Art by Brandon Schaefer
Post-apocalyptic and dystopian films have surged in popularity in the past decade. Much like these recent films, Logan’s Run focuses on the conflict between an intolerable home and some rumored promise land. Jerry Goldsmith highlights these two distinct locations by creating two distinct halves to the score.
The remnants of humanity live in a great city of interconnected bio-domes. The city automates all aspects of their lives through hyper-advanced technology, allowing its citizens to pursue hedonism and pleasure. The songs in the dome are a mixture of electronics and slimmed down orchestras. Together they are a collision of the inorganic and the organic. Goldsmith takes this a step farther and uses these parts to foreshadow the dark nature underlying the city – the inhabitants, distracted by the pleasures of flesh, do not realize that they are confined, their fates sealed by the city. Dark, droning bass, somber and wailing synthetic horns, an empty and dehumanized world.
Outside the dome, in the vast rolling landscape, the music shifts. Gone are the electronics, the darkness, the confinement of the city. Instead, they’re replaced by a full orchestra, the instruments of a pre-ruination humanity, a symbol of freedom and reclamation of the past. These sections, however, do not present an idealized world either – there is danger and uncertainty in the wild unknown world beyond. Despite these dangers, Goldsmith makes it clear that the future of humanity lies beyond those walls.