Soundtrack Preview: The Last Airbender by James Newton Howard

Take all the stabs at M. Night Shyamalan's past work that you want. Proclaim all the mockery of The Last Airbender that the film will likely deserve. There is still reason to see the film, probably the most of which is the musical score. Composer James Newton Howard is one of the greatest film composers currently existing, matched only by Michael Giacchino, Hans Zimmer, and John Williams. Even though the film may not need to exist at all, I'm glad it does so that we can receive this score.

The score arrived on iTunes early for whatever reason, so it is now available to the general public. The score is suitably epic, weaving several tunes together, and never leaving behind the semi-child friendly quality it needs. That's really the only problem that I have with this score. It sounds a little too much like a soundtrack for a childrens action movie, which this film will be. I kind of hope the film succeeds so we get another score like this, but I also hope it fails so we can start from scratch and make something good.

There's a full track of the film playing at In Contention, and I highly suggest listening to it. It contains quite a few of the themes recurring through the entire score. I'm not going to give the score a grade, because I think it deserves to be graded in contrast to the film it belongs to.