Due to the lower than hoped for box office returns on the modest-budgeted Escape from the Planet of the Apes. Conquest was given a smaller budget for its ambitious concept, dramatizing the uprising that would result in the creation of the world and society of the first two films.
Because the budget was low, neither Jerry Goldsmith, who had scored the first and third film, nor Leonard Rosenman, who had scored the second, were approached to compose music for this entry. Instead, on the recommendation of Lionel Newman, Fox's head of music, Tom Scott was hired to score the film.
Faced with a tight post-production schedule, Scott asked fellow composition Lalo Schifrin for advice.
"There was no time to write the sort of full-on orchestral battle scene that I really would have like to do." Scott recalls in the liner noters for the Film Score Monthly release. "Lalo said I should do a row of orchestral events. This was something I had heard him do in other pictures. You'd have ten seconds, for example, of all the woodwinds playing a low, atonal growl, and then you'd have another wall of muted brass playing high, fast staccato notes, and paint these little tone pictures, and that would get you through a great deal of the drama and give the impression that something was going on without having to kill yourself composing and orchestrating."
One thing Scott did not foresee was how the film, which had been shot in a semi-documentary style, would struggle with its harsh tone being a hindrance to maintaining a family friendly rating. Of the first five films, this was only one not to be awarded a G-rating.
Because of all the retooling, most of Scott's score for the film went unused and, in some instances, was replaced with tracks from Goldsmith's score for the first film. Which explains why I do not remember or recall a great deal of music from this particular release.
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