Nothing new, I just found this interview with Jackman for Skull Island, and there's a part where he specifically addresses his care for Silvestri's Predator score and monster movies. Check it out:
Q: With this film setting up the inevitable meet between Kong and Godzilla coming up some time in the future – would you find it interesting to score that film if you were asked?
Henry Jackman: Oh, that would be a no-brainer! It makes me think of a bigger or more open question, which is that there's something about monsters which is a good thing for a film composer. You can go back to
PREDATOR, and I hold Alan Silvestri's [score for] PREDATOR in great reverence. People may not think of
PREDATOR as one of the classiest films ever made, but I think it's a great film. What particularly elevates the film beyond what it otherwise would have been is Alan Silvestri's fantastic score, which uses a really cool octatonic scale and it's just really imaginative. There's something about an alien monster or an otherly creature that seems to bring out some very interesting music. It's because monsters allow this kind of grand scale, especially in 2017 where many films which are contemporary don't necessarily invite a symphonic grandeur. There's something about having monsters in a movie that gives permission for film composers to write genuinely symphonic music. I don't quite know why that is, but given that there's a real vogue often for very simple ostinatos and a lot of production and powerful, long lines, which isn't necessarily genuinely symphonic music. The great thing about once you've got a Godzilla on the screen or a King Kong, you're expected to hear music of a certain symphonic grandeur. It doesn't feel out of place in a way that you couldn't do in other types of films. So big monster movies are a haven and a compositional oasis to deliver influences that stretch back through the Silvestris and the Jerry Goldsmiths right back to the source, which is sort of late Strauss and big grand 19th Century Austro-Germanic symphonic music, which really can't find a home in most modern cinema. I mean, try doing that in THE REVENANT! It's completely inappropriate! THE REVENANT is a beautiful score that has this fantastic minimalist approach to orchestral writing, which is absolutely beautiful and utterly suits it. The great advantage of seeing Godzilla hammering the crap out of King Kong, if that should ever happen, is that it's a similar thing. It would be expected to be feeling the full force of a symphony orchestra in its full glory and tradition. I don't know why monsters invite that, but they do – for whatever reason!
Here's the link to the full interview:
https://musiquefantastique.com/something-about-monsters-henry-jackman-kong-skull-island/Boy I'm REALLY looking forward to his take on The Predator!
