Official Star Trek music discussion

What do you all think of Star Trek music? Later instalments (TNG movies) haven't been so great, but The Motion Picture is a classic, Horner's scores for II and III are awesome, and I find VI very listenable, too.

 

I love Horner's Wrath of Khan score and Goldsmith's Next Generation theme is classic.

Although, on the whole, most Star Trek music doesn't do it for me. It doesn't pack the punch of a lot of other sci fi music.

 

I do enjoy the music of the original movies (esp. Kahn) but, I find this thread disturbing...... something about Star Tr..Tr... Trek (there I said it) here makes me feel funny inside....

 

I love Horner's Wrath of Khan score and Goldsmith's Next Generation theme is classic.

You mean Goldsmith's theme for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. That's what it was written for.

To answer this, I love the Star Trek scores. The weakest I think is Generations. Sounds too television for my tastes. ST 2, ST 6 and First Contact are my favourites....

 

I personally think Jerry Goldsmith has composed the best music for the series. His score for The Motion Picture is one of the all-time great scores, IMHO. His main theme for the film, which was later used for The Next Generation, perfectly captures the sense of exploration and wonder that Star Trek represents. I've also enjoyed his other three ST scores, along with his Emmy-winning yet underrated theme for Voyager. I look forward to his score for Nemesis.

 

I love Star Trek music. Not as great as Star Wars but magnificent music anyway ...

I love Goldsmith and Horner scores for Trek.
But Star Trek VI is a beautiful and unique approach for Trek score. I like it very much.

I hope Goldsmith will return with a little more inspiration for Star Trek: Nemesis.

 

The finest are I, II, and VI. Gotta love THE BATTLE FOR PEACE.

 

I agree Battle for Peace is a Masterpiece.

 

.

 

You had said enough ...

Leik?

What the ...?

umm ... nevermind.

 

Why is it that anytime Star Trek is mentioned on this board, some freak crawls out of the cracks and posts a message like "Star Trek sucks"?

Now, about the music.

James Horner is a hack. All of the best "cues" from Star Trek II and III were stolen from Prokofiev. His theme for Khan is practically identical to The Battle on the Ice by Prokofiev. "Stealing the Enterprise" begins with a direct quotation from The Death of Tybalt. I can't stand a film composer who quotes a classical composer and then doesn't give credit. I'm fully aware that Horner wrote it for next to nothing, in hardly any time, but that doesn't make me ignore plagarism.

Cliff Eidelman's score for The Undiscovered Country was based on Mars the Bringer of War by Gustav Holst. It was a good score, but too unrelated to TMP's main theme.

Leonard Rosenman's score for The Voyage Home was totally uninspiring...marked a huge point in the downhill spiral of Star Trek scores. Not only did you have Horner "write" music for two movies, but then you bring in a composer who's style is totally different than Goldsmith's. It would be as if John William's work on Episode III were to be replaced, by, oh, say...Danny Elfman.

Star Trek TMP was possibly the greatest work of Jerry Goldsmith of the late 70's early 80's. The one scene I usually use to judge all action cues is "Klingon Battle". Technically, from a music theory point of view, TMP was one of the most original film music works of the decade...orchestration, arrangement, performance, and the synthesizers all were "perfect".

 

Well, first off, as one of the few here who remembers life before Star Wars (i.e. pre-1977), I have somewhat of a different feeling about Star Trek. Liking SW & ST is not mutually exclusive. Rivalry-based prejudice is silly. They are two entirely different creatures. Outer space just happens to be a common setting. ST movies are mostly glorified TV episodes (some good, some not). They don't even come close to the epic mythology of SW. That's not the point.

Anyhoo, Jerry Goldsmith's score for TMP is brilliant. I just watched TMP last week on my new HT system (awesome), and the music and visuals make the movie. Gives it a bit of a 2001 feel to it (which is good, because the rehashed story is barely noticeable anymore).

The other scores have some interesting moments, but all come up short. BTW, the theme for Voyager is great (about the only thing I like about it).

 

Dudes. [face_bang_head_on_table]

I typed in all caps and stuff hoping that you would GET THE SARCASM.

I at least thought Ken would see it.

 

Bad timing, Sithman. Remember, this is a forum for intelligent discussion of film music, not for spam. Please don't do it again.

 

*sigh* It was a JOKE, people.


Eesh...

 

Nothing wrong with what Sithy did, I was about to do the same thing. It was deafly obvious that it was a joke...

 

Hmmm, I'm not sure if I recall what you wrote, Sithy. Was it in "GAMERSPEEK" (or whatever)? That might have thrown some people off of your humor (at least in this forum). I had no problem with it (attempt at humor). I was repsonding in general to some silly ST bashing that occurs all over the JC.

Which is all besides the point of this thread...music....

 

Yah, just to clarify, I was just acting like most fanboys on this forum do when someone says they like Star Trek. I assumed the "LAMERSPEEK" would make it obvious I was trying to imitate some "going-to-get-medival-on-your-rear" Star Wars fanboy. That is evidenced by JonathonVandergriff's statement...
Why is it that anytime Star Trek is mentioned on this board, some freak crawls out of the cracks and posts a message like "Star Trek sucks"?


Sadly, the humor was lost.

Now, I won't bug this thread anymore, carry on.

 

"It would be as if John William's work on Episode III were to be replaced, by, oh, say...Danny Elfman."


You know, that's really not such a bad idea.

 

I love Trek music; Goldsmith, Horner and Eidelman did some fantastic work, but I have to say that while I own all of the soundtracks, I won't even contemplate buying The Voyage Home, just because it is so bad.

I just want to throw a question out there. While I believe that Jerry Goldsmith is god, I would have been interested in listening to something done by another composer. Who do you think would make an interesting change from Jerry?

I would have liked to have seen James Horner return to Star Trek; his roots. I would also liked to have heard something from Howard Shore. He has had some recent success, and I would liked to have heard his take on Trek music. I also think that Danny Elfman, and Alan Silvestri could have been an interesting possibility.

What do you think?

 

Well, Alan Silvestri might've been a big choice. If they'd done a big Dominion War movie, Basil Poledouris.

 

Yeah I'd like to see some other composers take a shot at Star Trek. I also think it would be cool to see James Horner return and do a new score as his style has changed a lot since 1984...

 

::refrains from commenting on James Horner's style::

::can't resist::

I'll try not to be offensive, but as I was watching Windtalkers, which was scored by Horner, I kept being distracted from the movie (not necessarily a bad thing; it was a pretty bad movie) by the fact that the music was exactly the same as music he'd done for Willow and Glory and whatnot.

 

The Motion Picture is a classic of film scoring, possibly one of my top five favorite scores of all time.]

Star Trek II is pretty much Horner's best, alongside Krull perhaps. (Ok, Glory, Willow and some others too)

III is more of the same, but I cannot get enough of that leaving Spacedock cue.

IV Had a good theme, and I just like the way Rosenmann writes. Odd that both he and Goldsmith worked on the Planet of the Apes franchise too.

V Is a breath of fresh air. Wish the whole score was on CD instead of the paltry amount plus the stupid song at the end.

VI Quite good, and proves that Eidelman is an underappreciated genius.

Generations- Not that good, but we're in the dire times of Rick Berman's stranglehold over the franchise, which leaves him demanding that the music not draw too much attention to itself. McCarthy's score isn't as good as I remember his for V-The Final Battle to be, but I like the main theme

First Contact-Somewhat booring, yet Joel Goldsmith's material is interesting, and Jerry's poignant theme (I like the recording done for Frontiers more) and music for the dish battle set it above average. Again the amount of score on the disk is nearly pathetic

Insurrection- Not bad, but not entirely memorable. Maybe a few added tracks might help, but otherwise it's like auto-pilot Goldsmith, which is better than most scores these days.

Nemesis- is completed and will be released by Varese Sarabande instead of GNP Crecendo.
M.

 

"V Is a breath of fresh air. Wish the whole score was on CD instead of the paltry amount plus the stupid song at the end."

I bought the CD the other day, and I agree, it's way too short. The likelihood of the score being re-released seems slim, though. I guess you can blame the poorly-regarded film for that.


"Nemesis- is completed and will be released by Varese Sarabande instead of GNP Crecendo."

Varese, eh? I just hope they give the CD some good cover art. Although GNP's covers for their Star Trek CDs have all been lacking, they at least feature the logos and characters from the films/series. A lot of Varese's soundtracks have had bootleg-level covers that don't even have anything to do with the films. Take their recent re-recording of Jaws for example... But at least they're more likely to make this a longer release than the GNP CDs.