ReMix:Sonic the Hedgehog 3 "Ice Cap Zone Rescue" 3:21

What if the infamous Sonic 3 'IceCap Zone' theme... had been written for Gladiator???

Yes, that's the type of soundbitten, oversimplifying, super-catchy-headline rhetorical "What if???" question we can accuse of diminishing the state of global discourse, BUT... in this case, it actually gives you a pretty good idea of the arrangement. Think cinematic, think dark, think epic, think choral, and most of all think ethnic vocalizing of the variety Lisa Gerard helped popularize in the Ridley Scott film. It's Zimmerific™!!! But that's farrrrr from a bad thing - I love that soundtrack, I think it was one of the composer's very best, and I was actually disappointed when it lost the Oscar to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Even though Tan Dun is awesome, and has a cool name.

But I digress; fans of Rich Douglas' work knows that he rocks a powerful, Hollywood Film Composer style, which he's applied to various games in the past, each time creating a rich, narrative atmosphere where you can almost hear the low hum of a film projector running, it's so soundtrack. While he's covered more esoteric titles like Splatterhouse 3 and popular favorites like Super Metroid, this is the first time he's taken on a single theme with the notoriety of being one of the most-mixed sources on the site. For me at least, it was really neat just to hear a piece we've heard so many times truly transmogrified into Tinseltown textures. It's different, it's fresh, I haven't heard it before, and I like it. The ReMixer writes:

"Well, I'm back to my old epic tricks with this one. I know I know.. Ice Cap Zone has been remixed more times than I can count over the last 10 years or so... but to my knowledge has never been done in my signature epic style. So while I'm one of the 5 peeps on the planet who hasn't tried to remix this amazing source material, figured I'd give it a shot. When I re-listened to the source recently I immediately thought of slowing it down by half, adding a full orchestra, and a full on choir... making it, in my opinion, one of my most epic and well orchestrated remixes to date. Something fitting for a rescue sequence, hence the name. Thematically, this is amazing stuff, and after hearing it orchestrated will definitely remind many of you of such pieces like "Arrival to Earth" from Transformers by Steve Jablonsky and "Time" from Inception by Hans Zimmer.... which was definitely the vibe I was going for here."

Judges took a little (legit) issue with the meandering key of the canned vocal, and its repetition, but were otherwise pretty sold on both the concept & execution. Nutritious writes:

"I like the slowed, dramatic pace you've set here. Rich always aims for the blockbuster movie soundtrack feel and with his ability and samples [/envy] he really pulls it off well. I hear what the other j's are saying on the canned vocals, but as Andrew mentioned, they resolve well so it's a minor point to me. Production for the most part is pulled off very nicely with clear separation of parts, even in the loud section.... Arrangement is a very creative take on an oft-remixed track, so double props there. There's no question what's being remixed, but that doesn't mean the track is predictable by any stretch."

Excellent work from Rich that takes a VERY familiar piece of VGM and turns it into a cinematic vision, without compromising the heart & soul of the trademark progression or melody!