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| Goldsmith |
Star Trek: The Motion Picture: (Jerry Goldsmith)
Despite a strong following of devoted fans after just a few years on
television, Gene Roddenberry's "Star Trek" concept was floundering. NBC
had cancelled the sci-fi show by the outset of the 1970's and an
animated version in the middle of the decade was by no means a success.
A full-length theatrical feature reviving the cast of the original show
a few years later was a massive financial risk for Paramount, with
fundamental production problems plaguing the highly anticipated
Star
Trek: The Motion Picture for years. Arguments over the script,
special effects, and other elements of the film caused endless delays
and last minute changes. The best that Roddenberry and famed director
Robert Wise could offer for the film's December 1979 release date was no
competition for George Lucas'
Star Wars franchise, which
surpassed the fledgling
Star Trek alternative in nearly every way
possible. After meeting with disappointing box office returns and
critical indifference, Roddenberry's fortunes would only turn around
with
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, a less spectacular film but
one with a phenomenal story and equally impressive special effects. It's
hard to imagine that even as the finishing touches were being put on
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (less than a week before its wide
opening), there was no expectation that any franchise would follow. Its
story spent significant time reassembling the famed crew and
reintroducing its ship prior to engaging in an philosophically
existential journey to communicate with a space probe from early in
Earth's space program that has returned home in massive and dangerous
form to find its creator. After opening with a remarkable battle
sequence between this probe and a few Klingon vessels, the film's pace
slows to a crawl for its remainder, relying upon intellectual and
emotional romanticism rather than the more conventional action (and
villains) that would follow in the sequels.
The awesome visual effects of
Star Trek: The Motion
Picture, provided by numerous groups eager to compete with the
Star Wars universe, played to a resurgence in audience interest
in the fantasy genre, however. These effects, along with Jerry
Goldsmith's historically significant score, are the two commonly
credited reasons why the project, despite its many faults, led to so
much more success down the road. There are many reasons why Goldsmith
was the appropriate choice for
Star Trek: The Motion Picture,
including both his established credibility in the 1970's science-fiction
scene and his close friendship with the likes of Alexander Courage and
Fred Steiner, composers who had contributed greatly to the music for the
original television series. Goldsmith brought both of those composers on
as orchestrators (and co-composers) and enlisted friend and conducting
collaborator Lionel Newman to help supervise the recording sessions. In
later interviews, Goldsmith often thought back wistfully about his
experience on
Star Trek: The Motion Picture, acknowledging its
frustrating creation while also enjoying the hope that Roddenberry's
vision represented. For the composer, the "Star Trek" universe was a
welcome friend in which he would spend much of the latter stages of his
life, even though he wasn't a die-hard fan of the concept. The origins
of his involvement with it, however, weren't as peachy. Due to the
considerable post-production delays and other problems, Goldsmith was
left with little finished material by which to be inspired. The special
effects sequences, which make up a significant portion of the film (to
its detriment in the excruciatingly slow narrative of its latter half),
were not finished, nor were the titles. With only the live action scenes
in the first half of the picture to guide him, Goldsmith wrote an
elongated, fluid, and romantic theme for the Enterprise, a theme that
was painfully rejected by the director, who correctly pointed out that
the idea wasn't succinctly memorable enough to function as a qualified
theme. There was a distinctly nautical feeling to this flowing identity,
and the composer maintained some of that character in his ultimately
revised writing.
Ten days of toil and the eventual delivery of key special
effects sequences in
Star Trek: The Motion Picture assisted in
guiding Goldsmith to the thematic formats he would eventually settle
upon, and he altered the main tune to match the lofty heroism that the
visuals suggested. The incidental character of the early variations of
his theme for the vessel remain in the final version of "The
Enterprise," the lengthy cue that introduced the updated ship for
audiences to marvel over. Still, Goldsmith's misguided conceptions of
the film's beauty and message had caused him to abandon 25 minutes of
his own score after two months of writing and recording. He continued to
generate material up to six days before the release of the film, and the
composer turned to concept veterans to ghostwrite 10 to 12 cues based
upon his final set of themes. Fred Steiner handled the majority of these
duties, though Alexander Courage was asked to contribute to the effort
with a couple of rather grim adaptations of his original television
theme for "Captain's Log" sequences in the film. One of the reasons the
score was such a daunting task was because of Goldsmith's unwillingness
to miss a prime opportunity to explore not only a plethora of themes and
motifs, but also the unusual instrumentation with which he had
experimented throughout the 1970's. The ideas that he conjured for
Star Trek: The Motion Picture were so effective in their
precision that they inspired nearly every piece of music to follow in
the franchise. The pervasive influence of these choices was such a grand
match to the film's tone that they earned him another Oscar nomination
(he lost to a lovely but not as deserving
A Little Romance by
Georges Delerue). Only two of Goldsmith's five major motifs for
Star
Trek: The Motion Picture carried over directly to the cinematic and
television spin-offs that followed, though the general character in both
those and the other three would still heavily influence the franchise.
The aforementioned theme for the Enterprise was so well received that
Roddenberry insisted that it be merged with Courage's original series
theme to form the identity of the immensely successful "Star Trek: The
Next Generation" television continuation less than a decade later.
Also used by Goldsmith as the primary identity of the
ship's future incarnations in the later film sequels, the main fanfare
for
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is among the most easily
recognized in modern entertainment, signing off with the conclusion of
the "Next Generation" cast's involvement in 2002's
Star Trek:
Nemesis. The appropriately bold but humble theme is optimistic in
tone, establishing a foundation for his four sequel scores and directing
the Emmy-winning theme for "Star Trek: Voyager." The title theme's
over-exposure through the years has had the effect of diminishing the
pleasure that many of its sparse, early recordings can yield in
Star
Trek: The Motion Picture. The primary statements in the title and
credits sequences lack some refinement and seem strikingly simplistic
compared to the acoustically brilliant recording of the theme at the end
of digital-era scores like
Star Trek: Insurrection. The far more
interesting renditions of the theme exist in the snippets that appear
throughout the actual accompaniment to the film's action, highlighted by
"The Enterprise," which puts the idea through its most elegant
permutations of the entire franchise. One of the lasting disappointments
about Goldsmith's use of this theme in subsequent films was his
unwillingness or inability to continue exploring the potential of the
theme outside of its fanfare applications; some of the more enjoyably
nostalgic (and short) cues in the last three of Goldsmith's scores for
the franchise were those that briefly treated the Enterprise-E to a
toast of this material. The softer, whimsical performance of the theme
in "The Enterprise" is a direct extension of the romantic intent behind
"Ilia's Theme," the score's secondary theme and the main holdover from
Goldsmith's rejected version of the work. There has been no theme like
it in the franchise's future, truly a shame given Roddenberry's upbeat
notions of culture and exploration, though with the television series
and films becoming increasingly sinister in tone as they approached the
2000's, the lack of anything as graceful is perhaps a consequence of
reality-oriented script writers. One of the keys to Goldsmith's success
with
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the combination of the
beauty of "Ilia's Theme" and the softer variants on the Enterprise theme
with the stark suspense music for the V'Ger invader, a balance that
Goldsmith would only attempt to extend (with limited success) in some of
his four sequel scores.
Despite all the hoopla about the parts of the score for
Star Trek: The Motion Picture that would inevitably shape the
future of the franchise, it is ultimately "Ilia's Theme" that remains as
the definite highlight of the original entry. The suite arrangement of
the theme, led by the elegance of a concert-positioned grand piano, was
partly used as the overture to the film at Wise's insistence, and
despite a few references throughout the score in relation to the romance
between Ilia and Decker, its applications are frustratingly sparse. The
theme doubles as the idea of resolution for the V'Ger spacecraft,
developed parallel to its love theme alternative before revealing itself
as the same basic identity during the climactic, metaphysical connection
between the two characters. Its fleeting conclusion comes in one final,
grand performance in "V'Ger Speaks." The score's other major three
themes are all introduced immediately in "Klingon Battle." The theme
that Goldsmith penned (late in the process) for the Klingons themselves
is understandably used only in this cue, however the primal hunting
instinct inherent in the identity's slightly exotic rhythm and low brass
would return in various forms throughout the following nine films. James
Horner offered a similarly percussive, though less memorable theme for
the species in his second sequel score, while Goldsmith expanded upon
his original idea in
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and used it
as a token reference to the character of Worf in his last three sequel
scores. Also introduced in "Klingon Battle" is the motif for the
mysterious cloud that destroys the Klingon cruisers and Federation
station, with the V'Ger craft at its heart. This theme's suspenseful yet
awe-inspiring and almost religious tones (aided by organ) are a
precursor to Goldsmith's
Poltergeist music, and its performances
dominate the later portions of the score, highlighted by "The Cloud." An
arguably more vital theme for Starfleet is heard first in "Klingon
Battle," and this alternating minor/major-key rhythm is used frequently
in the score (especially prominent in "Leaving Drydock") for both the
upbeat ambience of Starfleet and the suspense of their current mission.
This idea is surprisingly pervasive in the original entry, especially in
its first half, and it inspired later scores' treatment of Starfleet,
including Cliff Eidelman's
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered
Country. A lesser motif exists for Spock and his mind meld
capabilities as well (introduced in "Total Logic"), though it lacks many
memorable characteristics.
A 98-piece orchestra was used to record
Star Trek: The
Motion Picture, and the quality of that recording has always been
strong. Adding distinction to the score is Goldsmith's instrumental
creativity, however. Outside of the organic percussion in "Klingon
Battle," the composer foreshadows his work for
Legend and other
later fantasy music with an array of synthetic sounds, some of which
unique to this score. The most obvious element debuting here is the
"Blaster Beam," Craig Huxley's invention of the long, metallic tube with
a scaling magnet used to produce different pitches of sound of
extraordinarily harsh and deep tones. Frightfully resonating in the bass
region, this clearly menacing instrument is another representation of
the mysterious V'Ger cloud. It serves as an extremely effective
futuristic signal for the concept and offers an expansive presence in
the bass region rarely realized before electric guitars and matured
synthesizers tackled the same soundscape in the 1990's. It also
compensated for the lack of well-developed sound effects in the final
mix of the picture, too. The idea was reprised to an extent by James
Horner in his sequels, and Goldsmith would use a fully synthetic version
of it to represent the Borg in
Star Trek: First Contact, but the
instrument itself was not used in the same fashion for those subsequent
entries. It was utilized in John Barry's
The Black Hole and a few
other film scores, though not with the same fame or originality as in
this particular score. To augment the "Blaster Beam," Goldsmith used his
usual zipping and zapping sound effects in the effort, and "The Cloud"
and other cues of suspense are treated to lengthy wind and surf-inspired
effects, some of which organically created, that later matured in
Total Recall. The religious tone of
Poltergeist prevails
later in "The Cloud" and reaches an organ-powered climax in "The Meld."
The role of the percussion, whether it's the pounding strikes of single
piano keys or the tapping of wood and metal elements, is another
important factor that Goldsmith finally revisited in
Star Trek:
Insurrection. The recording of the overall ensemble is quite dynamic
and defies its 1970's origins. Expert mixing helped the longevity of the
work as well, the placement of Huxley's various synthetic contributions
crackling with a force of clarity despite his positioning alongside the
live players. Several decades later, when pre-records had become the
norm for synthetic augmentation of an orchestra, it's remarkable to
revisit these Goldsmith achievements and appreciate his insistence that
such instruments should serve as a fifth section of a live
ensemble.
In sum,
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is one of
the few scores that truly deserves the title of "classic masterpiece."
It was a huge factor in salvaging a troubled production and defined the
music for a franchise to come. The depth of its secondary themes has
never been repeated, and no following sequel score has been so richly
endowed with such a perfect blend of romance, suspense, and gravity. One
structural aspect of the score to mention specifically is the end
credits, which followed the formula used by John Williams for
Star
Wars. In this and all of his subsequent scores for the franchise
(along with Horner and Eidelman), Goldsmith bracketed the secondary
theme with the fanfare for the Enterprise. The transitions between the
main theme and Ilia's theme here are more fluid than in the composer's
last three formula end title structures. From the standpoint of
listenability,
Star Trek: The Motion Picture has its share of
distinct highlights and, like
Star Wars, moments that you skip if
only because they have been made redundant by superior sequel
recordings. A few of Steiner's arrangements are somewhat dull filler
material as well, revealed to their fullest on the score's most complete
release on album. The moments of suspense involving the Voyager craft
are delights for hardcore Goldsmith enthusiasts, while "Ilia's Theme,"
with its clever influences from the famed title theme, remains a
favorite for casual collectors. Both of the primary themes were
translated into disco or pop songs not affiliated in any way with
Goldsmith or the film. For a long time, the score has often been
represented on re-recorded compilations by prominent orchestras around
the world. Usually performed is "The Enterprise," which Goldsmith
himself conducted for a 1997 compilation of his sci-fi works entitled
"Frontiers." This cue is the staple of any similarly themed compilation,
conducted even by John Williams for the Boston Pops, and the more
illustrious compilations have tackled the "Klingon Battle" cue,
including an intriguing rendition conducted by Erich Kunzel.
Performances of "Ilia's Theme" are strangely more rare despite the
theme's inherent concert arrangement. In its original recording,
Star
Trek: The Motion Picture has received only three official major
releases on CD. An early, 1986 album was pressed by Columbia to match
the original LP presentation and featured exactly 40 minutes of
Goldsmith's music out of film order. Most of the major cues were
represented on this album, however, and with sound quality equal to the
later expanded pressing of 1999, some casual fans continued to be
adequately served by this product.
In 1999, to mark the 20th anniversary of the film, Sony
and Columbia added 25 minutes of music to an expanded offering and threw
in a compilation of 1976 spoken interviews with Roddenberry and cast
members (among other short items) on a second CD. Goldsmith himself
chose which cues to include in those additional 25 minutes, and die-hard
fans were disappointed to find pieces, including Courage's short
contributions, still missing. But those fans were treated to newly
released cues of substantial length from all portions of the film, with
the selections finally arranged into film order. Some listeners
considered this lengthy album to be overkill, for some of the V'Ger
music is indeed redundant, though both "V'Ger Speaks" and especially "A
Good Start" (which is essentially an extension of "The Enterprise" cue)
were welcome additions. There was much consternation and outward
hostility towards Sony and Paramount's teasing of fans at the time of
this album's release, for it was widely advertised as having a November
1998 release date but was forced into countless delays due to marketing
conflicts with the theatrical debut of
Star Trek: Insurrection.
Producers and executives assigned blame to each other for quite some
time. Additionally, the "Inside Star Trek" marketing ploy on the second
CD won't appeal to everyone, though the slightly higher retail price of
the album as a result of that content was still worth 65 minutes of the
score. In 2012, La-La Land Records finally satisfied most fans with a
definitive, nearly comprehensive 3-CD set of music for the film. This
product includes the complete film score (featuring newly released
takes), the long-awaited rejected recordings, a remastered recreation of
the original album presentation, countless alternate takes (including
some raw recordings of the sessions), and even the two pop songs (of
which "A Star Beyond Time" is actually entertaining). Substantial
efforts were made to transfer the master tapes to digital form in the
best possible quality of sound, and the result is outstanding. Upwards
of four hours of material is available on this $35 product, and it
easily merits that price. Selling nearly half of its 10,000-copy limit
on the product within days, La-La Land deserved significant praise for
assembling this remarkable presentation. The label later released the
one notably absent cue from this product, the "Inner Workings" variant
with the original wind effects that Goldsmith had vehemently detested,
on their catch-all, limited 2016 set, "Star Trek 50th Anniversary
Collection." Other than this single omission, the fantastic 2012 album
is guaranteed to be rewarding for fans of the franchise and otherwise,
for the score is, simply put, among the best of Goldsmith's incredible
career.
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- Score as Written for the Film: *****
- Music as Heard on the 1986 Columbia Album: ****
- Music as Heard on the 1999 Sony Album: *****
- Music as Heard on the 2012/2016 La-La Land Albums: *****
- Overall: *****
| Bias Check: |
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.29
(in 113 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.31
(in 144,215 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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