Over on the Film Score Monthly forum, the gentleman who runs La-La Land Records answered someone’s question about a possible release of Randy Edelman’s score for the film:
*Believe me, I want this score as well (plus it would continue my total ■■■■■■■■■■ of Summer of 1989 scores)
However, GB2 score elements simply do not exist. We can’t find them at Sony nor does Mr Edelman know where they could be.*
Oh well. At least I managed to get Varese Sarabande’s release of Elmer Bernstein’s score for the first film when it was still available.
The bright side is the studios find things all the time. The score for the original Fright Night was thought lost until another record label finally located it.
It’s actually quite sad how often these things happen. I’ve been waiting for the Terminator 2 score for years, now. But as far as anyone knows, it simply doesn’t exist. Fiedel’s masters rotted away, and no one knows of any back-ups.
Maybe it’s simply because I view the Ghostbusters II score as being sub-par to Elmer Bernstein’s effort, but whilst unfortunate, the revelation isn’t world devestating.
It’d be nice for completionists if it did turn up, although in order of priority, I’d prefer to have the Real Ghostbusters score, and intro theme turn up next.
If you want sad, do a little looking into television shows that were around when tape first went into use. After an episode was recorded, they would simply tape over the master instead of buying more tapes, which were expensive at the time. Many, many shows are lost to time because of this.
About a year of Doctor Who exists strictly as fan-made audio-recordings coupled with production stills. And many film companies would actually destroy parts of their film catalogues as color and sound came into play. I find the thought of such destruction, even through negligence, to be unspeakable.
You can download the “score” on a torrenting site. someone just edited out all of the talking, sound effects, ect from the movie. It’s better than nothing.
Just a re-release of the original disc. Except for the Main Title, it’s missing everything before Sarah’s escape from Pescadero. All of the excised material has been presumed lost, hence the truncated re-release. Considering the absolutely beautiful re-recording of Poledouris’ Conan score that was released last year, it’s sad to see one of the biggest films of all time see nothing even remotely close to a proper score release.
Some fans supposedly managed to compile a clean version of the score by mixing and matching the various audio channels on one of the releases (I’d assumed the HD version from the Extreme Edition, since the Blu-ray was still a ways off when this happened) but they never uploaded it anywhere… I pretty much figured they made it all up.
There is a “Complete Version” floating around, but it’s just the CD version with some of the tracks chopped up and retimed to approximate the missing cues.
I enjoyed the isolated score while it was new, with the sound effects and whatnot. But just imagining how much detail is probably there to be enjoyed crystal clear. One that comes to mind is the courtroom when the chairs pop up. I’d love to hear all that in it’s crystal clear entirety.
Disappointing…I find it odd and and frustrating that a music score for a modern major motion picture could be lost? I also never understood why a score of the film was never released at the time. I mean it’s well put together by Edelman and it would definitely have sold (maybe not as much as the song soundtrack) but still sold. I just find it strange that a score for a sequel to the biggest hit of 1984 is missing, probably lost forever. Someone in power over there needs to try and get it found.
I’m disappointed by this news, though it does confirm a rumor that LLL was looking into GB2.
On occasion, a label will make a big deal about lost masters or rights politics, but sometimes, a release will somehow find its way. One example is Gremlins. For years, Geffen was holding back the expansions of the Joe Dante/Jerry Goldsmith collaborations, then LLL made a break through with Innerspace. A little while back, no longer than a year, but I think it was sooner, FSM decided to set the record straight, that they were working on a Gremlins release, but had hit a snag, and they implied that it was looking dim. A couple weeks ago, it was released.
There was an issue with the Conan scores, and I think they were lost masters, but Intrada is releasing expansions of both scores.
So it is still possible that these masters could be tracked down or some kind of alternative could be worked out.
I seem to recall that they had to pull their Batman release from multiple sources.
Why not just get Edelman to piece together all the bits he reused in his other scores? When Cameron Diaz is getting chased down by the thugs in “The Mask” it’s almost identical to segments used in GBII.
I don’t know about lost masters, but I do know that Poledouris’ experiences during the recording sessions were terrible. The man spent close to a year writing the score, only to find himself fighting an arrogant and understaffed orchestra that couldn’t even acquire enough of the proper instruments, let alone play them, topped off with sub-par recording. Even if the masters still exist, Poledouris was less-than-pleased with the end result.
Though he passed before the re-recording sessions, the project began with his involvement and blessings, and the final release was nothing short of breathtaking. Literally, I couldn’t breathe when the Anvil of Crom kicked in, and cried when the theme began.
Funny thing is, a similar issue occurred during the RoboCop recording sessions, but with the complete opposite result. Basil wasn’t there for a lot of the recording, and the conductor was so offended by the film’s violence that he refused to screen the movie and opted to blindly attempt to match the tempo instead. Somehow, it matched up perfectly. Beat for beat, the film and music align. Positively magical!
This is a slightly crazy idea but if Sony are 100% sure the score to Ghostbusters II no longer exists could they not spend some money and get Randy Edleman to re-record the score again? He must still have the original music composition sheets.
I doubt if it did happen that Sony would be behind it. If anything, they would just get a check for saying, in the legal sense, “well, you paid, go ahead and re-record.” I doubt it would happen.
It could be lost. It could have been destroyed. Sadly, that does happen. In fact, that Final Cut and excellent restoration of Blade Runner almost didn’t happen because of it. At least, according to the restoration doc on one of the discs. They’d much rather spend millions on Jack and Jill than build more warehouse space.
