The two melodies are actually quite similar to each other, and regularly play against each other, consecutively and contrapuntally, elaborating on the idea that the two ideas are linked in the character of Virgil. The whole thing is built around two main themes – one for Virgil himself, one for the concept of flying – which interweave throughout the score and form the core of most cues. The score is fully orchestral, but with a number of specialist instruments intended to convey the verdant, remote jungle from which Virgil hails: ethnic woodwinds, pan pipes, didgeridoos, and shakuhachi are all used with a flagrant disregard for geographic specificity, while a whole host of percussion items, rattlers, and shakers add to the rhythmic bed of the score. What’s immediately apparent about the score for Project X is that it appears to sit at something of a crossroads in his career, in that it notably draws from the already-established palette of sounds from the early part of the decade, while simultaneously introducing a number of ideas that would recur throughout much of the rest. The score for Project X was by composer James Horner, secure in his new-found status as a Hollywood A-lister off the back of his Oscar nominations and Grammy wins for Aliens and An American Tail in 1986. The film co-stars William Sadler, Jonathan Stark, Stephen Lang, and Jean Smart, and was well received by critics at the time, who praised it as a ‘young person’s morality tale’ that tackles the important subject of animal welfare. When Jimmy realizes that Virgil, along with all the other chimps, is supposed to die as part of the project’s research into the effects of radiation poisoning, he finds and contacts Teri appalled by what the government is going to do to the animals, they agree to work together to rescue Virgil, and stop the project.
He bonds with one of the chimps, Virgil, after he discovers that it was taught sign language by its previous owner, graduate student Teri MacDonald (Helen Hunt). Matthew Broderick starred as young US Air Force researcher Jimmy Garrett, who is assigned to a top secret project that involves teaching chimpanzees to fly planes. Project X was a genre-defying film – part action, part sci-fi, part-comedy, part drama – directed by Jonathan Kaplan from a screenplay by Lawrence Lasker and Stanley Weiser.