deliver all that information take a quick look at what Nickelodeon did to

7:40 the 2012 version of the TV show I thought they did a good job with the theme and that they kept what it was supposed to do while still making it more contemporary but instead that super pricey song Shell Shock just becomes an Anthem for people ejecting DVDs and going to the bathroom now there are actually some times when you might want to completely reinvent a franchise musically speaking like in recent years James Bond became a blonde and in many ways you might want to drop that Jazzy feeling of Bond's predecessors and replace it with something darker with more emphasis on the orchestra just to musically communicate how this new Bond contrasts the old Bond because James Bond is different now but he still has that freaky 7s highly stylized opening and he's going to have that main James Bond theme reference throughout the film even if it's his own version because he's still [ __ ] James Bond so he's still going to keep doing this the name's

8:28 Bond James Bond now I bring all this up and I get all butt hurt about it because you ass hats are making a new Power Rangers movie and just can just put the main theme in an electric guitar don't put the main theme in the orchestra like even if everybody who's paying for the movie wants the music to be orchestral so it can fit the bill for a summer blockbuster fine go for it but just put the main theme that main melody in an electric guitar even if it's just the one track just give us that you don't have to copy and paste a theme song from the '90s as awesome as that would be for me because that would brutally date your movie and no one under 20 would get it and you don't have to hire Fallout Boy to redo the theme either there's a way to include the musical information from a source

9:15 material if you're making a reboot even if it's just a single instrument instead of an entire theme song something that can pay homage for the people who understand and have come back to celebrate the source material and I promise you it's going to make the climax of your film that much better