Now Playing: Genesis Ch.1. V.32

By The Alan Parsons Project.

Click below...

Save The Whales

I've swooned over composer James Horner for years on this blog.  I fell in love with the man's music back when I saw Star Trek II in the theaters back in 1982.  Then nearly died when I heard his score for 1984's Star Trek III.  It's a historical fact that Horner's score for Star Trek III:  The Search for Spock is the greatest film score of all time.  Literally no one on this earth disputes this fact.

Then came Star Trek IV:  The Voyage Home.  Back then you had to pretty much scan movie posters in theater lobbies to see who was scoring a film.  Seeing a name other than James Horner was a sacrilegious experience.  But I had high hopes for a composer I never heard of before:  Leonard Rosenman.  Misplaced hopes, unfortunately.  Turns out he was a friend of Leonard Nimoy and James Horner didn't want to score any more Trek films (learned that years later). 

I wish I could say Rosenman nailed it, but he didn't.  His Trek theme was more like a Christmas song...  and his incidental music was like something out of the 60s (I'm being generous).  If you think I'm being cruel, click on this link for his music for ROBOCOP II:  CLICK HERE.

Anyways, where I'm going with this hateful post is that apparently, I'm not the only one who is bothered by the absence of a James Horner score in the wonderful Star Trek IV.  In the video below, the music has been replaced.  And it works perfectly.

Click below...

Sepia Trek

Trek III Fan Trailer

Now Playing: Arriving At Spacedock

By James Horner.

Soundtracking

Dug out this old favorite - James Horner's score to Star Trek III:  The Search for Spock.  Probably the scariest and darkest of all the Trek films.  The Enterprise gets mothballed.  The Genesis Planet is a failed experiment.  Two starships get blown up - one is packed with Federation crew, the other is loaded with Klingons (so we're happy about that one).  There are horrible Klingon bastards, who take hostages.  Kirk's son is one of those hostages, and they murder him.

It's a dark, slow movie.  And it's my favorite of the series.  And as I listened to the soundtrack last night, I realized that it would never get made today.  It wasn't over-the-top enough.  It wasn't packed with chaotic effects and people running and shouting.

The score was massive.  Ten feet thick in most places.  So you had this giant score put to slow-moving scenes of slow-moving starships and slow-moving drama.  And it worked.  Incredibly. 

I felt kinda sad knowing that there will never be something like it again from Hollywood.  And weird to ponder that most of the cool movies I worship from my youth would never be made today. 

But I felt lucky to have known it.  So there's that.

Click below for a cool track to a nice drawn-out scene where two starships are about to wrastle.

Now Playing: Star Trek III

Finally.
The complete score by James Horner has been released.
Got mine in the mail yesterday.


Listen to samples here.