The music on Star Trek Discovery
- Thread starter Scotty
- Start date
Jeff Russ is an interesting choice. Obviously versatile given his Legion score but the Tut score proves he can also do something a bit more classical. His The Night Of work was quite good and more dark and intimate. To be honest I'm not very familiar with his work but I will be checking out his discography to get a feel for him.
As for the fact there's only one composer, that's due to the shorter seasons and is probably a good thing.
I do hope they afford Russo an orchestra to work with though. I am fine with experimenting with electronic sounds and adore soloists and different intriguing stuff but ... please don't let the Star Trek score become electronic wallpaper (e.g. like The Expanse)! Given the latest trailer for Discovery, I am expecting sweeping orchestral beauty and majesty. I think that would work.
As for the fact there's only one composer, that's due to the shorter seasons and is probably a good thing.
I do hope they afford Russo an orchestra to work with though. I am fine with experimenting with electronic sounds and adore soloists and different intriguing stuff but ... please don't let the Star Trek score become electronic wallpaper (e.g. like The Expanse)! Given the latest trailer for Discovery, I am expecting sweeping orchestral beauty and majesty. I think that would work.
I was going to say it might not even have a main title sequence, given that those have become less common these days. But then I remembered it's on a streaming service rather than network TV, and streaming-original shows do tend to have full main title sequences (which I assume is partly to facilitate pre-loading, since on slow computers it takes a minute or so for the image quality to clear up).
Technically it's the bandwidth of the connection, not the speed of the computer.
Streaming shows have title sequences because they're a standard convention of TV shows since... uh... a very long time, let's say. The idea that they are there to buy time to buffer a higher-quality stream is unfounded speculation and honestly wouldn't even make much sense, especially given how many shows come with pre-title teaser scenes that would no doubt benefit from such a quality bump... if only they came after the title.
But network TV shows in the US have increasingly dropped the use of title sequences over the past couple of decades. These days, a lot of shows have no main title except a 5- or 10-second title card with a brief sting of music, and then show their credits over the first act. LOST was an example; so is Lucifer. There are also shows like the Berlanti CW shows that split the difference -- they have an introductory sequence that's effectively like a main title, but that doesn't actually include the title card, which comes separately after the cold open, or the cast credits, which are shown over the first act.
That's why it's so unusual for streaming shows to have full main title sequences. Yes, it used to be the normal practice, but it hasn't been for the past couple of decades, at least not in American TV, where the pressure to cram in more commercials led to the near-demise of main titles until they recently started to make a comeback.
I note, though, that a number of shows that have only brief title cards in their original broadcast do have full main title sequences on the DVD releases. And I'm told that The Expanse has a full main title sequence every week in Canada, though in its US airings, only the season premieres and finales get full main titles and the rest of the episodes get just a brief title card.
That's all to fit in more commercials, dude. (I notice you say this below.)
But streaming providers aren't beholden to the running length strictures of TV, so they can afford full title sequences, which are just as important to the art of a TV show as any other aspect of it--which is why they still do 'em.
Well, there you go. Removing the title sequences is the aberration, driven by budgetary needs for TV networks rather than showrunners deciding they aren't artistically necessary anymore. The presence or lack thereof certainly has nothing to do with stream buffering.
Yes, but what's surprising about the ones on streaming shows is how long they are. Even the shows that still do have main title sequences tend to keep them to a minute or less, which was about the norm for most of TV history. But a lot of Netflix shows have main title sequences that last around two minutes. It surprises me because their shows are meant for binge-watching, and you'd think a binge-watcher would prefer not to sit through a whole two-minute sequence once an hour. (Although Netflix has recently added a "Skip Intro" button to take that into account -- but they didn't have it before this past year.) So I had to wonder if there might be some functional reason for making the titles unusually long.
All I have seen is speculation (like yours) that it has something to do with buffering, but no one with inside knowledge (i.e. a Netflix employee) has indicated anything of the kind. Could be the show producers just like long intros! Sometimes a cigar, etc.
Seems unlikely given that it's fairly consistent across Netflix shows from totally different sets of producers, e.g. the Marvel shows, Marco Polo, and Sense8. If it's the result of anyone's preference, it would probably be Netflix's own execs. Perhaps one or two of their early shows had long title sequences and it was well-received, so they made it a standard practice. (And maybe it originally was for buffering purposes but doesn't need to be anymore? Although on my connection, I usually need the extra time for the picture to clear up, at least when a show begins with the title sequence instead of a cold open.)
Sure, why not.
Pretty sure you could find somebody from Netflix saying this if that was the case, since it would be a pretty simple and straightforward explanation. The fact that no one can produce a single quote or explanation from a Netflix employee to this effect tells me buffering has nothing to do with it and it is artistic/production choice and no one made for any technical reason.
Not that Goldsmith's is a bad one, it isn't, but unseating it is really what needs to be done. It had been overused to death about halfway through the number of times it was used.
^Geez, why are you being so hostile about this? I just voiced a speculation. It's not some passionate belief I'm trying to convince people of. So lay off the sarcastic eye rolls.
Oh, sorry. I have my browser set to freeze gifs by default, so I couldn't tell what smiley that was.
Let's face it, most of our conversations around here would go more smoothly face-to-face. There are so many different ways to read a typical post, from friendly, to condescending, to outright hostile, and it's tough to know what tone is correct.
I do like to think that now and then we'd break into a brawl like in "The Trouble with Tribbles", though. I might even get to land a good one on a moderator's chin before the rest of them take me down!
With the speed that most people's bandwith is at now, I really can't see this being an issue. Hell, we have one of the slowest speed's our provider offers, and I the only time I have an issue with the video is when I lose my connection. I don't know if it makes a difference in that regard, but I also tend to watch it either on my PS4, or my tablet, so that might also explain it. I think that also tends to be the most common way to watch Netflix and other streaming services these day.
I actually had a Discovery music related thought the other day, would you want to see them use pop music, or at least non-orchestral music in Discovery? I honestly enjoy a lot of the pop music used in the shows I watch, and I wouldn't mind seeing/hearing it on Discovery.
Are you talking in terms of Russo writing his original incidental music in a more modern style, or in terms of using actual licensed pop songs in the episodes? I could live with the former (though I'd like there to be some orchestral elements in it too), but not so much the latter. I find it incongruous when present-day pop music is used to score something set in the past or future. I mean, yeah, TOS had source music (and theme music) in contemporary styles, but it was originally composed; we can just assume that future tastes circled back around to something like jazz, swing, and the like. The Kelvin movies justify it as being source "oldies" that certain characters happen to be fond of -- I guess it's sort of the equivalent of someone today liking classical music -- but it's still a bit contrived.
And I'm deeply sick of the trope that's been used since the '90s where the last few minutes of each episode are largely devoted to a long music-video-ish sequence where there's a long, dialogue-free montage of the characters sitting around brooding or whatever while a pop song plays over it all. They could be telling actual story during that time!