 |
|
| McCarthy |
|
|
Star Trek: Generations: (Dennis McCarthy) A valiant
attempt was made by Paramount in 1994 to bridge the gap in the
Star
Trek franchise between the "Original Series" and "Next Generation"
casts, with widely mixed results. Inevitably,
Star Trek:
Generations would face unsurmountable obstacles in both script and
expectations;
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was such a
valiant and popular conclusion (and goodbye) to the original franchise
of films, while
Star Trek: First Contact would follow this film
with easily the most memorable "Next Generation" entry. With so many
important story elements forced upon the plot of
Star Trek:
Generations, including the destruction of the Enterprise-D and the
death of Captain Kirk, it's no surprise that the film become lost in the
transition. Several almost laughable aspects of the production exposed
its lack of focus, including the use of the same footage of an exploding
Klingon Bird of Prey from the previous film as well as a confusing and
unexplained switch of Starfleet uniform style for only some of the
characters halfway through the film. With the seemingly unorganized
producers of the popular television series now in charge of the film,
they made the nearly fatal mistake of treating
Star Trek:
Generations like an expended episode, failing to elevate the
ambience of the production to levels that could compete with the
resoundingly massive scope of the films that came before and after. It
was the first attempt by the producers of the franchise to use a regular
composer of the television series instead of a traditional Hollywood
composer, and, throughout the run of the original ten films, it would
thankfully be the last. The prolific Dennis McCarthy had won an Emmy for
his 80 hours of music spread over more than half of the 178 episodes of
"The Next Generation," and director David Carson would ask McCarthy to
extend the musical identity of that series onto a larger canvas for
Star Trek: Generations. The result is a score that has all the
elements of a "Star Trek" score (the big orchestra, Alexander Courage's
television theme, and a full chorus), and yet McCarthy's music struggles
to disconnect itself from its roots in television.
The scores for the television episodes were written
quickly and were sparsely orchestrated, and a number of rules set upon
their contributing composers by the producers (including such things as
thematic limitation and an emphasis on ambience instead of sharp,
individual personality for each episode) caused music that was
serviceable, but no competition for the feature films' scores.
Unfortunately, McCarthy's music for
Star Trek: Generations is
doomed by the attempt to draw stylistic connections between this film
score and the previous episodic ones. As a consequence, this score has
the personality of an expanded episodic television score rather than an
individual motion picture score that stands among the others in the
series. Advocates of the work will claim that the use of the 95-member
ensemble and a chorus negates this argument, but the problem with
Star Trek: Generations is not its size. Rather, it's the lack of
expansive thematic scope and genuinely robust action structures. So much
of the score is subtle and ambient that such issues are clearly a
conceptual problem rather than one of execution. The opening titles are
a frightfully blatant example of this deviation. Every film in the
franchise before and after is graced with a fanfare, overture, or other
massive title sequence. The floating bottle in space that accompanies
the opening credits this time around were obviously not built for a
massive score cue (a parody environment would have resulted), but at the
same time, there has never been such a boring and more understated
opening to any of these films as this two minutes. Granted, McCarthy's
well-rendered explosion of Courage's theme at the end of the scene is a
highlight of the score (and a truly magnificent recording), but the
damage was already done. McCarthy's music excels when involving
Courage's theme, but it flounders when his own original title theme
tries to take center stage. The theme is far too optimistic in tone and
bland in structure... much like one of the television episodes, of
course. It's all in the major key, and considering the tragic storyline
of the film, it borders on being completely inappropriate.
The same bouncing, fluffy approach to a title theme was
provided for
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home by Leonard Rosenman,
though it was acceptable in the context of that film because it was,
essentially, a comedy. The horse-riding sequence in
Star Trek:
Generations, heard in "Jumping the Ravine," is embarrassingly lame,
as is the overture suite performance that cannot compete with other
suites in the franchise. To his credit, McCarthy does allude to this
theme on solo trumpet and in other various guises throughout the score,
and the short snippet that is combined with Courage's theme at the
conclusion of the film ("To Live Forever") is strong. Otherwise, all the
best thematic moments in
Star Trek: Generations include solely
Courage's theme. A meandering secondary theme for the mystical
environment of the Nexus is completely forgettable, wasting the use of
electronics and choir in an attempt to provide a wishy-washy atmosphere
for the parallel universe. Perhaps more disturbing is the decision by
McCarthy and the producers to abandon all the other established themes
of the franchise. The absence of Jerry Goldsmith's fanfare for both two
of the feature films and the "Next Generation" show is unforgivable, and
thankfully Goldsmith would contribute the theme to the three subsequent
films with the same cast. Most fans associate Goldsmith's bright and
strong brass theme with the Enterprise-D, and, even if McCarthy wasn't
allowed to use the "Next Generation" theme in his score, something
brassy to the equivalent would have served the topic far better. Also
gone is a strong Klingon theme; whether he had used the Klingon ideas by
Goldsmith, Cliff Eidelman, or James Horner, or even conjured his own,
something more than the half-assed percussive statement as the Bird of
Prey first decloaks in the film was necessary. The absence of musical
representation is bizarre given how deeply involved the Klingons (or
their babes, more specifically) would be in this particular film. The
lack of continuity in
Star Trek: Generations, despite McCarthy's
intentions, slips this score into a void of nothingness... or, perhaps,
a Nexus.
Other problems abound. The scenes of Kirk's death
--both of them-- needed much more in sentimentality. After everything
his character has been through, a slight performance of Courage's theme
and more of McCarthy's dull strings is hardly a fair accompaniment for
Kirk's exit... especially not after the send-off he received at the
conclusion of Eidelman's score. During the scene in which Captain Picard
standings above Kirk's buried body atop a cliff, the sorrow of the
moment calls for either significant flair or overwhelming musical
sadness. Once again, McCarthy fails. The actual destruction of the
Enterprise-D, heard in "Out of Control/The Crash," ends the ship's
short-lived film career with bland action material suitable for
television. Did he not take inspiration from Horner's impressive cue for
the destruction of the Enterprise in the third feature film? The action
material in
Star Trek: Generations is stirring at times, but all
too familiar to cues in "The Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine." The
"Outgunned" ship-to-ship battle sequence suffers particularly from the
"we've heard this standard material before" phenomenon. In "Kirk Saves
the Day," McCarthy actually seems to pull a few ideas from John
Williams' first
Star Wars score, though the performance makes
this all too transparent. The lack of a decent villain's theme is a
tragedy, especially given how menacing Malcolm McDowell can be in any
setting when you stand his hair on end. In the end, the most frustrating
aspect of
Star Trek: Generations could be the fact that it has no
style. Both
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and
Star
Trek: First Contact had emotionally powerful and distinct styles to
them, as each of the films has had a singular villain or mystery at its
heart. In the former, Eidelman constructed a dark and menacing bass
string and male chorus motif to signal the presence of the Klingons; his
motif began the score, rumbled at the appropriate times throughout, and
drove a section of the end credits. Alternately, in
Star Trek: First
Contact, Goldsmith used a powerful mutation of his electronic
"Blaster Beam" (from the first film) in a heavy, relentless minor key
motif to portray the mechanized Borg.
In
Star Trek: Generations, the mystery element
revolved around the Nexus energy ribbon. McCarthy chose to use a blend
of choir and electronics for this idea, which, in and of itself, was
promising. And yet, the light, whimsical, and flighty manner in which he
added aimless strings to the equation sucked the life out of the
concept. Whereas the villain or mystery themes by Eidelman and Goldsmith
can be called to mind easily, McCarthy's Nexus theme is a total loss...
adequate in a basic sense for the film, perhaps, but unremarkable in the
larger scheme of the franchise. Overall, the
Star Trek:
Generations score is commonly considered the bastard child of the
franchise, and with Rosenman's occasionally intolerable score floating
in the ranks, that's a disturbing label to have. McCarthy's work is
easily the weakest of the "modern" scores of the franchise, lacking the
memorably powerful essence of the Goldsmith scores, the dramatic majesty
of the Horner ones, and the rich balance of good and evil in the
Eidelman one. The album for the score is also somewhat strange. A
quarter of the running time is occupied by 23 tracks of sound effects
from the film. The catchy little chirps of the computer for things like
door chimes are cute, but the battle and crash sequences (along with the
cloaking and decloaking sounds, which are promising prank material on
larger systems) require a surround sound presentation to be viable on
album. This material is provided at the expense of some of the score
material that did not make the pressing, which is obviously a
disappointment. Despite the praise that McCarthy regularly receives for
all of his work throughout the years on the "Star Trek" concept, all of
the best film scores and most of the best episodic television scores for
the franchise have come from others. This is especially evident in some
of the contributions by other composers to "Voyager" and "Enterprise" in
the later years of the concept's presence on television. The standard
for "Star Trek" film scores is extremely high, and many of them have
boldly gone where few other scores had gone before. Unfortunately,
Star Trek: Generations lackadaisically went to where many hope no
"Star Trek" score goes again.
**
The sound effects comprise 23 tracks on the CD, so don't be fooled by
the "track 16" listing on the exterior of the packaging. Each one has a title
in the liner notes. The insert also includes extensive notes by David Hirsch
and Mark Banning about McCarthy, the score, and the film.
