Trek Music
- Thread starter evangelist6589
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doubleohfive
Fleet Admiral
Oh I know. I just think its sill to complain about it at all. Musicians repeat themselves. It's a fact of life. You watch an episode of Ducktales there's a good chance you'll hear music oddly similar to "The Best of Both Worlds." The score to Avatar sounds eerily similar to that of Titanic. When I first saw Inception I was convinced (at least in the first fifteen or twenty minutes) that Zimmer was just rehashing his and James Newton Howard's Batman Begins/Dark Knight score. Giacchino's "Labor of Love" from Star Trek hews incredibly close to his love theme for Sawyer and Kate on Lost.
That Horner repeats himself across franchises is hardly the worst crime in the world, and he's provided moviegoers and soundtrack lovers with several really wonderful albums/scores, Star Trek II and Star Trek III among them.
I don't mind the similar motifs, and I love Horner's soundtracks, but in all fairness? I have to admit that I was left slack-jawed while watching Aliens.
That was the friggin' Klingons theme!!!
It was BARELY any different.
Don't get me wrong. It's good music, so I enjoyed hearing it, but it was also so similar that it took me out of the movie. It was that distracting.
And it didn't deter from my enjoyment of the movie either. I just found it amusing.
"HOLY SHIT! That's the Star Trek music! Waitaminute...who did this soundtrack? James Horner, no wonder!" that kind of thing.
But then in Aliens defense, it's because I'm a hardcore Trekkie and I know the music very well.
That was the friggin' Klingons theme!!!
It was BARELY any different.
Don't get me wrong. It's good music, so I enjoyed hearing it, but it was also so similar that it took me out of the movie. It was that distracting.
And it didn't deter from my enjoyment of the movie either. I just found it amusing.
"HOLY SHIT! That's the Star Trek music! Waitaminute...who did this soundtrack? James Horner, no wonder!" that kind of thing.
But then in Aliens defense, it's because I'm a hardcore Trekkie and I know the music very well.
I think most score fans will agree that Horner's tendency towards self-plagiarism is much more pronounced than most of his peers.
If you're upset about Aliens ripping off Star Trek 3, listen to Battle Beyond the Stars sometime. It's Star Trek 2 by another name!
Having said that, Horner has written some terrific scores, and I have several of them on disc. But there just isn't the variety in his scores that I hear from other composers. YMMV.
If you're upset about Aliens ripping off Star Trek 3, listen to Battle Beyond the Stars sometime. It's Star Trek 2 by another name!
Having said that, Horner has written some terrific scores, and I have several of them on disc. But there just isn't the variety in his scores that I hear from other composers. YMMV.
I feel the first season had consistently the best music. Nearly every score was excellent, but the Mullendore music. both from Conscience of the Ling and the library cues, were from a different era. He seemed to be more interested in having an old fashioned, classical music style. However, none of it was bad.
The second season, however, had some of my all time favorite music: The Doomsday Machine was perfect from start to finish. Fred Steiner, though, reused a little too much of his previous music to make his winners for me in the second year. The real surprise in getting the complete scores box set was learning that many of my favorite cues were library cues composed by Alexander Courage. And I agree with a few others, I, Mudd is pretty unlistenable.
The third season had some amazing music, but some did tend to not thrill me as much. And the Children Shall Lead had some annoying cues and The Enterprise Incident wasn't as enjoyable as Courage's other work. However, Steiner's Klingon Music and score from Spock's Brain are great. Spectre of the Gun by Jerry Fielding is great all around and George Duning's Is There In Truth No Beauty is a lot of fun.
Honestly, I love just about all of it.
The second season, however, had some of my all time favorite music: The Doomsday Machine was perfect from start to finish. Fred Steiner, though, reused a little too much of his previous music to make his winners for me in the second year. The real surprise in getting the complete scores box set was learning that many of my favorite cues were library cues composed by Alexander Courage. And I agree with a few others, I, Mudd is pretty unlistenable.
The third season had some amazing music, but some did tend to not thrill me as much. And the Children Shall Lead had some annoying cues and The Enterprise Incident wasn't as enjoyable as Courage's other work. However, Steiner's Klingon Music and score from Spock's Brain are great. Spectre of the Gun by Jerry Fielding is great all around and George Duning's Is There In Truth No Beauty is a lot of fun.
Honestly, I love just about all of it.
"Conscience" is one of my favorite ST scores and, of the entire LLL set, probably the one I've played the most. The love theme is full and luxurious, with a just-right arrangement not quite exactly captured on the Label X, and there is nothing old-fashioned about "Phaser Overload" relative to TOS music in general.
That's true. Something incredible happened for a TV episode to produce such a singular opus. Does anybody know why Kaplan didn't do more for ST?
I actually like and appreciate the way Steiner brought back his old themes in "Who Mourns," because I've come to look at it as what Jerry Goldsmith did in the ST movies. And there was plenty of new material for Apollo and Caroline, plus the storm. Note that in "The Paradise Syndrome," Fried brought back his Spock music from "Amok Time."
I agree with that up and down the line. But I've also seen a very serious ST music fan or two express how much they love "The Enterprise Incident." It's a matter of taste.
I think of it as Star Trek's take on the opening notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
Yes. I've always loved the "Elaan of Troyius" space-battle cues and the whole "Spock's Brain" score in general, but on CD they're amazing. The Klingon battle cues are feature-quality scoring, incredibly rich. And I'm amazed that I never noticed how wonderful the cue under McCoy's climactic brain surgery is -- probably because it's pretty quiet under the dialogue. It reminds me of parts of the ST:TMP score -- no doubt the parts arranged by Steiner himself.
Do we know if the orchestra for those episodes was larger than usual? Because they really do sound more like feature scores than TV scores.
That's funny, I had the exact same reaction to The Man Trap's soundtrack.
The musician lists are in the booklets for each episode, except The Trouble With Tribbles, which is missing.
Neil
I was on the fence about the LLL box set until I heard the sample of Battle Music from Elaan of Troyius. It blew me away and I realized that I had to have the set. Up to that point I had only had music from the Trek movies. I am very glad that I purchased the set. It's one of the best music purchases I've ever made.
I love the Man Trap score. It's weird, dark and lonely, much like the creature in the story. It's a very stark score. Not something I'd play for my buddies in the car, but still one of my favorite scores in the run. I know Roddenberry and Justman hated it, but I am in total disagreement with them. The cue "Top Security" is my favorite. Total gold.
You inspired me to take another look at it.
When I listened to it a couple of weeks back, it wasn't a pleasant score, but I know that's the point.
When I was first starting to cut the La-La Land project, Jeff Bond came over to hear this stuff. He happened to come on the day I was cutting "The Man Trap". I think I said something like, "Congratulations, Jeff. You visited on the day I was cutting the most boring score."
It has some memorable moments that were re-used, but it's not as interesting as Courage's other scores for the series.
Neil
It has some memorable moments that were re-used, but it's not as interesting as Courage's other scores for the series.
Neil
There are some parts that were wisely omitted from the finished episode. "Conference" does drone on. As for stuff left in, "Salt Chaser" and "Noisy Plant" also kind of meander and are practically the same cue, but the rest of it just appeals to me. As a kid, one of the reasons I loved this episode was this score. It was "weird" to me and it made the episode really dark. It's not adventurous or hopeful, but damn, it does drill down into the heart of the story.
As a pure listening experience, I agree that "The Cage," "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "The Naked Time" play better. When this set was announced, this was one of the top score I was excited to hear. But I totally understand why people may not enjoy it and why GNP didn't put this out 30 years ago.
"Most Boring Score" of the series for me, though...I guess "I, Mudd" since it's a slog to get through.
Hey Neil, by the way, thanks for all of your work on it. I never tire of listening to it.
As a pure listening experience, I agree that "The Cage," "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "The Naked Time" play better. When this set was announced, this was one of the top score I was excited to hear. But I totally understand why people may not enjoy it and why GNP didn't put this out 30 years ago.
"Most Boring Score" of the series for me, though...I guess "I, Mudd" since it's a slog to get through.
Hey Neil, by the way, thanks for all of your work on it. I never tire of listening to it.
Yep. It was sci-fi/horror music. It was dreary. It did not strike the tone that Roddenberry and Justman wanted to set for Star Trek, either emotionally or stylistically. A rare miss for Alexander Courage, but I also blame the episode itself, the script, for setting him in that direction.
"The Man Trap" score is a part of our history now, we grew up with it, and it may be loved by the few (or the one), but it did not create the ideal lead-off for Star Trek's debut in 1966, and it might be part of the reason Roddenberry's father went up and down the street apologizing to the neighbors that night.
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