Latest news with #EthanHunt
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
When Mission: Impossible Had No Mission
Every major movie franchise has boxes to check. In Jurassic Park, dinosaurs must run amok; in Planet of the Apes, apes have to meditate on intelligence; in The Fast and the Furious, Vin Diesel absolutely has to evangelize the benefits of family, Corona beers, and tricked-out cars. But Mission: Impossible took four films to fully establish its franchise must-have: the ever more blurred lines between its death-defying, stunt-loving star, Tom Cruise, and the superspy he plays. For more than a decade, the series was defined instead by its lack of definition—at least, beyond having Cruise in the lead role as Ethan Hunt, and Ving Rhames recur as Hunt's ally. Each installment felt made by a director with a specific take on the material, and Cruise was their versatile instrument. But the four Mission: Impossible films that followed—culminating in the eighth and purportedly final installment, now in theaters—have taken a different approach. Instead of relying on a select few characters and story beats to link the films together, the movies have abided by a stricter canon. Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning, which earned a record-setting $63 million at the box office over its opening weekend, represents the most aggressive pivot away from the saga's more freewheeling origins: It self-seriously inserts supercuts of footage from its predecessors, reveals the purpose of a long-forgotten plot device, and turns a bit player from 1996's Mission: Impossible into a crucial character. In the process, it streamlines those earlier, delightfully unpredictable stories to the point of overlooking their true appeal. That tactic may be familiar to today's audiences, who are used to cinematic universes and intersecting story threads, but the Mission: Impossible franchise initially distinguished itself by eschewing continuity. New cast members came and went. Hunt lacked signature skills and catchphrases. The movies were messy, and didn't seem interested in building toward an overarching plan. Yet in their inconsistency, they prove the value of ignoring the brand-building pressures that have become the norm for big-budget features today. [Read: The unbearable weight of Mission: Impossible] Like the 1960s television show on which they're loosely based, the early Mission: Impossibles were stand-alone stories. The first two movies in particular stuck out for their bold authorial styles. First came Brian De Palma's film, which he drenched in noir-ish flair while also deploying vivid color and Dutch angles. It arrived at a time when blockbusters such as Independence Day and Twister leveled cities and prioritized world-ending spectacle. Without a formula in place, De Palma got to challenge genre conventions—for instance, by mining tension out of mere silence during the central set piece, which saw Hunt's team staging a tricky heist. The second film, 2000's Mission: Impossible II, went maximalist under the direction of John Woo, who punctuated almost every sequence with slow-motion visuals and dizzying snap zooms. The filmmaker also asserted that Hunt himself was malleable: Whereas in the first film, he fights off his enemies without ever firing a gun, in Woo's version, he's a cocksure Casanova mowing down his targets in hails of bullets. Woo also indulged in the action pageantry that De Palma had avoided—Mission: Impossible II seemed to contain twice the amount of explosions necessary for a popcorn film—but the climactic stunt is perhaps the smallest Cruise has ever had to pull off: When the villain stabs at Hunt with a knife, the point stops just before reaching his eye. The two films that followed conveyed a similar sense of unpredictability. For 2006's Mission: Impossible III and 2011's Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol, Cruise, who also served as a producer, picked unconventional choices to direct: J. J. Abrams, then best known for creating twisty TV dramas such as Alias and Lost, took on the third entry, while Brad Bird, who'd cut his teeth in animation, handled Ghost Protocol. Like their more accomplished predecessors, both filmmakers were entrusted by Cruise and company to treat Mission: Impossible as a playground where they could demonstrate their own creative strengths. [Read: The sincerity and absurdity of Hollywood's best action franchise] Where De Palma and Woo focused on visual panache, Abrams and Bird stretched the limits of tone—and in doing so, revealed the adaptability of the franchise. Mission: Impossible III is unnervingly sobering amid its shootouts and double crosses; the film features a memorably chilling Philip Seymour Hoffman as the villain, a character's disturbing death, and a subplot about Hunt getting married. Ghost Protocol, meanwhile, is essentially a screwball comedy: Simon Pegg's character, Benji, provides a humorous button to many of the film's biggest scenes, and Bird treats Hunt like a marble caught in a Rube Goldberg machine packed with goofy gadgets, whether he's pinballing through a prison or being launched out of a car in the middle of a sandstorm. (Hunt even declares 'Mission accomplished,' only for the film to play the line for laughs.) In the years since Ghost Protocol, much of big-budget filmmaking has come to feel made by committee. Studios offer fans remakes, legacy sequels, and spin-offs that connect disparate story threads, bending over backwards to ensure that viewers understand they're being shown something related to preexisting media. (Just look at the title of the upcoming John Wick spin-off.) The new Mission: Impossible suffers by making similar moves. It struggles to make sense of Hunt's story as one long saga, yielding an awkwardly paced, lethargic-in-stretches film. The Final Reckoning insists that every assignment Hunt has ever taken, every ally he's ever made, and every enemy he's ever foiled have been connected, forming a neat line of stepping stones that paved the way for him to save the world one more time. Taken together, the first four Mission: Impossibles were compellingly disorganized, a stark contrast with Hollywood's ever more rigid notion of how to construct a franchise. They didn't build consistent lore. Each new installment didn't try to top the previous one—a popular move that's had diminishing returns. Although some observers critique their varying quality, the lack of consensus emphasizes the singularity of each of these efforts. They remind me of the instances of an individual filmmaker's vision found amid major cinematic properties these days, such as Taika Waititi putting his witty stamp on a Thor sequel, Fede Alvarez turning Alien: Romulus into a soundscape of jump scares, and on television, Tony Gilroy ensuring that the Star Wars prequel Andor never included a single Skywalker. If the older Mission: Impossible movies now feel dated and incongruous—whether within the franchise itself or as part of the cinematic landscape writ large—that's to their benefit. They let creative sensibilities, not commercial ones, take the lead. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Hype Malaysia
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Hype Malaysia
From 'Squid Game' 3 To 'Mission: Impossible' – 12 Netflix Shows & Movies You Don't Want To Miss In June
We're approaching the halfway point of the year, and the hits just keep on coming. From a highly-anticipated sequel to a cultural phenomenon, to a big screen blockbuster action thriller – here are 12 movies and shows you gotta binge on hard in June! Once More Unto The Games Squid Game: Season 3, Premiering 27 June Devastated after losing his friend, Player 456 presses on — challenging the Front Man's scheme in the final season of the globally most-watched series. Must Watch Mercy For None, Premiering 6 June After severing ties with his gang, a former gangster returns to uncover the truth behind his brother's death — embarking on a relentless path of revenge. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Premiering 7 June With time running out and enemies at every turn, Ethan Hunt and his IMF team race to prevent a rogue artificial intelligence from taking over the world. FUBAR: Season 2, Premiering 12 June Eager to return to action, Luke, Emma and the crew get more than they bargained for when a mysterious terrorist threatens to unleash worldwide chaos. WWE Night of Champions: 2025, Premiering 28 June Champions and challengers make history with all eyes on the biggest prizes in WWE. Binging With The Seasons Chucky: Season 2, Premiering 1 June Ginny & Georgia: Season 3, Premiering 5 June The Rookie: Seasons 1 – 6, Premiering 15 June Somebody Feed Phil: Season 8, Premiering 18 June Animation Sensation The Creature Cases: Chapter 5, Premiering 9 June The Fairly OddParents: A New Wish: Season 2, Premiering 12 June KPop Demon Hunters, Premiering 20 June What's your Reaction? +1 0 +1 0 +1 0 +1 0 +1 0 +1 0
New York Times
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
How They Pulled Off That Wild ‘Mission: Impossible' Plane Stunt
Of the many storied stunts that Tom Cruise has performed over eight 'Mission Impossible' movies — scaling the world's tallest building in Dubai, riding a motorcycle off a Norwegian cliff, retrieving a stolen ledger from an underwater centrifuge — it seems unlikely that one of the most shock-and-awe set pieces in the series' nearly 30-year history would involve two old-timey biplanes that look like they should have Snoopy at the controls. And yet many viewers have emerged from the newest installment of the franchise, 'Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,' astonished by that scene: a 12-and-a-half-minute sequence in which Cruise's seemingly indefatigable special agent, Ethan Hunt, hitches a ride on the undercarriage of a small brightly colored aircraft, overtakes the pilot, then leaps onto another plane midair to fistfight the film's grinning villain (Esai Morales) — all while being bashed and batted by the elements like a human windsock. If it looks as if Cruise is genuinely getting blown sideways in the sky, it's because he was. The actor's well-known penchant for performing his own stunts meant that the scene was shot largely as it appears onscreen, minus the digital removal in postproduction of certain elements like safety harnesses and a secondary pilot. Most 'Mission' stunts, said Christopher McQuarrie, who has directed the last four films in the series, begin with either finding or building the right vehicle for the job. In this case it was a Boeing Stearman, primarily used to train fighter pilots during World War II. Eventually, the production bought multiples: two red, two yellow — 'because if you have just one plane and that plane breaks,' he explained, 'the whole movie shuts down.' According to the stunt coordinator and second unit director, Wade Eastwood, Cruise, 62, trained for months on the ground before the full concept took flight. 'Tom's already a very established and very proficient pilot,' Eastwood said, 'but being on the wing of a plane is not something that people do. So we tied it down and put out big fans and wind machines, and we had the prop running just to see what the effects would be on the body, and it was absolutely exhausting. I mean, you're fighting the biggest resistance band you've ever fought in your life.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Star
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Star
Superheroes, dinosaurs, and Pedro Pascal: Summer blockbuster season is here!
Ethan Hunt's last mission? A new Superman? Two genre-spanning Pedro Pascal films, including a romance and a superhero movie? Hollywood's pulling out the stops this summer movie season, which kicked off with the release of Thunderbolts . May also brought big studio releases like live-action Lilo & Stitch , Final Destination Bloodlines and Mission: Impossible: Final Reckoning . Next month heats up with race cars in F1 , adventure in How To Train Your Dragon , zombies in 28 Years Later and beautiful killers in Ballerina and M3gan 2.0 . July is supercharged with Jurassic World Rebirth , Superman , Fantastic Four: First Steps and The Naked Gun . August delivers big with action ( Nobody 2 ), horror ( Weapons ), a lighthearted body-swap ( Freakier Friday ) and a New York love triangle ( Materialists ). And September closes the season with some supernatural ( The Conjuring 4 ) and romance ( A Big Bold Beautiful Journey ). Here's a guide to help make sense of the many, many options in theatres. Release dates are subject to change. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (Now showing) Nothing ever really ends in the land of franchise filmmaking, but the 'final' in the title suggests this could actually be Tom Cruise's last ride as Ethan Hunt. Even if it isn't, audiences can trust it'll be full of death-defying spectacles worthy of the big screen. Lilo & Stitch (Now showing) This live-action reimagining of the 2002 classic about orphaned Hawaiian sisters who unknowingly adopt an alien was directed by Marcel The Shell With Shoes On filmmaker Dean Fleischer Camp. Sydney Agudong, who plays older sister Nani, said: 'The beauty of this movie is that it highlights the idea of Aloha and Ohana and the family dynamics that happen here along with the aliens and the Hawaiian roller coaster ride.' Lilo &Stitch Karate Kid: Legends (June 5) Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio unite for the newest Karate Kid film, set three years after Cobra Kai and focusing on a new kid, Li, played by Ben Wang. 'It kind of harkens back to the previous entries in the franchise,' Wang said. 'It's a kid who is a fish out of water who comes to a new city and has to face down bullies.' Ana De Armas leads this John Wick spin-off about a deadly (and classically trained) assassin. Ballerina How To Train Your Dragon (June 12) Unlike most live adaptations of animated movies, filmmaker Dean DeBlois is behind both. DeBlois said their goal was to make the film 'really immersive', to dial up the sense of urgency and peril and 'to just pull the audience in and make them feel like these dragons are real, that you could own one, you could fly on the back of one'. Mason Thames plays Hiccup and Nico Parker takes on the role of Astrid in this epic fantasy sure to enchant a new generation (and the one who grew up on the original). The original team behind 28 Days Later, including director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland, return with a new entry featuring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer and Ralph Fiennes. This intergalactic adventure centres on an 11-year-old earthling (Yonas Kibreab) who is abducted by aliens and assumed to be a world leader. Oscar-winner Zoe Saldana is part of the voice cast. The creepy, dancing doll is back – as is an even more dangerous version on a killing spree whom she has to stop. Any questions? M3gan 2.0 Brad Pitt plays 'the best that never was', F1 driver Sonny Hayes, who's recruited to mentor a young up-and-comer (Damson Idris) in this high-octane film from Top Gun: Maverick filmmaker Joseph Kosinski. Real racing cars were used, driver Lewis Hamilton consulted and a new camera system was developed to give audiences an immersive experience. 'It's a story about a last-place team, a group of underdogs, and Sonny Hayes in his later years having one more chance to try to do something he was never able to do, which is win a race in F1,' Kosinski said. Jurassic World Rebirth (July 3) Filmmaker Gareth Edwards (a Jurassic Park superfan and the director of The Creator) is ushering in a new era of Jurassic movies and harkening back to the Steven Spielberg originals in this film with Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Bailey. Much about the film is being kept top secret, but Edwards said David Koepp's script read like a love letter to Spielberg's early work. 'It's basically a mission story where these military types go to this island to get this DNA, then there's a twist,' Edwards said. 'This family ends up involved and it becomes a story of survival. It's like one giant roller coaster ride and once it gets going, it sort of doesn't stop.' James Gunn is ushering in a new era of Superman, with a fresh face in David Corenswet and the promise that he's a different Superman than what audiences have seen before. Gunn said that this is 'a Superman that's both more grounded in his own personality and his relationship, which is much more complex than has been in the past. And then also the big magic world of Superman being in the world of the DCU with flying dogs and robots and giant monsters'. There's romance with Rachel Brosnahan's Lois Lane, and a 'pretty scary' Lex Luthor in Nicholas Hoult. 'He's actually going to kill (Superman),' Gunn said. 'And that's cool to see.' I Know What You Did Last Summer (July 17) Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr reprise their roles from the 1997 slasher in this new instalment featuring an eerily similar situation and a cast of pretty young up-and-comers including Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King and Tyriq Withers. I Know What You Did Last Summer Rihanna produced and stars as Smurfette in this new musical adventure. 'There's a purity to the Smurfs mythos,' said Nick Offerman, who voices Papa Smurf's brother Ken. 'That, I think, is what makes their appeal so timeless. They're a benevolent group of wee blue villagers who, you know, want to love one another and lead productive lives while fending off the world's forces of evil, usually represented by the machinations of some wizards out for ill gotten gains.' The Fantastic Four: First Steps (July 24) Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach unite to play 'Marvel's first family' in this retro-futuristic world set in 1960s New York. Director Matt Shakman (WandaVision, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia) said they are the only superheroes in their world and are the leading lights of their age. While the scale and world building were on another level, Shakman said, 'it's also no different from all of the great comedies and dramas that I've done – in the end, it comes down to character, to relationships and to heart and humour'. Liam Neeson flexes his particular set of comedy skills as Frank Drebin Jr in this irreverent new entry from The Lonely Island veteran Akiva Schaffer, featuring Paul Walter Hauser and Pamela Anderson. Talk To Me filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou return with this creepy new movie about death, resurrection and the arrival of an adopted kid who is not quite right. Sally Hawkins plays the mother. Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Craig Robinson, Awkwafina and Anthony Ramos return for another animated heist, but this time they're teaming up with a new squad called the Bad Girls (voiced by Danielle Brooks, Maria Bakalova and Natasha Lyonne). An entire classroom of children goes missing in filmmaker Zach Cregger's eerie follow-up to Barbarian, starring Josh Brolin, Julia Garner and Alden Ehrenreich. Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan are back as the body-swapping mother and daughter duo. Bob Odenkirk's former assassin Hutch Mansell can't catch a break. This time, Keanu Reeves joins the bloody fun. Dakota Johnson plays a matchmaker torn between two prospects (played by Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal) in love story from Past Lives filmmaker Celine Song. 'It's a modern love story that's set in New York City and it's inspired by the brief time that I worked as a professional matchmaker,' Song said. 'I really tried in this film to be really honest about the marketplace of dating, as the people actually experience it and live it today.' The Conjuring: Last Rites (Sept 4) Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga return to their roles as paranormal investigators and authors Ed and Lorraine Warren. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (Sept 18) Those who have no interest in superheroes or the usual summer shenanigans might appreciate this romantic fantasy-drama from the singularly named Kogonada who made the intriguing dramas Columbus and After Yang. Originally slated to come out in May, the studio moved the film starring Margot Robbie, Colin Farrell, Phoebe Waller-Bridge because, according to Variety, 'a September release was more appealing to the studio, as it's filled with more horror and male-centred titles, allowing the female event film to stand out.' – AP
Forbes
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning' Composers On How They Got Tom Cruise Dancing In His Seat: ‘I Remember High-Fiving Each Other In That Moment'
Tom Cruise plays Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning from Paramount Pictures and ... More Skydance. | © 2025 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved. It's not easy to please one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, but Alfie Godfrey and Max Aruj accomplished just that with their score for Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (now playing in theaters everywhere; click here for tickets). The composing duo knew they'd succeeded when Tom Cruise himself became visibly hyped during an early screening of the film for friends and family of the production. 'He started dancing away in his seat straight away,' Godfrey recalls over Zoom. 'I remember Max and I high-fiving each other in that moment, because we thought, 'Yes, this is definitely working!'' Cruise was responding to the very first cue on the soundtrack — 'We Live and Die in the Shadows" — which plays over the Paramount and Skydance logos, perfectly setting up the movie's pulse-pounding action with some East African Burundian drumming (a first for the blockbuster franchise) and the opening bars of Lalo Schifrin's iconic Mission: Impossible theme from the original TV show. 'It gives you permission as an audience member to go, 'Okay, this film's gonna be a wild ride, let's enjoy it,'' Godfrey explains. Aruj echoes that sentiment: 'Tom was always like, 'I want the audience to come out and go into the summer wanting an adventure.'" What's more: the utilization of Schifrin's enduring 1960s composition is not only a hallowed tradition at this point, but it immediately reminds the audience that what they're about to watch isn't some generic spy adventure. 'It's easy to say, 'Oh, well, I'll just write my own piece of music.' But at the end of the day, you do have to ground the score of this franchise in those themes, so that the audience feels carried along and never forgets what kind of story they're in and what they're watching,' emphasizes score producer and supervising music editor Cecile Tournesac (a veteran of Fallout, Dead Reckoning, and Top Gun: Maverick). 'That was also one of the discussions that we went through … making [sure] A direct continuation of Dead Reckoning, the eighth Mission: Impossible chapter finds Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and the rest of his IMF team on their biggest mission yet as they work tirelessly to stop the rogue artificial intelligence known as the 'Entity' before it can take over the world's supply of nuclear missiles and destroy human civilization. Godfrey and Aruj had their work cut out for them after being recommended to Cruise and director/co-writer Christopher McQuarrie by their former boss, Lorne Balfe, who composed the last two Mission: Impossible installments (Fallout and Dead Reckoning) and was unable to return due to the year-long commitment. Over a dinner in London with Aruj, Godfrey, and Tournesac, Cruise and McQuarrie (or 'McQ' for short) laid out their mandate for the music — none of which would be temped during the edit. 'They said, 'We want to hear music as much and as soon as possible,'' Aruj remembers. 'We're sitting at dinner and thinking, 'Okay, so now that we're here, we gotta deliver.' They made us feel comfortable and got us interested in diving right in.' 'McQ is very fluid in how he works; he just wants to experiment as much as possible,' adds Tournesac. 'There's no one-size-fits-all approach where it's like, 'Well, it's an action scene, so we have to do this type of music.' It's all up for grabs. There's a lot of research and demand for a lot of material. Both Max and Alfie had to push quite hard and dig deep in terms of how far they could search musically.' Having worked with Cruise and McQuarrie on a regular basis since Fallout, Tournesac knows exactly what the duo want out of a score. 'It's all a question of translating [their] words into notes,' she continues. 'My main role, especially at the beginning, is to try and guide what I think they mean and what they're looking for and expecting. McQ is very attuned to what music does in a film, how it shifts according to a scene. So it's just a question of being very thorough and following the story and emotion at all times. He's not looking to just score what's happening onscreen, he's really trying to make the audience feel what is being said and what Ethan is feeling in a particular scene.' 'The thing McQ often says is, 'This music tells me I have no confidence in my movie,' meaning, 'Don't just tell me what it is, make me feel what it is,'' echoes Godfrey. 'That was one of the big reoccurring notes.' Nowhere is that more apparent than in the scene where Ethan is forced to say goodbye to his old friend and dependable computer whiz, Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames, the only other actor to appear in all eight movies), before Luther is killed in an explosion planned by secondary antagonist, Gabriel (Esai Morales). The resultant cue — 'This is Where I Leave You' — directly calls back 'Ethan's emotional theme ['Another Sunrise'] from the start of the film," Aruj says. 'The goal is that it's so subtle as it comes in, [that] you don't realize it until you're in it and thinking, 'Oh no! I recognize this music and I know this emotion.' Last time we heard it, it was bittersweet when we're looking back at Ethan's whole life. Then we're hearing it again [when Luther] and Ethan are separated by a gate and we know that things aren't looking good … It needed to have a sense of finality, not necessarily catharsis. That's not it at all, but this kind of warm feeling that tells you this is such a special relationship and a friendship between these two.' LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 15: (L-R) Max Aruj, guest, Alfie Godfrey and Cecile Tournesac attend the ... More Global Premiere Red Carpet in support of "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning" at Leicester Square on May 15, 2025, in London, England. (Photo by Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures) Clocking in at 2 hours and 49 minutes, The Final Reckoning is the longest entry in the nearly 30-year-old franchise. When Aruj and Godfrey became attached, however, the runtime 'was even longer,' says the latter. 'I think it was over four-and-a-half hours. So it was a vast film with no temp — a big, silent film. So if anything, the running time now feels like a relief compared to where it was.' The sheer size and scope of the feature was ultimately reflected in the 13-month process it took to compose, record, edit, and mix the score, which included around 137 hours with a live orchestra. '[That's] a uniquely high number,' notes Godfrey. "It was an incredibly long and labor-intensive recording process [but] the orchestra in London was just incredibly patient and helped us record every single element.' 'Every single piece has to be good. Therefore, you have to focus on one at a time," Aruj elaborates. "The production needs to be pristine, the ideas need to be good. Everything has to turn and shift at just the right moment. The big error is getting overwhelmed by the amount and not focusing on [it] bar by bar, or literally beat by beat.' While every frame of The Final Reckoning required special care and attention, there were two stunt-related set pieces that needed to fire all on cylinders, both visually and sonically, in order to work properly: the Sevastopol sequence and the biplane fight between Ethan and Gabriel. For the submarine segment, Aruj and Godfrey used the Space Bass, an eerie-sounding, one-of-a-kind instrument pioneered by the late Constance Demby. 'It just had the qualities we needed to help personify the submarine; the sounds of bending metal and this kind of pulsing oddity that you've never really heard before," Aruj explains. 'But you know you're somewhere different. It helped us take the score to a very different place that you haven't heard in Mission: Impossible before.' The biplane sequence, on the other hand, takes up much of the third act, which the composers broke up into 'a beginning, middle, and end," Aruj continues. 'We had to find music that got us into that sequence, music that sustained us in that sequence, and then more music for a different chapter once the nature of the fight continues. Then it has to shift [again] when we get into yet another portion of their interaction. Writing music that personified the basic movements of the plane was difficult. If it didn't start out right, if it wasn't the right speed, if it wasn't the right tone, if it wasn't right melody, it was wrong from the start … Once it gets to the last third of the fight, finding music that worked was maybe one of the most difficult things I had ever encountered. And stylistically, I think it really takes you on quite a journey." Despite the fact that it bears the word 'Final' in its title, no one can say for certain that this is really the swan song for Ethan & co. Given the way in which the film regularly calls back to and celebrates previous entries, particularly the 1996 original, one could argue that the Mission: Impossible franchise — at least the version fronted by Cruise — is over. With that said, Aruj and Godfrey were never told that this would be the definitive ending to Ethan Hunt's story. 'Nothing was ever sold to us. I just had to show up to work every day and do my job,' says Aruj. 'There was no time, and for good reason, to overthink anything. We just had to be on board with the team, listen to people's requests, and write the best music we could. Once you're in it, all that matters is that you keep going. I didn't like to ever bring myself out and say, 'Oh well, this is the final one!' [We never] had those kind of overarching thoughts. There's no reason to think like that in my opinion.' 'While we were never sold that this would be the final one, what McQ did communicate to us was the difficulty of concluding all these strands of story that have been going for the last couple of films since Fallout,' concludes Godfrey. 'What Gabriel is up to, what the team is up to, who the team [members] are, Ethan's past, and all these kind of themes. So there was an element of, 'Okay, the music really needs to help me here because there are a lot of strands of story to put together.'' Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is now playing in theaters. The soundtrack by Aruj & Godfrey is available from Sony Music Masterworks.
