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Review of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Leonard Rosenman)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... only if you are completing your set of "Star Trek"
feature film scores and you can forgive the hopelessly upbeat tone,
thematic incoherency, and badly dated elements of Leonard Rosenman's
wayward and stubborn entry.
Avoid it... if the word lame isn't what you want to think of when hearing the albums for the otherwise respectable collection of creative and robust film scores for this franchise.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: (Leonard Rosenman)
When you examine the first ten "Star Trek" films, it's fascinating to
recall that Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was the franchise's
most prolific fiscal blockbuster. Despite anyone's opinion of the film's
merits, it came at a time when the series was heading down a dark,
melodramatic path of character deaths that was partially corrected by
the resurrection of Spock in the previous installment. With Leonard
Nimoy at the controls for a second time, The Voyage Home yielded
to elements of pop culture comedy and provided a circus-like atmosphere
for the otherwise heroic science fiction crew, figuring the undeniable
comedic aspect of the original series back into the equation. Part of
the film's popularity also stemmed from its nonstop insults of primitive
20th Century human behavior, as well as the fact that politically
correct messages about humpback whales and increasing environmentalism
were becoming appealing at the time. Using their commandeered Klingon
Bird of Prey, the reunited crew of the now-destroyed Enterprise returns
to Earth only to discover that an angry probe (likely piloted by
left-wing fanatics from a planet covered entirely in blue states) is
using sonic waves to punish the Earthlings because of the lack of whales
remaining in their oceans. The crew conveniently goes back in time,
loads two humpback whales onto the cramped Klingon ship, and returns
just in time to placate the pesky progressives from outer space. Because
of the significant departure in the tone of the plot for The Voyage
Home, it should come as no surprise that its soundtrack is unique
within the franchise as well. The previous entries in the series,
written by Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner, were highly respected at
the time and remain popular decades later. But Goldsmith was not yet
ready to return to the franchise and Horner reportedly turned down the
opportunity to continue with the series in advance, leaving Nimoy with
the solution (and clout to execute it) that he had originally sought for
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: Leonard Rosenman. Nimoy
hired the classically inclined composer, in part because of a mutual
friendship and admiration the men had maintained for each other for a
decade, to provide a more stately approach to the concept. Only half an
hour of orchestral score music was slated to be heard in the film (with
a few source-like placements as well), marking another deviation. In
fact, a 36-minute sequence set in San Francisco goes completely without
score material in the final edit, a result of Nimoy's desire not to
underscore any dialogue sequence.
The resulting lighthearted orchestral score for The Voyage Home achieved the series' second and final Academy Award nomination, seemingly proving that audiences prefer their science fiction to border on the mainstream by utilizing friendlier scripting and scoring approaches. But few devoted fans of the franchise consider Rosenman's music to be compatible at all with the tone of the other entries, often receiving ridicule from many while being defended as marginally appropriate for its context by a minority. The director and composer continued defending the score for years, using the Oscar nomination as evidence (which is a logical fallacy, of course, given that body's tendency to nominate scores that are "different" rather than effective), and Rosenman has made it clear many times that he saw little reason to leave the comfort zone of his own, personal writing style to fit the film and is therefore very happy with the result. Still, amongst the other nine scores of the franchise's first continuous run on the big screen, Rosenman's composition is clearly the weak link, often residing near the bottom of film music collectors' rankings of "Star Trek" scores. Time, simply put, has not been kind in any way to this score. And rightfully so. The music may have been justified at its debut by the enthusiasm for The Voyage Home as a whole in 1986, but it is badly dated and disrespectful of the established musical norms of the franchise that were followed before and after this regrettable sideshow. The blame for this lack of historical legs isn't due solely to the silly 1986 setting of the film, but rather Rosenman's disregard for the attitude of the entire franchise. To his credit, he seemingly made an attempt to infuse subtle references to basic progressions associated with the Goldsmith and Horner scores (most interestingly favoring the latter at 2:00 into his original version of "Home Again and End Credits"), but most of these associations, including the long tribute to Courage's original theme that was initially recorded for use with the "Main Title" sequence, were eventually removed and replaced in a second round of recordings. Instead of offering dramatic music consistent with the genre during the scenes involving space and technology, Rosenman scores the film as though it had no connection to the "Star Trek" universe whatsoever, outside of the several statements of Alexander Courage's television theme. The irritatingly upbeat composition may not be inferior in and of itself, but rather it is a poor fit for any "Star Trek" film, regardless of the comedy elements. The scenes involving the future "Star Trek" universe are mundane and underdeveloped, and scenes of chases in 1986 San Francisco are saturated with cheesy, faux-Russian and carnival-like waltz rhythms and motifs that lose their integrity when reminded of the genre. Rosenman's title theme for The Voyage Home, an adaptation of his work for the animated The Lord of the Rings film from the prior decade, is too strikingly jovial and comedic for the genre, and it is embarrassing when adapted into a fugue as the Bird of Prey sinks into San Francisco Bay. This is, after all, a film that implies the destruction of the planet, and Rosenman's few intentions to stir genuine tension in his music (as in "Time Travel") are obnoxiously simplistic attempts to employ dissonance without any sense of style, in essence allowing the music to dissolve into an atonal set of sound effects. The music for the probe, the early Vulcan sequence, and the time travel scenes are lacking in basic excitement or thematic continuity. The main theme, in fact, plays relatively no important role in the movie whatsoever, the action sequences not even bothering to manipulate the idea into much needed darker shades. A secondary theme for Spock on brass (introduced in "On Vulcan/Spock") is extremely obnoxious, reflecting Alex North's more challenging progressions from the 1960's. The series had been carried with instrumental creativity at the forefront of its musical approach, and Rosenman's score is often a strictly orchestral piece straight out of a B-grade television flick of the 1970's, overshadowed by the sound effects of the whales' calls during many scenes in the final cut. The score's demeanor, even when not attempting to be silly (as in the Russian style of "Chekov's Run" or Rosenman's self-professed "circus" style of "Hospital Chase"), is, for lack of a better word, lame. The dainty solo trumpets in the last minute of "Crash/Whale Fugue" actually sound like a close cousin to Alan Menken's The Little Mermaid, begging one to wonder if Rosenman was smoking the happy plant when writing this material. As a final insult, the introduction of the new Enterprise at the end of the film is scored without any of the majestic resonance necessary for the event (if you seek a much more satisfying alternative from another relatively underachieving score, seek Dennis McCarthy's grand opening to Star Trek: Generations). The memorable insertion of two pop tracks for "primitive" San Francisco culture is understandable (and even excusable), but it further dates this score and places it in a separate, lower realm when compared to its peers in the franchise. The "Market Street" cue (for the "dumbass" sequence) is performed by The Yellowjackets, utilizing the cheesy sounds of drum machines at the forefront of a hip but juvenile stab at contemporary jazz. The spontaneously created group "Edge of Etiquette" provided the harder punk source song "I Hate You" heard famously in the scene on a bus during which Spock's limited patience is forced to deal with the scum of the Earth. Overall, the soundtrack for The Voyage Home is too short, too silly, too dated, and too incohesive to be considered a success in retrospect. Parts of this score would be better suited to share an album with Alan Silvestri's Romancing the Stone. The sound of the recording, despite the employment of 94 musicians for the fullest sequences, is extremely dry and restricted, the product of mixing by Dan Wallin, the engineer best known in the digital age for continuously sucking all the life out of Michael Giacchino's film scores. The soundtrack was long represented by an MCA Records album of 36 minutes that eventually went completely out of print and sold for over $75. It suffered from several bad edits of multiple cues into single, lengthier tracks, including the sudden introduction of the actual title theme fanfare in the opening and closing tracks. Padding its length is the "Ballad of the Whale" recording by The Yellowjackets, a long pop selection meant specifically for the album. The amount of orchestral Rosenman music on that product is restricted to roughly 27 minutes, and some of that material is redundant, making it a poor choice for its price point in the 2000's. For the start of 2012, Intrada Records coordinated a full release of all music associated with The Voyage Home, including the two tracks by The Yellowjackets, the punk source song by Edge of Etiquette (which was long sought on album, for some reason), the full forty minutes of score cues that were used in the movie (with the exception of a handful of passages dialed out), and 25 minutes of alternate recordings made by Rosenman in his initial sessions. Together, all of this material amounts to 72 minutes in the best possible sound quality, and Intrada's presentation of those contents is about as practical as could be expected. Unfortunately, The Voyage Home is one of those scores that is simply too obnoxious to get really excited about when treatment like this is afforded to it. For some, the additional material will be interesting to hear (especially the original "Main Title" consisting of a rather tepid performance of Courage's full theme), but the whole score is too upbeat without rooting itself first in the genre, existing in the treble region with the sad anonymity of a low budget nature documentary score of the era. An excellent example of a lighter score that functions well in the genre is David Newman's Galaxy Quest, which managed to balance the science fiction and comedy elements to a much better degree than Rosenman's disrespectful work here. Nimoy's choice for the score failed to live up to "Star Trek" standards, and the series would react (or correct itself) by going back to the only logical choice for the next score: Jerry Goldsmith. For fans of the "Star Trek" franchise, the fourth score is easily the last one to consider purchasing, on any album. **
TRACK LISTINGS:
1986 MCA Album:
Total Time: 36:09
* contains original television theme by Alexander Courage ** composed by Leonard Rosenman, Russell Ferrante, and Jimmy Haslip, and performed and arranged by The Yellowjackets 2012 Intrada Album: Total Time: 72:34
* contains original television theme by Alexander Courage ** composed by Leonard Rosenman, Russell Ferrante, and Jimmy Haslip, and performed by The Yellowjackets *** composed by Kirk Thatcher and Mark Mangini, performed by Edge of Etiquette
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert of the 1986 MCA album includes no extra information about
the score or film. The 2012 Intrada album's insert contains extensive notes
about both.
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