The Final Countdown

Label: JOS Records
Catalogue No: JSCD 129

Release Date: 2002

Total Duration: 53:36

UPN: 0712187088725

It’s time to dump that Tarantula bootleg recording of John Scott’s masterful and magnificent score to THE FINAL COUNTDOWN – we finally have a splendid and legitimate recording of the complete score, produced on Scott’s own label. This compelling 1980 film told the thrilling and compelling story about a modern-day nuclear aircraft carrier that, through the happenstance of a freak time-warp storm, is thrust back to 1941 on the eve of the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor. The score was Scott’s first major Hollywood assignment. Scott’s music is brassy and rich, constructed around a stalwart main theme performed mostly by the brass section. It’s thunderously heroic and full of militaristic pageantry though it never becomes clichéd or petty (a neat woodwind and string variation is heard in “The USS Nimitz on route;” the cue eventually opens up into a terrific rendition of the main theme). With 23 cues versus the original LP’s 15, the music is thrilling in its drive and power.

“Shake Up The Zeros,” “Splash Two,” and “General Quarters,” are magnificent action cues, pulsating and exhilarating, heroic and patriotic. To accompany the time warp storm, Scott provides an electronic-acoustic effect, percussive and progressive, with frantic swirlings of violins, piercing trills of woodwind, sharp pulses of brass, and frequent intonations of the main theme from woodwind or brass. A neat love theme is created for the James Farentino and Katharine Ross characters, a very pretty melody for flute and oboe, tender and poignant. First heard in the track, “Laurel and Owen,” the theme opens up nicely for strings in “On The Beach.” In the concluding track, “Mr. And Mrs. Tideman,” when we meet the couple again in the film’s ironic denouement, the love theme is given a curious edge through electronic instrumentation that refers to the fantastical nature of this union of present and past personalities.

All instant and all-time favorite score, Scott’s music from THE FINAL COUNTDOWN has waited too long to appear on digital format in its complete glory, and this CD is a very, very welcome release (now if only the film would find release on DVD!). The CD is accompanied by an 8-page booklet with a detailed recollection of the score’s creation by John Scott.

Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.21 / No.82 / 2002