Once Upon a Forest


Movie | Released: 1993 | Format: CD
 

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# Track Artist/Composer Duration
1.Once Upon A Time With MeFlorence Warner Jones and The New London Children's Choir 5:56
2.The Forest9:11
3.Cornelius's Nature Lesson3:41
4.The Accident4:24
5.Bedside Vigil2:15
6.Please Wake UpMichael Crawford 2:36
7.The Journey Begins8:08
8.He's BackBen Vereen and The Andrae Crouch Singers 2:00
9.Flying4:49
10.Escaping From The Yellow Dragons / The Meadow6:36
11.Flying Home To Michelle6:32
12.The Children / Maybe One Day..., Maybe One Day4:41
13.Once Upon A Time With Me / End CreditsFlorence Warner Jones and The New London Children's Choi5:56
 66:45
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Once Upon a Forest - 08/10 - Review of Tom Daish, submitted at
One review of the film, Once Upon a Forest ends with the line '...it makes one long for animals whacking each other with sticks of dynamite,' and having seen enough of the film to get a grasp of its fundamental message, I would be inclined to concur with the reviewer. It is quite unfortunate that James Horner has often been saddled with the least engaging animated films, especially since his contributions to the genre are unfailingly entertaining and have turned out to be some of his best scores. About the only aspect that lets him down are the often sickeningly twee songs and this turns out to be the case here. The bizarre thing is that the tunes themselves are often quite lovely, but when Will Jenning's soppy and unimaginative lyrics are added, together with a maudlin lead vocal and children's choral accompaniment, the results are on the wrong side of vomitous. The worst offenders here are Once Upon a Time With Me, which is a song version of the otherwise pleasing main theme, but as a song is just far too twee. Please Wake Up is given a tender, but ultimately quite patronizing rendition by Michael Crawford, while He's Back is one of Horner's comedy songs that similarly marred his otherwise wonderful American Tail scores.

Now the bad is out of the way, it is pleasing to note that the score is every bit as good as would be expected of a Horner score for an animation. The aforementioned main theme does indeed work much better as an instrumental where it just sounds lovely and gentle, rather than sickly. True, Horner piles on sugar with a chorus, but it's all done with such simple minded enthusiasm and sincerity that it's really quite hard to resist. It is even easier to enjoy because there are some really quite dark moments that make up for the sentiment. The Accident is a stirring action cue where the chorus turns quite a bit more threatening and some hefty brass are really quite imposing for a score which, up to that point, is quite gentle. Being Horner, there are plenty of hints of other scores, The Journey Begins has a few licks from Krull and a jaunty march that isn't entirely dissimilar to portions of Willow, plus other fleeting moments that recall his other animated scores, but they are more down to a similar style than obvious copying.

Despite the album's generous length, there is - save for the mediocre songs - rarely a weak moment in the score. Even when the tracks are long and subdued, Horner keeps everything moving with his pleasant, reasonably memorable and uncomplicated melodies, while interspersing these with more dramatic segments. Notable amongst these are Flying, which turns from playful to a little more threatening and leads into another impressive action cue, Escaping the Yellow Dragons. Maybe One Day reprises all the major themes for an unsurprisingly lush finale. A reprise, or more precisely, an exact repeat of Once Upon a Time With Me closes the album, but I would suggest stopping the player before it starts. For some reason, the album is quite hard to find these days and I suppose anyone with The Land Before Time, Pagemaster or An American Tail won't find a great deal new here, but that doesn't detract from its enjoyment value and certainly makes one wish that Horner would accept more animated assignments than he has done recently.
Once Upon a Forest - 08/10 - Review of Tudor H., submitted at
Once Upon a Forest was one of Horner's score from a series of three animation films that he did in a really short period of time. This came shortly before We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, with The Pagemaster following a year later. While many fans consider that The Land Before Time is Horner's best score written for an animation feature, Once Upon A Forest could be placed in a high rank not far behind.

The soundtrack album begins and ends with the song "Once Upon a Time With Me", written by Horner on the lyrics by Will Jennings and performed by Florence Warner Jones and the marvelous New London Children's Choir. It's a really beautiful song and it has that wonderful holiday feeling in it. It also served as the basis for the main title, which is reprised in an orchestral version in the first 2 minutes of "The Forest", with more "here and there" uses in a few other tracks. The last part of "The Forest" introduces a secondary theme performed on the tuba that will be later used in the beginning of "Flying". Another secondary theme will be introduced in "Cornelius' Nature Lesson", which will also be used in the beginning of "Flying".

The soundtrack features some adventurous ("The Journey Begins", "Flying", "Escape from the Yellow Dragons"), scary ("The Accident") and rather sad ("Beside Vigil", "The Children/Maybe One Day...") tracks which means that this album has almost everything.

Apart from the score, the album also contains three songs (I said three because the first and last tracks are identical), all written by Horner on the lyrics by Will Jennings. Two of these tracks are enjoyable, while the third (He's Back) is pretty much of a disappointment. A big band song performed by Ben Vereen and The Andrae Crouch Singers that doesn't really fit with the rest of the album. The second song is "Once Upon a Time With Me", of which I talked above. The last song, "Please Wake Up", is a really sad song beautifully performed by Michael Crawford, a song inspired by "Once Upon a Time With Me" and the beginning of "The Forest". It is said that Michael Crawford fought himself not to cry when he recorded the song.

Overall, Once Upon a Forest is one of the best scores that Horner has written for an animation feature, that contains really nice score tracks, fitted for every ear, and a few songs that makes the soundtrack complete. Unfortunately, due to the collapse of Fox Records, this album has became out of print, so you cannot expect to find this one new and cheap.


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