Thoughts on the Batman Beyond soundtrack

[WBArchivist]

I finally picked up a copy of the Return of the Joker soundtrack. Here's a long look at my feeling towards it.

The film’s main title is an arousing fusion of the Batman Beyond theme and an orchetstrial score. The song quickly evolves into a hard driving rock peice that seems to capture the sentimental feel of the film as well as the the feel of the pumped up action sequences. Like the television theme, it captures your attention right away.

Industrial heist is a smartly written peice that brilliantly incorperates electronic elements with the orchestrial feel of the original Batman. It’s riveting and makes the film interesting from the start. The strings are incredible as Batman descends from above into the Gotham City skyline, appropriately ending the track. This track is also sequenced differently in the film, but it’s effect is just as exciting.

Meet the Joker is scored as if it were a horror film, and bringing electronic sounds into the Joker’s character just makes him more freakish. The rest of the track is a little monotimus, but plays a chilling role in the film.

Joker Crashes Bruce’s Party is typical sounding Batman Beyond background music, and at a minute and a half is sounds less intense on CD than it does on the screen.

In Terry Releived of Duty, we are first introduced to the woodwinds that reoccur in the film. This track is excellent, capturing the tension between Bruce and Terry, and supplements to the film’s thatrical sound. It ends on a negitive note, but what’s a movie without conflict?

Nightclub fight is another typical Batman Beyond “Terry in action” peice. It’s second part, Terry Rescues Bruce, is bridged by a hard driving rythem sequence that quickely adds strings and horns (that sound a bit cheesy at first). Then, once we arrive at the point in which a shocked Terry discovers Bruce gassed, we hear strings and a wailing electric guitar.

A Trap for Tim opens with low strings forshadowing a tragedy, and right away after hearing the Robin theme, we know bird boy is in for a suprise. This track perfectly represents the sound of the original series, and just feels so... right. *sob*

Plucked strings, winds, and muted horns bring us the perfect picture of Mister J in Joker Family Portrait. A fiftys commercial sound that reminded me of the House of the Future in Phantasm leads into the chiling noise of a music box vibrating on an acoustic guitar. Pretty slick, Chris!

Arkham Mayhem captures the Batman’s extreme rage against the demented freak who stole his kid. You almost can hear Joker’s sinister laugh in the background.

Overall, I think this is the way the series should ALWAYS sound. The MIDI "Zeta"ish stuff gets old fast.

Anyone else buy this soundtrack? Even though it's under 45 minutes, it's worth the 13 bucks (in my opinion).

[The Mad Hatter]

I've got it, I dig it. I like how they took both the B:TAS sound and the BB sound and took them both in new directions. The flashback stuff gives us a tiny bit of the brassy energy, but largely melts into truly creepy stuff as we discover just how disturbed the Joker really is. As for the future stuff, "Nightclub Fight" sounded the most traditional. But I liked how they incorporated an industrial whirring, along with this strange, twisted electronic hiccup that sounds like the Joker laughing. But "Industrial Heist" has got to be my favorite track... I absolutely adore how the guitar riffs trade with horn "riffs." Makes me wish the TV series incorporated traditional instruments more often... oh well.

And yeah, the soundtrack on Zeta is just as washed out as the rest of the show. Bleh.

[Inque]

i really only like 4 of the songs.

1. Batman chases Inque
2. Inque escapes
3. Farewells
4. the legacy continues.

the first two remind me of my favorite fillian and the other 2 are nice because they're not all hard core electric guitar. i also love the piano parts and vocal parts in farewells.

[The Mad Hatter]

Err, we were talking about the ROTJ soundtrack. You're talking about the normal Batman Beyond soundtrack. The music for ROTJ is a lot better.

[Sharklady]

Question: Is 'fillian' a typo, or a new term (new to me, anyway) for a female villain?

[Inque]

Originally posted by The Mad Hatter
Err, we were talking about the ROTJ soundtrack. You're talking about the normal Batman Beyond soundtrack. The music for ROTJ is a lot better.

whoops then i'll talk about the rotj soundtrack....overall i like it, it gives a good sense to the movie, but i absolutely do not like "crash" the vocals are very irritating, especially in the beginnig of the song when the guy yells for a few second. I don't like his voice.