Avatar (James Horner)

 (Regular Album)

Deluxe Edition (available as an MP3 Download only)

(2009)

James Cameron’s Avatar has been one of the most eagerly awaited films in recent years. Cameron first came up with the idea for the film in 1995, but had to wait until 2005 to begin production because the technology wasn’t advanced enough in the 90’s. The film itself went down a similar route that his previous feature Titanic did – over budget, release dates pushed back, expected to be a total failure and take the studio with it. Titanic broke all box office records and became the most successful film ever made. Avatar did exactly the same.

Speaking personally however, I found Avatar to be nothing but a sugarcoated load of garbage. The sugarcoating is of course the 3D, which, along with the extraordinary visual effects, make up for the banal script, bad acting, and a story that is pretty much identical to that of Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves, except that the Indians are replaced with CGI smurfs. I didn’t see it in 3D, so all I got to see was yet another crappy sci-fi film. According to Cameron, 3D will be the standard film format in ‘a couple of years’. I guess that if the audience are impressed enough with the 3D, they won’t mind how bad the film really is. I love technology, but I really don’t want film-making to go 3D – it will ruin cinema. The purpose of a film is to tell a story, and you don’t need 3D for that.

The film takes place on Pandora, a moon in a fictional galaxy, which is inhabited by the CGI smurfs (Na’Vi) that I mentioned earlier. Humans are mining a valuable resource named ‘unobtanium’ (why are they bothering then?), but the Na’Vi aren’t too happy about them tearing up their sacred lands. A even bigger problem that is faced by the humans is that most of the unobtanium is located under the Na’Vi’s front door.

So, using the DNA of the Na’Vi, and DNA of the humans, the humans create ‘Avatars’ remotely controlled Na’Vi bodies which establish a link between the Na’Vi body and the human. They then planned on sending someone into the Na’Vi’s territory to try and persuade them to move out. The person who that task was assigned to was unfortunately killed in a robbery, so his paraplegic twin brother Jake (Sam Worthington) is hired as his replacement.

The Na’Vi take a liking to Jake, but unfortunately he also takes a liking to them, and so decides to help then fight against the humans. Then there’s a big battle, the Na’Vi, with Jake’s help, win, and the nasty humans are sent home…

The score on the other hand, is excellent. For Avatar, Cameron collaborated for the third time with James Horner, having already worked with him on Aliens (1986), and Titanic, the latter of which won eleven Oscars, including two for Horner. Horner had over a year to compose the score to the film – very unusual compared to the two to three months that a composer would usually get.

Horner was required to create a musical culture for the Na’vi world, and several themes feature choral segments in the Na’vi language. To reflect the Na’vi world in the score, Horner composed two scores to the film, one of which reflected the Na’vi world of sound, and another, more traditional score, which were combined into one.

Horner described this score as the most difficult he has ever written. In order to keep his mind focused on this film, Director James Cameron didn’t want him to score other films while he was working on this one, and this was therefore his first score since The Spiderwick Chronicles in 2008.

The first part of the score contains little melodic content, and concentrates more on reflecting the Na’vi world of sound, through the use of heavy percussion (brand new percussion instruments were created just for this film), synthesizers, and choral segments in the Na’vi language.

Themes later on in the score, such as ‘Climbing Up Iknimaya – The Path to Heaven’ and ‘Jake’s First Flight’, both feature brilliant vocal works combined with mostly percussion instruments. And yes, it is pretty much identical to one of the cues from Glory, but it’s nevertheless been re-orchestrated so well and sounds wonderful.

We then move on to some action themes, my favourite of which was War. Over ten minutes long, the cue is played mostly on percussion and horns, with the occasional choral segment. This is probably the best theme from the score, a wonderful, epic sounding piece, and probably one of the best action themes that Horner has ever written. The cue starts as a violent choral/orchestral piece, but throughout it switches between that and a softer, but still excellent theme as we switch between the humans and the Na’vi approaching each other in battle.

The song “I See You”, performed by Leona Lewis, was, put quite simply, awful. It’s based on the love theme between Neytiri and Jake, which is almost identical to the love theme for Jack and Rose in Titanic. But the lyrics are incredibly banal and it’s so over-done that it just wasn’t enjoyable.  Avoid that.

Also available the “Deluxe” edition of the score, there are an six additional themes not included in the original release, my favourite of which was “Pandora”, a beautiful cue consisting of vocals in the Na’Vi language, percussions, and woodwinds. The only downsides of it were a couple of vocals which sounded rather like somebody throwing up and sneezing.

It has a few disappointing moments, but all in all, Avatar is a wonderful score and a fine achievement by Horner. Definitely the score of the year, and should have been the Oscar winner.

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Track Listing

1 – “You don’t dream in cryo…”
2 – Jake enters his Avatar world
3 – Pure spirits of the forest
4 – The bioluminescence of the night
5 – Becoming one of “The People”, Becoming one with Neytiri
6 – Climbing up “Iknimaya – The Path to Heaven”
7 – Jake’s first flight
8 – Scorched earth
9 – Quaritch
10 – The destruction of Hometree
11 – Shutting down Grace’s lab
12 – Gathering all the Na’vi clans for battle
13 – War
14 – I See You (Theme from Avatar) – Performed by Leona Lewis

Bonus Tracks (Deluxe Edition)

15 – Pandora
16 – Viperwolves Attack
17 – Great Leonoptryx
18 – Escape from Hellgate
19 – Healing Ceremony
20 – The Death of Quaritch

Credits

Composed and Conducted by James Horner

Orchestrations by James Horner, J.A.C. Redford, Jon Kull, Nicholas Dodd, Gary K. Thomas

Recorded at The Newman Scoring Stage, 20th Century Fox Studios

Recorded and Mixed by Simon Rhodes

Produced by James Horner & Simon Rhodes

Awards

Academy Award for Best Original Score (nominated)

Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score (nominated)

Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song (nominated)

BAFTA Award for Best Film Music (nominated)

Grammy Award for Best Score (nominated)

Grammy Award for Best Song (nominated)

Insert Notes

Contain extensive credits, as well as notes from both director James Cameron and composer James Horner, and a few photos from recording sessions.

All artwork and images are Copyright © Atlantic Records / Fox Music.