I’d also trust what @Maurice has to say on the subject, since he’s spent considerable time going through the original documentation in the Roddenberry and Justman files at UCLA, which are extensive.
Well because if a fan doesn't like something, naturally neither did the writer.
It's probably more just someone who was aware of a) the poor reputation of "Spock's Brain" and b) the fact that writers often use pseudonyms when they're unhappy with a script rewrite (as I believe D.C. Fontana did with "The Way to Eden," though I welcome correction if I'm wrong) and jumped to a conclusion.
Thanks. We tend do go for primary sources wherever possible.
I don't have as elevated an opinion of Coon as many. Yes, he helped the show a lot, but it got rather same-y under his tenure, his first "original" script for the show was accidental plagiarism of Frederic Brown, and on his way out the door of the Trek offices he gave Heinlein a sob-story* to get him to waive the plagiarism problem with "Tribbles" instead of doing what the studio did with Brown and just offer to buy the story rights. That was one writer cheating another and I disrespect that a lot.
*—This coming from a letter from Heinlein to Harlan Ellison.
Back to Alexander, I just updated the article to include the following clip from The Paley Center for Media:
William Shatner - Training for Alexander the Great (2004). As in his 2008 book Up Til Now, he asserts that it was a two-hour pilot and that it may have distributed in foreign markets as a feature. As per the article, we've found no evidence to back up these contentions.
William Shatner - Training for Alexander the Great (2004). As in his 2008 book Up Til Now, he asserts that it was a two-hour pilot and that it may have distributed in foreign markets as a feature. As per the article, we've found no evidence to back up these contentions.
I saw another Shatner reference to Alexander someplace, maybe it was in Star Trek Memories, where he said, "All I got out of it was a set of muscles." But if it hadn't been for that failed pilot, he probably would not have gotten Star Trek. He wouldn't have had the Kirk physique when Desilu called him in.
Maybe. It was something like 19 months between the shooting of that pilot and the 2nd Trek pilot, and he did For the People in the interim. He's also claimed that he prepared for Alexander for a year, which is bunk, given his casting notice was August 13, 1963, and the pilot shot in the fall.
We just looked at the score that was released in 2012 by The Film Music Society on the album Alexander the Great and Other Rare Rosenman, and the Alexander score amounts to only 21 minutes of music, which would be about right for an hour-slot show, not a movie.
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Is that Leonard Rosenman?
In the Sybil score, I recall from somewhere that Rosenman hated the song lyric that his melody was given, the "I Remember Me" thing. He thought it was incredibly stupid.Yes.
He did wonders for Fantastic Voyage, but I never fell in love with Star Trek IV. First time hearing that main title in the theater, it sounded like Christmas music. Seeing it in early December might have played a part in that. But also, it was so incredibly cheerful as to play against the sense of menace when the Earth is threatened. It puts you in the wrong mood. I think he got the job because he was friends with Leonard Nimoy.
The STIV titles are fine because it’s the tone of the movie. And the movie doesn’t open with menace, just this weird probe that hasn’t proven to be an issue, yet.
I was not that familiar with Rosenman’s work at the time, but I instantly recognized the similarity to his The Lord of the Rings titles.
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I'm hit or miss with Rosenman. Some scores are nice, others grating (he achieved both ends in his two Planet of the Apes scores). But Alexander the Great is really good.Yes.
Yeah, it's very Christmasy. It's all the bells, I think.
It fits the overall lighthearted tone of the movie, though.
The Apes score for Beneath reminds me of LOTR.
I do dig Roseman’s work in East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, and Fantastic Voyage.
There was a pretty big leap between TMP and TWOK. But then the films themselves were very different. Same for TSFS and TVH.
Sure — but they also changed the music between TMP and TWOK, which makes perfect sense, given that difference.
In art, variety is generally better than uniformity. It applies to musical scores.
I suspect the change had less to do with the difference in tone and more to do with James Horner being (at the time) a less famous and experienced composer and thus probably much cheaper to hire. Of course, it could've just been about Goldsmith's availability or Meyer's musical preferences.