Twilight Saga: Eclipse the Score

The Twilight movies have each been unique films, each one having a different director. The scores for the movie are similar, each having a different composer. But while the directors of the franchise have at least paid some respect to the others' work, the three composers have each given their own take on the music of Twilight and haven't done much to create stylistic consistency.

Carter Burwell's score incorporated pop music elements and was effective in that it catered to Twilight's core audience even if the music was sometimes structurally weak. Alexandre Desplat created a more traditional, classical score that was influenced by the recurring "Romeo and Juliet" motif in the film. He just about completely ignored Burwell's music, and while his own material was thematically strong, it was often borderline nebulous and it didn't do much for me in the actual film, particularly in scenes that were supposed to be emotionally dramatic.

Now, Shore has ignored...Read more

I was very surprised to see the rating for this soundtrack. I thought for sure that this disc, everyone would agree that it was the best out of the three. So, intrigued, I clicked on a one star review, and then read the rest. And I noticed a theme throughout all of them. They seemed to go back to New Moon's score and talk about one thing, the title track "New Moon."
Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE that song. It's haunting, memorable, and blends the strings brilliantly. But really, that's the only song on that disc that I truly enjoy listening to.
The Eclipse Score, on the other hand, has an entire list of songs that I will continually listen to. In the more romantic songs, "First Kiss," which to me blends strings and horns wonderfully, and "Imprinting," seems to have this innocence to the music that's hard to describe.
In the more dramatic songs, "Riley," and "Victoria," top that list. An honorable mention goes to "The Battle," because I love the drum pattern in...Read more

Howard Shore did a superior job with the score for Eclipse. He capsulated the feelings of sorrow, joy, love, death, and fear throughout the songs incorporating music from the soundtrack as well. This soundtrack is, in my opinion, as good as the Twilight score. The music flows smoothly and there is no jump in style as there was in New Moon's score. Truly a wonderful cd to listen to for ambience, traveling, or just in the background. Wonderful!