We can be grateful to La-La Land Records for their recent release of an expanded Limited Edition of Danny Elfman’s muscular, propulsive score for 1996’s Mission: Impossible. The score still sounds contemporary, but it comes from a long-gone era in which themes, now basically forbidden in large studio films, were allowed to swell and flow throughout a score. Now, at best, they’re allowed to be stated once, briefly, before they must vanish for minutes on end of atmospherics.

This is a gloriously thematic score. It makes extensive use of Lalo Schifrin’s two iconic themes from the 60s TV show – both the titular main theme and the gripping suspense theme “The Plot.” Elfman also introduces many gorgeous themes of his own creation. This is a score from when Elfman was at his most exciting and innovative.

La-La Land’s new CD release

More amazingly, this is a score that Elfman created in a VERY short amount of time. It was a replacement for an earlier score by the great Alan Silvestri. The fact that Silvestri wrote an entire score for the film, which was junked at the last minute, is not mentioned at all in the extensive liner notes. One can only presume LLL faced a contractual obligation not to mention it at all.

There’s been a trend lately of soundtrack releases that included both rejected and replacement scores (including Howard the Duck and The Golden Child). It would have been amazing to get Silvestri’s score here too, but you can bet LLL asked, and you can bet they were turned down.

If you’re really curious, Silvestri’s rejected score can easily be found on YouTube. Many enterprising souls have even taken the time to match it up to the picture from the finished film so you can see how it would have played. In the end, as brilliant as Silvestri is, I think it’s easy to see why the score was rejected. It revolves around a strangely Russian-sounding main theme and doesn’t feature the iconic TV show themes nearly as much as Elfman’s score. It also features a lot of electric guitar and other elements that have dated it quite a bit.

La-La Land’s new CD release

LLL’s new CD set is not a disappointment in any way, however. Despite the omission of the Silvestri score, we still get two glorious CDs full of some of the best action adventure scoring of the 1990s. The first disc contains the original 1996 score album. I compared the LLL CD with my original 1996 Point Music CD, and they sound basically identical. That said, I’m grateful it was included for completists.

The second CD contains the entire score, as it actually appears in the film. In fairness, the second CD isn’t a massively different listening experience. All the key cues were included on the original album, but it did leave off a fair amount of music, included alternate versions of some cues, and rearranged others. There’s lots of prime Elfman here that has never been heard before outside the film, and some alternate takes that have never been heard before at all.

One welcome addition on the LLL release is the cue “Langley,” which plays in the film as Cruise and team break into the CIA headquarters with fire trucks. It’s a reprise of the Schifrin main theme that was not on the original CD.

(Full disclosure – and super fun fact – I was actually there the day they filmed it, by accident, as I went to Langley High School and the fire trucks all assembled in our parking lot before driving over to the CIA next door.)

The original 1996 Point Music score album

The biggest selling point of the second disc is that the music is remastered and sounds markedly better than the original 1996 album in every way. The deep bass is much more powerful and there’s a breadth to the sound that’s missing on the original score album.

This is big, bold, brassy orchestral action music, beautifully orchestrated, without a hint of synths or the kind of moody, interchangeable atmospheric mood music that dominates scores today. It’s wonderful to have the great people at LLL revisit this classic 90s score, and their album is highly recommended.