I often describe Tron: Legacy as having one of my favorite film soundtracks. It is epic, and fits in with my immense love for big, dramatic scores.As a Sci Fi film, Oblivion had a huge amount to live up to. However, if any Sci Fi was going to do it, it could only be this film, as not only were both films directed by the same man (Joseph Kosinski). But, that isn't the only aspect that joins the two films, as co-composer Joseph Trapanese also arranged and orchestrated the Tron: Legacy score.
The aspect that I always felt made Tron's soundtrack so amazing, was the blend of a big score, with the electronic sounds of Daft Punk. Personally, I felt that this worked really well, so it makes sense - to me, at least - that Kosinski and Trapanese would mirror this strategy by pairing up with band M83. M83 had also contributed to the remix album Tron: Legacy Reconfigured.
It's easy to want to say "I'm not going to compare the two soundtracks", but with all the connections, it is virtually impossible not to, especially when half way through the film I can't get it out of my head that it sounded like the Tron score, and that was even before I realised that the film had any connections whatsoever.
On a whole, M83 don't really compare to the overall oomph that Daft Punk offered, however this is still a brilliant soundtrack, full of powerful tracks that are certainly just as epic. I've heard a few people suggesting that Oblivion is a throwback to the sci fi films of the seventies, and score-wise, I can definitely feel that vibe, with it's tinkly sound.
My only real grievance is that a lot of the tracks feel very "samey", as many of them start out quite slow and
quiet, before exploding into a whirl of heavy beats. Don't get me wrong, I do like that, and it's quite effective, however, I do feel that the score would have benefited from being a little more diverse rather than every other track sounding like a re-hash of a previous one.
The album concludes with the film's stunningly powerful ending credits track; Oblivion featuring the vocal talents of Norwegian singer Susanne Sundfor. The song closes the film so nicely, and certainly left a smile of satisfaction on my face, similar to one created by the End Credits track of Tron: Legacy and Linkin Park's What I've Done at the end of the first Transformers film.
Overall, this is a superb soundtrack, but I do think that it could have been a a lot more, with a little more originality, as it just sounds too much like it's predecessor.
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