I have to admit that I'm not a great fan of Silvestri's full length scores. Like many people, I consider his incidental music to just be padding, rather than adding much to the film. His strength is definitely in Main Title themes and The Back to the Future Theme is probably his most recognisable. It does crop up several times in this, the final part of the Back to the Future series although it is now jostling for position with a loud Western Theme and a tender love theme for the Doc and Clara. The latter seems to have "inspired" (for want of a more delicate phrase) some of the themes for Forrest Gump, even if they aren't a complete copy, they are certainly in the same style of being sentimental, which in the context of the film is just fine. Some of the action cues seem rather lame I'm afraid and have no sense of urgency at times. The Train tracks, strangely, but obviously separated on the soundtrack don't seem to be that exciting. From what I remember, the train had to go fast enough to move forward in time and failing that would plunge into a canyon. This I would have thought would need to build the tension as the score progressed, but that seems to have been lost. I will have to listen to those cues in order as I suspect they would function much better like that. Overall, a fairly average score that would have benefited from some much better action music and better use of the Main Theme and the Western theme.

Rating ~

  1. Main Title (3:05)
  2. It's Clara (The Train Part II) (4:33)
  3. Hill Valley (2:20)
  4. The Hanging (1:40)
  5. At First Site (3:12)
  6. Indians (1:10)
  7. Goodbye Clara (2:57)
  8. Doc Returns (2:50)
  9. Point of No Return (The Train Part III) (3:45)
  10. The Future Isn't Written (3:35)
  11. The Showdown (1:28)
  12. Doc to the Rescue (2:51)
  13. The Kiss (1:51)
  14. We're Out of Gas (1:15)
  15. Wake up Juice (1:11)
  16. A Science Experiement (The Train Part I) (3:05)
  17. Doubleback (1:30) (Performed by ZZ Top)
  18. End Credits (4:34)

Total Time ~ 44:51