Composing Greatness: #9. Thomas Newman - "WALL-E" (2008)

Scene from WALL-E

Welcome to Composing Greatness: a column dedicated to exploring the work of film composers. This will specifically focus on the films that earned them Oscar nominations while exploring what makes it so special. This will be broken down into a look at the overall style, interesting moments within the composition, and what made the score worth nominating in the first place. This will also include various subcategories where I will rank the themes of each film along with any time that the composer actually wins. This is a column meant to explore a side of film that doesn't get enough credit while hopefully introducing audiences to an enriched view of more prolific composers' work. This will only cover scores/songs that are compiled in an easily accessible format (so no extended scores will be considered). Join me every Sunday as I cover these talents that if you don't know by name, you recognize by sound.

Series Composer: Thomas Newman

Entry: WALL-E (2008)

Collaborators (If Available): Carl Johnson & JAC Redford & Thomas Pastieri & Gary K. Thomas (Orchestration), Peter Gabriel (Performer, Music and Lyrics, "Down to Earth")

Nomination: Best Original Score 

Did He Win: No

Other Nominees:
Best Original Score
-Slumdog Millionaire (A.R. Rahman)*winner
-The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Alexandre Desplat)
-Defiance (James Newton Howard)
-Milk (Danny Elfman)

Best Original Song:
-"Jai Ho" (Slumdog Millionaire)*winner
-"O Saya" (Slumdog Millionaire)

Additional Information

This is to help provide perspective of where each composer is in their Oscar-nominated life as it related to the current entry.

Oscar Nomination: 10

Oscar Wins: 0

Track List

1. "Put On Your Sunday Clothes"
2. "2815 A.D."
3. "WALL-E"
4. "The Space Ship"
5. "Eve"
6. "Thrust"
7. "Bubble Wrap"
8. "La Vie En Rose"
9. "Eye Surgery"
10. "Worry Wait"
11. "First Date"
12. "Eve Retrieve"
13. "The Axiom"
14. "BNL"
15. "Foreign Contaminant"
16. "Repair Ward"
17. "72 Degrees and Sunny"
18. "Typing Bot"
19. "Septuacentennial"
20. "Gopher"
21. "WALL-E's Pod Adventure"
22. "Define Dancing"
23. "No Splashing No Diving"
24. "All Than Love's About"
25. "M-O"
26. "Directive A-113"
27. "Mutiny!"
28. "Fixing WALL-E"
29. "Rogue Robots"
30. "March of the Gels"
31. "Tilt"
32. "The Holo-Detector"
33. "Hyperjump"
34. "Desperate Eve"
35. "Static"
36. "It Only Takes a Moment"
37. "Down to Earth"
38. "Horizon 12.2"

Note: Listen to here.

Exploring the Music

The area of the column where I will explore the music in as much detail as I see fit for each entry.

Theme Exploration:

"2815 A.D."

The last time that Thomas Newman was involved with Pixar, it produced one of his finest hours with the score for Finding Nemo. It's easy to say that there's something about kids movies that brings out an exciting side to him. It's highly experimental with a lot of instruments clashing together to make something that mixes classical dramas with space operas. The whole meshing at times recalls composers that range from John Williams to Danny Elfman and even James Powell. This is a score that could serve as an introduction to the wider realm of sci-fi movie scores while also giving enough of a light edge to be wholly original. There's a lot of great orchestration on tap, and his mix of ambient sounds with romanticism makes for an excellent start to this soundtrack.

Interesting Standout:

"BNL"

At only seconds long, it's among the shortest tracks on the album. However, it's also one of the very few that actually came with lyrics. It's a cheeky song and one that fits into the bigger cult of Pixar, as BNL is present in almost every film. It stands out as one of the only original songs on the album, but also as a place where they get to stretch their lyrical wit instead of simple instrumentation. There's not much else to it, but it's a jingle that is bound to rank among the top of Pixar's quirky jingles, such as in Inside Out's "Triple Mint Gum." It's safe to say that there's a dozen back-up answers that are just as fun, but none of them have lyrics.

Best Moment:

"Define Dancing"

It's one of the rare compositions that are so good that they even received an individual Grammy nomination. What's not to love about a song that makes a ballroom dance track and sets it in space? There's so much wonderful texture to the song that sounds like soaring through the most beautiful of space. Thomas Newman has reinvented what a sci-fi score could sound like, and this is the prime example of how perfectly he made it sound. This is an innovative track that brings awe to a soundtrack that can also be exciting and dangerous at other points. As a whole, this is a firm reminder that Newman is and was one of the great composers of the modern era.

Song Exploration:
"Down to Earth"

This is the first time that Thomas Newman has gotten dual nomination in the same year. Here he combines music and lyrics to a song sung by Peter Gabriel. There's plenty to like about the song, even at its intimidating length. It's a song about finding the beauty of Earth and making the most of it. The song perfectly fits the themes of the film and Gabriel's rhythmic delivery creates a pretty catchy chorus. As a whole, it's a bit too daunting of a song to be the best of the year, but it definitely is a nice conclusion to a fairly strong film and score that pushed the boundaries of what family sci-fi could be. Everything about it is at least interesting, and that goes a long way to making the Oscars a better place.

Did This Deserve an Oscar Nomination?:
Yes

In all honesty, I find the Finding Nemo score to be wholly more satisfying. However, that isn't to say that what Thomas Newman does here is just as interesting. Here he pays homage to a lot of the great sci-fi composers of yesteryear, often referencing films like Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Alien. If you're an expert, you can hear all of the influence clear as day. However, Newman is also fascinating in the realm of orchestration, never going for simple compositions and resulting in something more enjoyably blissful. It isn't like The Good German, which felt too much like an homage that it lost what made Newman an interesting composer. It's a great example of why Pixar was at the height of their powers in the entire decade from 2000 to 2010. They knew how to push things further and find something deeper and more interesting. This is a more mature Newman, and thankfully it still works. 

Up Next: Skyfall (2012) for Best Original Score.

Best Theme

A ranking of all themes composed by Thomas Newman.
1. "Dead Already" - American Beauty (1999)
2. "Wow" - Finding Nemo (2003)
3. "Orchard House" - Little Women (1994)
4. "Rock Island, 1931" - Road to Perdition (2002)
5. "Shawshank Prison (Stoic Theme)" - The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
6. "2815 A.D." - WALL-E (2008)
7. "Unrecht Oder Recht (Main Titles" - The Good German (2006)
8. "The Bad Beginning" - A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
9. "End Titles" - Unstrung Heroes (1995)

Best Song

A ranking of all songs composed by Thomas Newman.

1. "Down to Earth" - WALL-E (2008)