Something almost as bad DID happen in the form of the bizarre asteroid field battle in Attack of the Clones which not only lacked music but sound as well! Lucas really lost his mind when he signed off on the numerous bad ideas in the prequels.
Rick Berman comments on Ron Jones
- Thread starter toughlittleship
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Something almost as bad DID happen in the form of the bizarre asteroid field battle in Attack of the Clones which not only lacked music but sound as well! Lucas really lost his mind when he signed off on the numerous bad ideas in the prequels.
This is a completely unfair ad hominem attack. Is Rick Berman the only television producer to draw a salary or something? Was Gene Roddenberry doing all of his work pro bono? Obviously, producing a television series is a demanding, stressful job. It's only fair that he's compensated for it. Did he have a clause that he got paid a bonus for every shuttle Voyager lost, so he forced the writers to constantly lose shuttles? That's the only way your argument that his "greed" undermined the show makes sense.
I can't say that I agree with every creative decision that Berman made, but without knowing the guy I wouldn't put what I perceive as shortcomings in the show(s) down to his sloth or greed.
Of course he has the right to earn a salary, nothing at wrong with any of that. My problem is with him earning a salary in spite of shilling out a shit product. It seemed like he was going to get paid no matter what he did so he had no incentive to do a good job.
I agree. There was a build-up of tension in Part 1 that was, in large part, due to the music. Start with the scene in the conference room where the Admiral is telling Picard about a cube sighting and then go all the way up to when the cube is on the viewscreen and Picard tells Worf to signal the Admiral that they've engaged the Borg. Now imagine that whole sequence with Berman's wallpaper music. I'm no fan of John Williams bombast, but the other extreme is just as bad. Music shouldn't draw attention to itself, but it should enhance the scene, not make it worse and too often that's what Berman's wallpaper music did. In every interview I've seen Berman, he comes across as dull and bored, which is perhaps why his music is so fitting.
Ugh, not this again.
Why is "dated" bad?? I honestly don't get this.
Of course TOS music sounds like it was made in the 1960's. IT WAS. That's precisely WHY it was good.
"Dated" is NOT a bad thing.
Maybe dated is good if you like nostalgia, but when a show is supposed to create the illusion of the future, hearing some wocka wocka '60s music really takes you out of the moment, and kills the suspension of disbelief somewhat. When dated goes against the very premise of the show, it's not a good thing.
Oh, I agree. I still love the music in TOS, despite it sounding like it comes from an increasingly distant time. That's part of its charm.
But I was just examining what appears to be the Berman perspective, which obviously regards TOS as dated, and see that as a bad thing. I do not agree with that POV. But there it obviously is.
Wocka, wocka, eh? Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel...
I realize that some people are going to watch older TV reruns and movies, hear the music of the past, and dislike it. Some folks in Gen Y (and "Z"?) are tuned into only their own pop, R&B, and dance music and have no time for anything else. Ironic that we're having this kind of sentiment expressed in a TNG forum, since TNG isn't getting any younger...
TOS was already dated in every aspect by 1979. Which is why they redesigned everything and let Goldsmith compose the music, which doesn't sound anything like the music in the show.
Sometimes you have to call a spade a spade.
I'm actually struck by how derivative of TOS the music of TMP was. There was obviously a conscious attempt by Goldsmith to bring some of the original's legacy forward to the disco era. If TMP's music were a flat-out repudiation of TOS, it might've sounded more like the original GALACTICA.
"Not this again"? Some people just don't like how the TOS music sounds, that's all. You say that TOS' music sounding like it was made in the '60's is what makes it good. I dislike TOS' music, and (probably not coincidentally) I dislike a lot of music from the '60's. So to me, that "it sounds like it's from the '60's" aspect is part of what makes it bad.
"Dated" IS a bad thing, isn't it? Doesn't "dated" generally mean "clearly identifiable as a product of its time" in a way that sticks out and distracts from the other qualities of the production? At least, in this kind of context (discussing TV shows or movies), I don't think I've ever seen it used to mean anything other than that.
30+ years from now, will others look at some music that I like in various modern/recent sci-fi movies or shows or games, and say "Man, that's dated, especially since the music is supposed to go with a story that takes place in the future!"? Maybe so. But that's fine; those hypothetical future people are entitled to their opinion.
One: blaming Berman entirely for the "years of crap" is completely insane. He DID make some bad decisions, no doubt about it, but he didn't personally write ever episode. Both VOY and ENT suffered from a serious lack of quality writing from a variety of people.
Two: working hard does not mean that you absolutely WILL put out a high-quality product. You can work hard and still fail. It sucks, and certainly, when it happens, you can (hopefully) look back and see where you went wrong, but the failure itself doesn't mean you were slacking off.
Of course he was going to get paid no matter what. His job was to manage and oversee the production of Trek shows, and he did that. If they had been bad enough in the eyes of the people he worked for that he should have been fired, then he WOULD have been fired (and the show in question possibly cancelled... which, of course, was what happened with ENT).
Name me a scenario in which an executive producer or show runner isn't fired, but is in fact kept on by the studio/network and asked to continue to produce the material, yet isn't paid simply because the ratings weren't high.
This. Incompetance doesn't make you a bad person, or a lazy person, or a greedy person. Berman was responsible for some very bad creative decisions in later Trek, but he was FAR from the only factor that led to so many of the problems of later Trek, and he did a lot of good on TNG (and, though he didn't meddle closely in DS9 throughout its run, he DID help to bring it to life).
Yeah. What could have been...
To be fair, I think McCarthy's score for AGT was pretty good, but definitely not his best work. And so many TNG eps had far more forgettable music than AGT.
So EVERY action scene needs to have bombastic scoring? The asteroid field scene in AOTC was clearly meant to give you a "vacuum of space" kind of feeling, and the lack of music and sound was meant to make those "BWWWAAANG" sound effects for the explosives Jango used even more noticeable. You may not like that particular creative decision, but to compare the (quite intentional) lack of music in ONE SCENE to the notion of Star Wars without the Imperial March is a huge stretch.
All of that said... I can't say I agree with Rick Berman on the issue of Ron Jones. It's funny... I didn't like most of the music from TNG s1 or 2 (with a few exceptions), but in s3, things REALLY picked up; as others have noted, "The Defector," "Best of Both Worlds", and others had some excellent music. So just when things got good, you fire the guy!
"Sonic wallpaper" doesn't really do it for me either. There were still some good scores to be had (Jay Chattaway was ok, sometimes great but usually just "there"; Dennis McCarthy was fantastic when he was allowed to stretch his legs with a score, but again, since he often stuck to the "tamp it down" routine for many episodes, his music too was often just "there"), but I do wish Berman hadn't gotten this idea into his head that powerful music was automatically overpowering (in a bad way) music.
The best scores ever in anything with "Star Trek" in the name remain movies 7-10, IMO. TUC's score I didn't like quite as much overall, but it was still good, and had an amazing opening theme. Also, the score for DS9's "The Siege of AR-558" was quite good, especially during the big battle at the end (I loved how the mood of the music was tragic rather than heroic or action-y; REALLY added a lot to the overall "war is hell" feel of that battle).
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All this having been said, if Mr. Berman somehow sought to "future-proof" TNG, DS9, etc., by using sonic wallpaper, then it's a safe bet that folks will probably deride that even more than they do now.
TNG, etc. are not getting any younger. Neither is the 2009 remake. Its day will come...
Funny, though, that nobody ridicules the bombastic musical score from STARGATE SG-1, the oldest episodes of which are almost 15 years old now...
Dennis McCarthy is a fine composer, I particularly enjoy his score to Generations as it seems like he was allowed off the leash for the movie. But the guy who scored The Defector and BOBW pulling out all the stops for one final episode of TNG? That's something I would love to experience.Yeah. What could have been...
To be fair, I think McCarthy's score for AGT was pretty good, but definitely not his best work. And so many TNG eps had far more forgettable music than AGT.
I wouldn't say that brash, bombastic musicals scores will date. But the synthesisers that were commonly used to score TNG in the early seasons are a very noticeable relic from 80s television and I can understand why Berman might want to remove such elements in order to make the shows timeless. But you can do timeless music without making it bland. Star Wars has a memorable score, but it doesn't sound like it's from the 70s.
It's funny, cause I can't think of a single contemporary TV show that has a memorable soundtrack. Nor do any of the shows have a memorable theme. I think JAG and SG1/SGA were the last shows I can remember to feature a great intro. Today it's either a song, or very generic stuff.
Music that's "of its time" isn't a problem. The entire work is "of its time", and always will be. You can't make a timeless TV series any more than you can make a timeless work of art. The best you can hope for is that enough elements and themes will resonate with the human experience down the ages. To use a trite example to explain what I mean: the Mona Lisa is not a timeless work of art; it is a work of art with a timeless appeal, and that is something very different. You can identify the innovations used, the pigments, the style, and date it very accurately. It is a dated work. But it remains compelling.
Moreover, the music used on any given episode should enhance, not detract from, the episode. It is perfectly logical and possible for a wonderful piece of music to detract from an episode. Again, to use a trite example to make the point, imagine overlaying Beethoven's Fifth over every scene in a TNG episode.
So, the question is not whether Berman's motivation was right or wrong (it was clearly correct to be concerned with these matters, based on the above logic), but whether his judgement in determining that Ron Jones in particular was a composer ill-suited to TNG's material was correct or not.
I happen to be one of the great unwashed when it comes to TNG scores - I rarely notice it apart from a cool riff during an action scene, or sad tune during a moving scene. That probably means the music score is working well in both the early and later TNG episodes. Would Ron Jones music have enhanced later TNG for the average viewer? Maybe, a little. But I don't think his absence markedly detracted from it; the other composers seem to have done a decent enough job to keep viewers (not just me) engaged and to increase viewer numbers.
By that measure, Berman's decision was (at worst) a neutral one.
Moreover, the music used on any given episode should enhance, not detract from, the episode. It is perfectly logical and possible for a wonderful piece of music to detract from an episode. Again, to use a trite example to make the point, imagine overlaying Beethoven's Fifth over every scene in a TNG episode.
So, the question is not whether Berman's motivation was right or wrong (it was clearly correct to be concerned with these matters, based on the above logic), but whether his judgement in determining that Ron Jones in particular was a composer ill-suited to TNG's material was correct or not.
I happen to be one of the great unwashed when it comes to TNG scores - I rarely notice it apart from a cool riff during an action scene, or sad tune during a moving scene. That probably means the music score is working well in both the early and later TNG episodes. Would Ron Jones music have enhanced later TNG for the average viewer? Maybe, a little. But I don't think his absence markedly detracted from it; the other composers seem to have done a decent enough job to keep viewers (not just me) engaged and to increase viewer numbers.
By that measure, Berman's decision was (at worst) a neutral one.
While it's true that the majority of viewers probably don't notice these things, I can honestly say that there have been times when I've watched episodes of TNG or DS9 and the lack of a strong musical score during big events has stuck in my craw. It doesn't happen often, and I can still enjoy and love the episodes regardless, but it does happen.
I'm reminded of my first viewing of Trials and Tribble-ations, specifically the rather lackluster 'action' music during the bar brawl.
Some of the action was a bit stilted to begin with, due to the composites with TOS footage (e.g. the chair being thrown past O'Brien), but the score, while making some small efforts, was simply far too restrained for my tastes. The lack of musical energy actually drew me out of the scene and remains, to this day, one of my only dissatisfactions with this otherwise excellent episode.
Some of the action was a bit stilted to begin with, due to the composites with TOS footage (e.g. the chair being thrown past O'Brien), but the score, while making some small efforts, was simply far too restrained for my tastes. The lack of musical energy actually drew me out of the scene and remains, to this day, one of my only dissatisfactions with this otherwise excellent episode.
Wocka, wocka, eh? Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel...
I realize that some people are going to watch older TV reruns and movies, hear the music of the past, and dislike it. Some folks in Gen Y (and "Z"?) are tuned into only their own pop, R&B, and dance music and have no time for anything else. Ironic that we're having this kind of sentiment expressed in a TNG forum, since TNG isn't getting any younger...
I've never been one to follow the latest musical trends, and gave a perfectly valid reason for why I don't like the music of TOS aside from "it's old people music and I can't dance to it".
The orchestral music in later series and movies will date a lot better overall, because it's not so tied into a particular era. Funny you mention TNG, because I've caught a few early episodes lately, and the music in the earlier ones is less orchestral, and also dating quite poorly.
On the other hand, I've got soundtracks from the Trek movies, and even TMP still sounds great, because it's orchestral. It's sort of ironic that orchestral music predates all of the musical trends of the past 50+ years, yet sounds more "timeless". I guess it's old enough to have proven timeless already, while music of the past 100 years evolves much faster.
And I have no problem with wocka wocka music, just not in my Trek.
Back in the good ol' days when shows had full minute intros to play with. Go back a little further, and many shows had 1:30 - 2 minute intros, with some of the most memorable theme songs ever. Now you're not even guaranteed to get intro music (like SGU), and if you do it's usually only half a minute at most. Blame the networks for continually shaving more and more time out of the programs for commercials. That time's gotta get cut somewhere.
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