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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Star Trek Beyond (Michael Giacchino)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you have awaited Michael Giacchino's addition of the
sadly missing romantic element into his "Star Trek" scores, joined in
this third entry by a few nostalgic glances backward to the scores of
Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner.
Avoid it... if you require strong new thematic identities in your "Star Trek" scores, the majority of new ideas by Giacchino for this score a mixture of elusive, unnecessary, derivative, and ineffective.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Star Trek Beyond: (Michael Giacchino) Seemingly
stuck perpetually in its past, the "Star Trek" universe of film and
television strives to re-explore the characters and concepts of its
perceived heyday. The rebooted film franchise continues its journey
through a parallel universe with 2016's Star Trek Beyond, the
thirteenth entry and a final farewell to the last vestiges of the actual
"original" Enterprise crew. By the talent of director and producer J.J.
Abrams, these rebooted "Star Trek" films have been a critical and
popular success, though his ceding of the director's chair to action
junkie Justin Lin for Star Trek Beyond, along with poor release
timing, were likely causes for this third film in the Chris Pine
generation of Captain Kirk to lose money worldwide. Borrowed plotline
elements from the prior generations' films abound in Star Trek
Beyond, which strands the Enterprise crew on a hostile planet after
the destruction of their ship, all the while an unlikely,
physically-altered villain launches an attack against the Federation.
The deaths of actors Leonard Nimoy and Anton Yelchin (there's sick irony
in the idea that the navigator Chekov would be crushed by his own car
due to a Jeep Grand Cherokee gearshift mishap, leading to an obligatory
wrongful death lawsuit) put a particularly sour taste into the equation
with Star Trek Beyond, though Nimoy and his original crewmates
are afforded their proper remembrance. Perhaps the beauty of parallel
universes can solve the Chekov problem as well in future films, though
Abrams professed his inclination to kill off the character altogether.
Expectedly returning to the franchise is composer Michael Giacchino,
whose music for the prior two, rebooted "Star Trek" films was
accomplished and acclaimed even if it was unnecessarily detached from
the prior identities of the film franchise. The composer's approach to
Star Trek Beyond isn't surprising on any level, the same core
thematic elements and stylistic mannerisms from the prior two entries
returning predictably.
Just as Jerry Goldsmith's musical style had become an integral aspect of the films by the phenomenal Battle of the Bassen Rift in Star Trek: Nemesis, Giacchino's own distinctive influence on the reboots has lended much-needed consistency to the overarching storyline. Although Giacchino hits all the properly sufficient notes in Star Trek Beyond, extending the musical universe into a few important new directions, the overall feeling of the score is surprisingly stagnant. There are no distinctly intriguing instrumental applications in this work, which is odd considering the composer's tendency to overthink orchestration potential. An extension of percussive brutality from Star Trek Into Darkness is the only really notable instrumental choice outside of an enhanced role for piano due to the greater romantic element in this plot. Otherwise, expect lamenting French horn solos and cooing choir to join staccato ensemble hits as the safely familiar stylistic identity for Giacchino here. In a technical sense, Star Trek Beyond isn't particularly interesting, the recording mix unfortunately still as dry as always for the composer. Where he earns his pay in this score (or doesn't, depending upon how you look at it), is how he applies his themes and various demeanors throughout the story, and on this front you encounter some fantastic successes and peculiar failures. The reprise of both Giacchino's primary theme for the new cast and his pounding fanfare for the concept are both liberally applied, often separately. The main theme's various adaptations, whether fragmentary or whole, are really a highlight in Star Trek Beyond, the idea reduced to elegant piano and woodwinds in "Thank Your Luck Star Date" and contorting to fit a variety of other needs in the work. Listeners will hear this theme's rousing statements in all the necessarily places, including the conclusion of the finale, "Par-tay for the Course," and in the usual format for the end credits. The singular staccato fanfare likewise has its moments of full enunciation, including the end of "A Lesson in Vulcan Mineralogy" and the obligatory suite destined for the end of the initial album release. One of the more unfortunate decisions by Giacchino for Star Trek Beyond is his partial abandonment of his original, beautifully evocative idea for Spock that had morphed into an action theme in the previous film. It's not entirely gone (even if the erhu is), as it is littered in its fragmentary, somber tones throughout the work, notably at the start of "To Thine Own Death Be True" and on piano in "Spock's Vulcan Grip on Death." An intentionally abbreviated hint of it exists poignantly at 4:41 into "Night on the Yorktown," and some might hear it at 0:50 into "Par-tay for the Course" as well. Rather than continue using the Star Trek Into Darkness adaptation of this theme as an action motif, Giacchino oddly transitions to a new theme, heard first at 3:40 into "A Lesson in Vulcan Mineralogy" and highlighting the middle of "Crash Decisions." It's a sufficient identity, but film score enthusiasts may find themselves making unwanted connections to Elmer Bernstein's Ghostbusters identity in its first phrase (ironically, there's more of that theme evoked here than in Theodore Shapiro's own Ghostbusters reboot score released at the same time as this entry) and Goldsmith's The Wind and the Lion in its second phrase. While enjoyable as an action motif in "Crash Decisions," the decision not to reprise the prior score's development of Spock's identity remains curious. Perhaps balancing out this potential displeasure are a few nods to the film franchise's far past by Giacchino, references that really only collectors of "Star Trek" music will consciously identify. Whereas Star Trek Into Darkness supplied a nugget of Gerald Fried's music for "The Original Series," Star Trek Beyond offers tributes to both Goldsmith and James Horner. You hear Horner's swayingly romantic, alternating of notes on strings from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan at 1:22 into "Night on the Yorktown." Meanwhile, the tribute to Goldsmith exists in Giacchino's adaptation of the composer's malleable four-note identity that started in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier as a "quest motif" and evolved through the later Goldsmith scores (especially Star Trek: First Contact) into theme for Starfleet mores, friendship, and perseverance, which is why you hear it resurrected at the ends of "Franklin, My Dear" (2:35) and "Crash Decisions" (3:04). It's easy to wish that Giacchino had worked more such connections to the franchise's past into his prior "Star Trek" music. Of the four new themes penned for Star Trek Beyond, only one is really a positive development. Already discussed is the unnecessary and potentially distractingly derivative idea for Spock. The themes for the two off-world characters, Jaylah and Krall, are by no means memorable. In fact, their expressions are often little more than percussive, rhythmic flair, with no easily discernable identity outside of their relentless pounding at times. Jaylah's idea is nebulous to a fault, vaguely noble in a stifled manner, but it remains too skittish through the end and fails to evolve clearly enough into Starfleet-worthy material at the conclusion of the picture. While brief hints at 2:37 into "Mocking Jaylah" suggest her theme, among other references, it never congeals into anything remarkable. The comparatively redemptive suite of this material the composer collected for "Jaylah's Theme" makes you wonder what he was thinking when adapting it so poorly into the actual underscore. The lack of a really prominent villain's theme in Star Trek Beyond is a shame, and perhaps it contributes to critics identifying Krall as a particularly meaningless villain in "Star Trek" lore. Giacchino ran into this problem in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as well. The best franchise villain themes have all been extremely memorable (Goldsmith's Klingon and Borg themes, the Cliff Eidelman conspiracy theme from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country), and if you were among those to never really warm up to the effectiveness of "Ode to Harrison" from Star Trek Into Darkness, then expect nothing to even remotely compete here. In fact, if not for the solo trumpet performances of the idea to open and close "Cater-Krall in Zero G," the idea may never really sink in for some listeners, despite the fact that the idea does wiggle its way into several prior action sequences during the second half of the story. Even in Giacchino's dedicated suite for Krall's theme, "Krall Things Being Equal," the idea is tortured to such an extent that it doesn't really illuminate itself well here, either. Villains' themes shouldn't require three passes through their suite tracks to nail down the actual melodic progressions. It's rare for any composer to spare the time and expense to arrange and record separate album suites for four characters and concepts in a movie during this era, so for two of them to be devoid of much personality is really a shame. All of that said, Giacchino finally supplies a winning idea of romance to his "Star Trek" musical universe in Star Trek Beyond, coined for the Yorktown space station in this score but really extending to the Horner-like romanticism of the entire concept of space journeying in general. After the lovely adaptation of the main theme to piano in "Thank Your Lucky Star Date," the composer unleashes a massively beautiful rendition of the Yorktown theme in "Night on the Yorktown" and returns to a bittersweet reprise of the idea in "Par-tay for the Course." It's intertwined with the main theme in "The Dreaded Rear Admiral" and receives a somewhat redundant arrangement in "Yorktown Theme." This idea shares fragments of the main theme to great effect and is a tremendous highlight of Giacchino's three works thus far in the franchise. Unfortunately, the suite arrangement of the theme in the end credits did not make the initial Varèse Sarabande album for Star Trek Beyond. As with the prior two scores, pivotal music (not to mention the several songs in the film) is missing from Varèse's first offering, suggesting that another "Deluxe" version was likely to emerge soon after. Not surprisingly, it happened shortly as a limited "Club" title; later in 2016, Varèse provided a massive expansion that more than doubled the presentation and included all of the suites recorded by Giacchino for the film. A doubling of the Spock and Yorktown theme cues, much better illumination of the weak Jaylah and Krall ideas, and a plethora of significant crescendos ("Krall Work and No Play" and "The Cost of Abronath" both feature immense choral bursts) await listeners on this far more appropriate product. Most of the additional cues are short and incidental, though as with "Krall Hell Breaks Loose" and "Bright Lights Big Velocity (Part 1)," there are solid action and melodic highlights to be heard in the newly released cues. Fans of the Courage theme receive more bones thrown their way in "The Dreaded Rear Admiral" and "Space, The Final Frontier," the latter a full suite rendition with Giacchino's main theme in the middle. The songs are still absent on this product, unfortunately, but it's a significantly better offering than the prior album. Still, this habit of two "Star Trek" releases a year (or merely 6 months) apart has become a bit obnoxious for film score collectors who simply desire a proper presentation of the new scores up front. The score itself is arguably the weakest of Giacchino's first three in the franchise, but its romantic portions and nostalgic glances backward are all welcome developments. Seek only the fuller product for the proper experience.
TRACK LISTINGS:
2016 Regular Album:
Total Time: 61:29
2016 Deluxe Album: Total Time: 126:00
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert of the regular 2016 album includes a list of performers but no extra
information about the score or film. That of the Deluxe Edition album contains the same
list of performers and a short note from the composer.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Star Trek Beyond are Copyright © 2016, Varèse Sarabande (Regular), Varèse Sarabande (Deluxe) and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 9/11/16 and last updated 3/18/17. |
