https://www.trektoday.com/content/2019/07/russo-to-score-star-trek-picard-show/ Oh well...more "sonic wallpaper" then. At least that´s what it is for me. As much as DIS itself grew on me..the music just doesn´t. I never thought there´d be a Star Trek Opening Theme as un-memorable as DISs. I couldn´t hum even the tiniest motif from it.
I'm of two minds. On the one hand: DSC has some good music, even though it can be a 2010s/2020s version of wallpaper a lot of the time. On the other hand: At least it won't sound like late-TNG through ENT. But, yeah, TV Trek's best music was generally TOS and the first four seasons of TNG.
What do we think the chances are of any old themes making an appearance? Aside from the Courage fanfare of course which is almost guaranteed. I guess the top (only?) contenders would be: TMP/TNG Theme - a few notes of this did appear in the first Picard trailer The Inner Light Theme Picard's Theme (which was based on the aborted original TNG theme) - pretty sure this disappeared from TNG around the time Ron Jones did.
Some of the old Tng Composers are still kicking about, how about enlisting them?? And instead of Berman's ho hum on music, let them loose!
Picard had a theme? Got a link to this? All the Google and YouTube searches I try on "Picard's Theme" just turn up the flute music from The Inner Light.
Yeah it was basically the middle-8 of the aborted theme: When you hear it you'll probably recognise it. Encounter at Farpoint used it a lot (probably because it was meant to be the actual TNG theme) and It was used all the time in the first couple of seasons, but rarely after that. I'm sure it was known as "Picard's Theme" officially somewhere... EDIT: "Picard's Theme" plays in this clip at around 0:58:
Too bad it's not Michael Giacchino Say what you want about ST09, but it has the Best music of all of Star Trek movies
I love Russo's work for Discovery, but I hope he Goldsmith's the hell out of this score. The theme for the show can be unique, but I hope we hear some subtle recurring motifs in the episode soundtracks themselves that are throwbacks. There's so much work composed by the late Jerry Goldsmith, and any or all of the themes below could be used to represent Picard, even if it's just sprinkled in every once in a while, but I'd love to hear at least ONE of these for continuity's sake: Theme from "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" "A Busy Man" From Star Trek V (re-used heavily in First Contact and Nemesis) Theme from "Star Trek: First Contact"
They've been busy on The Orville, although thanks to the hiaitus I guess they have some time. But we wouldn't want to disrupt the cronyism of the Kurtzman crew, would we?
I'm not going to defend the Kurtzman music. It is what it is most of the time. But can you honestly tell me you like that Berman-tastic crap?
I wholeheartedly agree! Though important to note - the music doesn't depend only on the componist, but also a whole lot on what the producers order them to do. DIS very obviously had that "inoffensive" background music, without strong melodies or themes. But that was an intentional choice, that's what a lot of modern television or movie soundtrack sounds like. Who knows. I really hope they tell him to introduce some kickass melodies (like Giachiano was told to do for ST09). But to be actually able to judge Russo as a composer, I know to little of his work. I only know his DIS soundtracks - and they sound reasonably competent.
I don't mind Discovery's music. I just hope the directors mix it a bit lower than in Discovery, and the music isn't constantly playing. There were a lot of times I had a hard time understanding what was being said last season, because the music and ambient sound effects were seemingly mixed higher than the dialogue.
Well with Goldsmith and Horner in the first few movies, the music was a part of the movie, and you could ( and I do) just listen to the film score and the movie plays in your head.. Very rarely these days do you have a great film score.. none of the marvel movies ( except maybe GotG 80s tracks) stand out musically.. you have the "Avenger Theme" that blares ocasionally.. but gone are the 80's movies with the rocking film music..
Sorry to nitpick, but the GotG soundtracks had (either exclusively, or near exclusively) songs from the 60s and 70s, not the 80s.
The only music I can remember from Season 1 is the Terran empire theme. Season 2 I can remember a lot more of the music, but it isn't something I would hum. Season 2 used the iconic notes from the TOS theme quite a bit, and parts of DSC's main theme as well.
Not to spam this thread but the Orville scores added up are worth a dozen popcorn movies in orchestral richness and lack of repetition. So it can be done but it goes against the grain of modern composing to write this way. Giacchino's Trek work was good but incredibly repetitious. You can only repeat the main theme so many times before you want to puke. His best work was The Incredibles.
@Lord Garth is right about the sonic wallpaper in season 1 and his scores suffer from a thin sound quality that's probably due to a small orchestral ensemble. he could easily beef up the sound digitally but opts not to do it for whatever reason and it really hampers this music from sounding as good as it should. but thinness aside, russo actually produced some knock out music in season 2, particularly for "such sweet sorrow" (see: "pike on the bridge", "ready"). his discovery theme is built around alexander courage's opening notes in the TOS main theme which i don't think he gets a lot of credit for, so i'm encouraged by what he might be able to concoct from goldsmith's theme for picard.
Aborted TNG theme kind of reminds of The Orville's theme. Eh, it's not bad music, but the fact that Trek XI and STID basically put the "Enterprising Young Men" tune on a loop for two hours definitely grates on the soul. I preferred the restrained usage of the tune in Beyond, as well as the choice to use more variations of it than just the base model the other two used repeatedly.