The Maze Runner (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack to the 2014 dystopian science fiction film of the same name directed by Wes Ball. It consisted of 21 tracks from the film's score produced by John Paesano with a runtime of over an hour. Paesano was involved in the film, much before its production so that he could create the sketches based on the story and further develop the music to suit its visuals. The score resembled the classic Hollywood films and takes inspiration from John Williams' score for fantasy films to mimic the grandeur.^[1]

The score premiered exclusively at the MTV website on September 12, 2014,^[2] before setting for an official release four days later. Sony Classical Records published the score through digital distribution and in CDs and vinyl LP formats.^[3][4]

Development

Paesano watched Ball's short film Ruin which was presented to the executives of 20th Century Fox; he was also scoring for small-budget films to the studio and which insisted the executives to recruit him for the film. He also composed few cues to be submitted for the production agents. He and Ball were inspired by Steven Spielberg, John Williams and James Cameron's works and the creative vision they share between them were similar, which resulted him to score for music for the film.^[1]

After his hiring, Paesano read the novel the film was based on and started composing off the film's script. The main title was the first sketch he had written for the film. Being a fan of Williams and Jerry Goldsmith, headmitted to do an "epic score" for the film even before the production began. The initial score he composed for the footage did not quite fit to the film. Hence he had to mold it to fit the picture, as "the music goes with the spirit of the film". The music was a "throwback to old Hollywood" as it inspires the timeline of that period even though it was fresh for the film, and its budget being smaller than that of the fantasy film productions from major studios he felt "it was amazing what he was able to squeeze in and it stands up with all those other films".^[1]

Paesano recalled that before initially scoring a 10-minute suite, he would imagine the story in mind and not the visuals, so that he can have the freedom to write the score he thought of, whereas if the pictures come in his mind he would have to accompany the visuals for the score. Some of the music he composed were inspired from the themes he created on SoundCloud, that are basically stemmed from his imagination.^[1]

Paesano admitted that unlike the older times, where film scores take a longer time to be composed, the process had been advanced due to technology, where mainstream composers did not write suites, they instead compose for scene-to-scene during eight weeks and complete the score before the film's release. This felt that they "lose the ability to sit and live with the score and the story for a while and cannot figure out what does work and what doesn't" which leads to an experimentation process trying several things before the actual process. It felt unusual as Paesano was hired even before the production, so that he could visit the sets on person, and absorb the story and the characters. During his visit to the village set on New Orleans, he thought of the "acoustic and environmental sound" on the set, which intended him to record the natural sounds and incorporate it into the score.^[1]

Some of the instrumentation included beating big oil drums with sticks, brass, percussions and being incorporated into the orchestral score. The score was recorded for 8-9 days at the Newman Scoring Stage.^[1][5]

Track listing

Reception

James Southall of Movie Wave wrote "The Maze Runner comes really close to being brilliant – almost all of it is well-composed and vibrant, there are interesting ideas and it’s refreshingly some distance away from the clueless Remote Control soundalikes that tend to dominate these films today.  Paesano knows how to write real music and there’s a decent dramatic flow to the whole thing."^[6] Writing for Renowned for Sound, Kirsten Maree reviewed it as a "classic horror movie score that will leave you feeling as scared and trapped as its characters" and further called it "cunningly eerie, shamelessly unforgiving and hauntingly beautiful".^[7]

Filmtracks.com wrote "Paesano treats many of the character moments in The Maze Runner with comparatively light tones for acoustic guitar and woodwinds, allowing too much contrast between the unbridled explosions of noise in the action material and the needed emotional connections of the softer portions. Also working against him is a very dry mix that sounds shallow at times. His electronically manipulated elements are fine, as is the occasional choral infusion, but the ensemble does have the resounding feeling in the recording that he was seemingly seeking; as such, the whole is a bit flat. Still, this a good starting point for any franchise, and one can hope that the narrative will be clarified in future entries."^[8] Pete Simons of Synchrotones called it as a "very solid and enjoyable action-thriller score".^[9]

Accolades

Credits

Credits adapted from CD liner notes.^[3][4]

References