Forbidden Planet Spellbound

ScottCrane nails the music and sound effects replacement here. I don't know how he came up with the idea to use the score from Spellbound, but it's a perfect match. If you didn't know otherwise, you'd think this was the music originally written for the film. This is hands down my go-to version of the film. I only wish a few trims had been made to improve the pacing, since the film still drags at points just like the original, but that was never Scott's goal here, so I won't hold it against him. Great stuff!

So I couldnt make it through the original version. The sound gave me a headache and it was slowly paced. The change in music and SFX has helped me a lot! Its still slow for me, so i'd love to see an edit to fix that but thats probably just me.

Forbidden Planet is one of my all time favourite films. Pretty much the prototype for Star Trek and other sci-fi film/tv shows that followed decades after. I'll be honest, the original synthesizer score to me is the least memorable part of the film. After a while, the score loses its sting and more or less becomes monotonous.

Was the original score ground-breaking? Absolutely.

Was it entirely necessary to use it for every single moment throughout the film? In my opinion, no.

It sounded too showy as if the original composers were saying to the audience, 'did you hear what we did there?'. It works for some things like general foley in the overall sound mix but not as an entire musical score.

This is where Scott Crane's Spellbound edit comes to the rescue. While the synthesizers haven't been totally erased from the new sound mix, they've been appropriately dialled back as SFX to make way for the vastly superior score composed by Miklos Rozsa. Rozsa's score enhances many scenes with more dynamic and nuance. The use of the stereo re-recording conducted by Alan Wilson also greatly enhances the audio presentation of the film which allows for more spatial clarity.

The use of this score was an inspired choice and synchs up perfectly with the film. Nicely balanced within the original sound mix. There was never a moment of drowning out the dialogue, perfect!

My only criticism would be some minor things, there were a few moments where ambient room SFX was missing, some general SFX such as doors sliding open and shut, some footsteps here and there and the car/rover in motion that were absent from the sound mix. That being said, this didn't affect my overall enjoyment of the edit.

Now for my final word. In my opinion, this is THE superior version of Forbidden Planet and my go-to copy for future viewing from now on.

Excellent work, Scott Crane!

Take a bow.

Sacrilegious, BLASPHEMOUS and Untouchable!!!!!!!!!
I LOVED THIS !

I have been obsessed with Forbidden Planet since I was a child. I would not touch a thing; hoever, the bold and experimental score, years ahead of its time, has dated somewhat....and is even jarring in places.

It takes a bold person with a keen ear for music, timing and mood to tackle a totem of this magnitude, and I'm pleased to say, that is succeeds.

I was absolutely entralled from start to end...so much so I actually had to go and check that some of the music was not there originally.

The technical aspect of pulling this off are not to be underestimated, and I have marked the audio down because there are pasages where the ambient audio drops to near zero to facilitate the music and other removals. A liitle more foley work would take this to a 10.

I do however HIGHLY RECOMMEND this marvel of an edit and will revisit my score should the tweaks emerge in a future revision.
"HERESEY " some may cry...

Not in my book.
WONDEFRFUL!