[thx99]

I’ve seen the film in its entirety once and random scenes here and there over the years. I guess I should revisit it as a whole again at some point. But the score! Yum! Paraphrasing from a “musical memory” post I made on Facebook many years ago…

Summer 2001. I’ve arrived in Los Angeles late one afternoon, ultimately heading to Rancho Cucamonga for a multi-day computer forensics class. I go to pick up my rental car at LAX. They offer me a Mustang convertible at no extra cost so I say, why not?! I hit the road on my way to the hotel, and with the evening temps being pleasantly cool for summer, I ride with the top down.

Knowing that I’d be relatively close to Anaheim (a.k.a, Disneyland) and would have an extra day to burn before the class started, I had asked my parents to send me one of the complimentary tickets that my dad received each year through his employment at Walt Disney World. I had been to Disneyland once before thanks to one of my dad’s passes, but as luck would have it, California Adventure had opened just a few months prior to my arrival that summer, and I was anxious to ride the Jerry Goldsmith-scored attraction “Soarin’ Over California”.

So I drive to Anaheim the next day, and head first to the entrance of California Adventure where I spend the first part of the day, riding “Soarin’ Over California” several times as well as catching the Bruce Broughton-scored film “Seasons of the Vine”. I then head over to Disneyland, intent on closing it down that evening.

Before I know it, closing time arrives and I head to the parking lot and my Mustang convertible for the evening ride back to Rancho Cucamonga. I put the top down again, and choose one of the CDs I brought with me – John Williams’ score for the then recently-released Spielberg film, A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) – to accompany me on my ride back to the hotel.

With the wonderful memories of the day fresh in my mind, Williams’ melodic, emotional score serves as the perfect accompaniment to my open-air, solitary drive through the unfamiliar landscape. I find one particular track incredibly moving (“Stored Memories/Monica’s Theme”), with its wordless female vocals, and put the track on repeat for a majority of the drive. To this day, when I listen to this cue, I am reminded of those feelings of excitement, discovery, and nostalgia that came from visiting the parks, and that bittersweet ride back to the hotel in a convertible Mustang.

In hindsight, this memory is even more poignant as it happened just a few months before the horrible events of 9/11.