Describing anything as "perfect" smacks of a lack of context. This is especially true for situations where the thing you're describing as "perfect" is totally subjective, such as in movies or music. I am therefore about to make possibly the most inane-sounding statement I've ever made; there aren't many movies with a perfect score.
By 'score' in this instance I of course mean the music written to accompany the visuals, and not its freshness on Rotten Tomatoes. Given what was just established about the impossibility of perfection re: subjective things, it is as I've acknowledged pretty strange to say there aren't many perfect scores out there. Of course there aren't! Honestly, it's pretty laughable to suggest that there are any perfect scores!
So I'm gonna seem even more ill-informed right here as I suggest that, in my experience, I've come across two.
Let me quickly articulate what I mean when I say "a perfect score" beyond divesting myself of any tie to fruit. Simply put I'm saying that the music written for a film is so flawlessly suited to that film that even without seeing the movie the music will suggest the correct images, settings, and emotions to your mind. Not just music that supports or bolsters the story and characters, like Jurassic Park; that's a great score, don't get me wrong, but it could be made to suite any number of adventure films. No, I mean a score that is so inseparable from its film in both production and result that you can't possibly imagine how any other composer at any other time could possibly have written it.
I'm on record as saying that I believe the score for The Lord of the Rings trilogy is one of those, a diamond in the proverbial cave-of-wonders, an essentially perfect score. But as I said above I've come across two. Now I don't mean to suggest that these are the only two perfect scores out there, but that I've never seen/heard any others and I can't help but think they're incredibly rare.
Which is why it's so strange to say that, as far as I can contemplate, the only other perfect score I've found is TRON: Legacy.
I know, I know. It's weird. But I'm not backing down. Listening to the music for TRON: Legacy prior to the movie's release set the stage for the film perfectly in my mind. It defined my emotional beats, it established themes and settings, and by Jove if the dang music doesn't just look like it's crawling with blue and orange neon. I don't mean that in the literal sense, of course, but simply put that music evokes the essence of TRON: Legacy in a way that the movie itself doesn't even manage.
Because yeah, there are problems with TRON: Legacy. It's nowhere near as bad as people want to think it is, but it didn't deserve to be nominated for 11 Oscars the way Return of the King was. One of the things it fails at is being consistent about how it treats the grid. Identity discs change their behavior however is needed to suit the convenience of the plot, and the abilities of a user on the grid are poorly defined and seemingly under-utilized. The movie is fun and cool to look at but, simply put, it doesn't feel real the way a really good movie would a lot of the time.
And then the score kicks in and suddenly, it does. The Grid Theme starts playing and as if by magic the grid makes sense. It's believable. You can't help but wonder what the data does look like zipping around in there, whether it's motorcycles, or maybe tanks. You kinda start to believe that, yeah... you could get in.
Whether it's thumping electronic beats (because Daft Punk wrote it, of course there's thumping electronic beats) or whether it's shockingly intricate orchestral pieces (a wheelhouse I did not realize Daft Punk had fully stocked), it evokes the world and story of TRON: Legacy flawlessly. It never misses a, uh... beat. The "suiting up" scene prior to the disc wars is a good microcosm of the film as a whole. That scene is idiotic. Synchronization, undressing, and disc encoding serve to call a thousand questions to mind. What are these programs supposed to be? Are they all part of the same program? Why don't they question the lack of a disc or the fact that these clothes aren't glowing when seemingly every other program on the grid is glowing somehow? Watching that scene muted is like tripping blindly across a field covered in badger-plot-warrens.
Or you can watch it with music, and none of that matters. Because when the music plays, it just... makes sense.
It's hard for me to say precisely whether this will match up with the experience a person who doesn't really like electronic music has, but I suspect it would. I suspect that if you don't like electronic music your sense won't be that there's anything wrong with the music. You'll probably come away feeling like the entire movie was just distasteful. Plenty of people feel that way, and while they shout many reasons, both valid and not, I suspect that come right down to it the reason they didn't like it is because they just don't jive with the world of TRON: Legacy as communicated by its music.
Which is their prerogative, I suppose. But I would challenge anyone who feels that way to describe how any other score written by any other person at any other time could have made them feel so distinctly that they were engaged with TRON: Legacy. My guess is that if you really think about it you'll agree that without that music nobody would have liked or disliked the movie at all.
Instead, everyone would have forgotten it even existed.
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