This clip inadvertently highlights what's wrong with so many blockbuster scores today--muddled, generic themes that don't take hold of the audience, just move things along. It takes directors with keen eyes and ears not to settle for that, even from a master like Goldsmith. Instructive bit of history, there.
This was my biggest peeve with the new genre Trek movies - after Nemesis, there was no longer a theme for the movies. The same score from ST09 was reused for the next 3 films - and imo it wasn't a particularly strong score anyway.
What I found interesting was that the motion picture theme begins on the fifth, and ascends, just like the TV show theme. It’s almost like it’s the next generation of the original theme.
it's in the used version as well, albeit only once and not three times. I gotta make a fan edit of the film, consisting of the entire film with the full version of this.
Goldsmith had an amazing theme that, IDK, maybe we could've gotten used to and love as much as the one we got, but these people were not QUITE satisfied! Imagine scrapping such an amazing piece of work from a master, tell him to go back to the drawing board, and he delivers an even more amazing theme!
The original TV series' STAR TREK theme was so well known that a new and memorable theme was necessary for the movies. When Jerry Goldsmith was prodded into composing that theme, HE DID IT!
Kirsten I. Russell James Horner, Cliff Eldelmann, Dennis Mcarthy and Michael Giacchino all composed brilliant themes aswell. However I think the only theme that comes close to Jerry's theme was probably for me James Horner's sea-faring Enterprise/Kirk theme.
Who would’ve thought that a replacement for a rejected theme would become synonymous with Star Trek for almost twenty-five years, arguably being more synonymous with the franchise than the original TV theme? Easily one of Jerry Goldsmith’s greatest achievements. And thank you, Robert Wise, for making him change it.
For those that don’t remember, that Enterprise reveal scene was panned and hated by critics (as was the movie itself). They all said it dragged on way too long. They weren’t Trekkies..
I guess it depends on what one's going for in the music and movie. Case in point: the same visuals re-cut in Star Trek 2 with James Horner's score seemed to convey the majesty of the Enterprise leaving port while also keeping the film moving ahead.
@@Mr_Kenneth and that the film was rushed-out - it's common practice to leave the entire sequence in for things like this until the final edit when it's finally decided what to keep and what to scrap. But they never got to do that final pass.
I had the honor and like I won the bigtime lottery / fortune to watch (from the booth) Mr. Goldsmith lay part of the soundtrack down on 'CONGO' (dir. Frank Marshall - 1995) and .. like in 'STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE' (as in most motion picture scores) he had to do a quick fix on a piece that just wasn't working. 21 year later -- I still get happy goosebumps hearing & seeing the scene where 'AMY' the Gorilla jumps into frame, growls and saves her 'PETER' -- (her human / surrogate father) and it's just then, that the 'cue' that Jerry Goldsmith did, between takes, a quick change on it ... and ... viola-! ... made the scene 100%. Alas, the immortal composer, Mr. Goldsmith as is STTMP's director Robert Wise are off this fragile planet and soaring through the forevers -- leaving us only their collected films & scores. They are missed. D.A.
Another triumphant piece of work by the late and GREAT Jerry goldsmith! I always did like the movie that Jerry's score here accompianed but the score itself ive always loved!! After hearing the theme for the popular Star trek next generation show i was surprised to have heard it on the Star trek the motion picture movie. I didn't know that theme was already composed before the next generation show. When i found out that Jerry had originally composed it immediately i thought of the already other famous scores that i knew of and adding them to this marvelous Star trek theme. What a career Jerry had and a career that still lives on!!!
I like the first unused draft as well. It’s more complex, more unpredictable. It reminds me of the style John Williams „scores“ nowadays. It seems that John Williams today has the artistic freedom that Jerry Goldsmith hasn’t been granted back then.
my mother was a huge star trek fan in the 60s and i remember her taking me to see TMP when it came out. years later i bought the director's cut and we watched it again. i asked her what her very first impression was when you see the Enterprise head on and after the close up of Kirk looking reverently at his ship. she said that to her the Enterprise looked like a bride on her wedding day. i was also married now and she later told me that the look on my face when i saw my wife for the first time in her dress at our wedding just as she began to come down the aisle was the same look Kirk had.
Kenneth Kimmel You might be right. But Goldsmith was one of the most imitated people in his field, and his influence resonates through an entire generation of film composers. He was the original Howard Shore, the original Thomas Newman, the original Danny Elfman. And you can hear his influence in the scores of many others -- Horner, Kamen, Silvestri, Young, Poledouris, Beltrami, etc. In a 2001 interview, film composer Marco Beltrami (3:10 to Yuma, The Hurt Locker) stated, "Without Jerry, film music would probably be in a different place than it is now. I think he, more than any other composer bridged the gap between the old Hollywood scoring style and modern film composer."
+ChuckRazor Well, that's sort of like the early career of Bernard Hermann's...he was the "go to" guy for the CBS Radio Network, providing myriad background music for "on air" productions. Later on, he provided music for TV Shows such as "Twilight Zone", "Have Gun will Travel", the original Alfred Hitchcock show theme, etc., etc. Meanwhile, he was also doing THE most memorable movie soundtracks of my entire life....what can I say!
Kenneth Kimmel Both Herrmann and Goldsmith had experience scoring radio shows and plays before moving into film. I almost can't believe what Goldsmith did in the early fifties. That guy worked his ass off. Goldsmith spent a long apprenticeship in LIVE TV, where last-minute changes had to be effected at very short notice, and this gave him a facility in orchestration, and an originality in his sound groupings, plus a decisiveness, enhanced by a knowledge of sound recording apparent in his albums in particular. He composed for the sound he knew would come out the other end. TV scores like The Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, 2nd season premiere score "Jonah and the Whale"; Q.B.VII; Pursuit; THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE BELL (Experimental semi-jazz double bass effects, quasi-Bach distorted melodies)... Masada; The Red Pony; THRILLER; The Man from Uncle (especially the first episode, it set the tone and style for much of the rest of the series); THE HOMECOMING - A CHRISTMAS STORY; The Waltons; and he also did several Twilight Zone episodes, especially he Big Tall Wish, Dust and The Invaders. In fact he was chosen to compose for Twilight Zone: The Movie!
It's the main theme of all the Star Trek films that Jerry Goldsmith scored. The Motion Picture The Final Frontier First Contact Insurrection Nemesis As well as having a mix of his theme and Alexander Courage's theme for the opening of The Next Generation.
Schwatvogel was talking about the unused theme, not the theme we all know and love. The unused theme does indeed make a brief appearance when we see the A in Star Trek V.
Here, found the piece. You can hear the "answer" portion of the unused theme from 1:40 to 1:52: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6oEQ3J4toJU.html
Great interview with my 2nd favorite composer of all time! His score and James horner's Star trek 3 score are the best the best of the series ive heard so far! Both scores are exceptional and the way Jerry began the Star trek movies musically was perfect. Iilla's theme always blow me away.
That's true but the way it's arranged and orchestrated is quite different. The theme is much more clearly heard and in-your-face in the second, and now official, version.
First line, yes. But its the second line that resolves it into a recognizable theme. I do like the way Jerry worked the original theme into the overall piece.
@@brianjlevine Yes indeed. Usually it's just a matter of tweaking a few notes. Some directors are more articulate about describing what they want in music than others. Robert Wise obviously was not, had trouble articulating what was wrong and what he wanted.
@@kthx1138 now if only Ridley Scott shared the same temerity as Wise did to Goldsmith in Alien, ironically in the very same year released as with this film!
Steve McQueen played a American sailor serving in mainland China in The Sand Pebbles(1966). He serves on a ship called the USS San Pablo. The crew jokingly call it the "Sand Pebbles".
And just what, pray tell, is wrong with being reminded of sailing ships in a Star Trek movie? But the revised theme is simply perfect, so I guess it all worked out for the best.
That would make sense to me.....the Enterprise would have been the 23rd (or whichever) century version of Columbus', Magellan's, Vespucci's ' exploring ships from long ago .
There is no unused clip, anyone with an ear can hear it’s a variation of his majestic revealing of the enterprise…a love letter to fans and fx crew. Originally directed by Douglas Trumbull the legendary Fx man..may he rest in peace.
Movie composers often tuck things away that they don't end up using and find use for them later on. If you listen to the entire "bombastic" piece for the space dock sequence and then listen to one of Jerry's final works, the soundtrack for Disney's "Soarin'", there are many spots where they are very similar.
The good news, for Jerry Goldsmith anyway, was that the revised score is so spot-on and ended up being re-used so much, that he gets paid every time it airs. Nobody likes it though, when their work gets rejected.
Ironically, Jerry Goldsmith had more t4ouble with Alien which he also did that same year. If only Ridley Scott and Terry Rawlings have talked to Jerry like Wise did, the score may have been more cohesive and they wouldn't be forced to use Goldsmith's earlier score for Freud as well as the Hanson piece.
Don't forget that the film was re-cut after Goldsmith completed the score. Scott and Rawlings did him an enormous disservice. The fact that he gave them the benefit of the doubt for Legend shows how much character he must have had.
i think that the jerry's intended opening was off (no matter how great that music is) and i get why they wanted the rescore. as well as the end titles feel less satisfying oddly compared to the out of place hanson...but the freud was totally unnecesassary. they probably get too much used to the temp tracks
See if you can find a DVD copy of the directors cut. They used the original story boards and script to fix a lot of the problems caused as a result of rushing to meet the release date.
"And he said there's no theme." God damn we need more of that mindset in today's movie industry. Composers like Hans Zimmer have fucked up film composing and people are too dumb to realize it.
Carsten Altena The Hans Zimmer batman theme is a fucking joke (as is his superman theme) and I've never heard the music from pirates or interstellar and I won't waste my time looking them up so I'll take your word for it. Even the losers get lucky sometimes.
Carsten Altena It's dangerous to sing the praises of Zimmer like he's the best film composer because a lot of weak minded people do that and all it does is convince other weak minded people to do the same. They jump on the bandwagon and go so far as to trash other composers like they're inferior when Zimmer himself has a poor sense of melody, which is not only his primary issue, but a very big and important issue.
Well, I've never claimed that he's the best composer. But certainly a very good one. I enjoy listening to him as much as I enjoy listening to Bernard Herrmann, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Michael Giacchino, Thomas Newman and so on.
I'm not sure I buy this. Although I think this is one of the greatest film scores ever written, and one of the greatest themes, I think it is very unlikely that he had not come up with the main theme before this sequence. That melody so permeates the entire score. In addition to this cue titled "The Enterprise" It shows up in each of the following cues: 1. Opening Credits 2. Leaving Drydock 3. Spock's Arrival (at the very end) 4. Spock Walk (again at the end) 5. The Meld (end) 6. A Good Start 7. End Credits There are also other cues that use it: When the Enterprise goes to warp the first time (I believe the cue is called "Warp 9") It shows up as a counter melody during "Ilia's Theme" in the horns and celli and is also tagged onto the end in the woodwinds. If what he is saying is true, then he scored all the extended V'ger SFX sequences prior to this, and that seems unlikely. My understanding is that these portions of the film were not completed until very near the end of production (late October, early November 1979) due to problems with the original effects company, Robert Abel and Associates, and EVERYONE was waiting on them to be finished. ST:TMP hit theaters on December 7, 1979 As I said, It just doesn't ring true.
+Ted Vives But it's true, he did start writing and recording the Score with this earlier Theme. I don't know how far he came before it was scrapped, but the 3CD-Extended Version of the Score (which I highly recommend) contains seven early Cues, some of them including this Theme: - The Enterprise - Leaving Drydock - No Goodbyes - Spocks Arrival - Micro Exam - Games - Inner Workings Thats probably the extent of what he could finish before he had to start over again. But these Cues are similar to the finished versions, except that the latter include the Final Theme. Just compare the early 'The Enterprise'-Cue to the final version. He replaced the theme, but other parts he reused from his earlier draft.
FWIW, Fred Steiner, (composer of much of the music for the original 60's series) was a good friend until he passed away in 2011. He also worked on the score doing some conducting and finishing several cues due to the break-neck schedule. He was kind enough to pass on to me copies of the manuscript scores as well and he was always skeptical about Goldsmith's claim. He felt that while the original "Enterprise" cue plainly does not contain the well-known ST:TMP "Theme," it was simply that Goldsmith didn't use it rather than because he hadn't come up with it yet. The complaint from Roddenberry wasn't that it doesn't contain "a" theme, it was that it didn't contain "The" theme.
Interesting information. You're so fortunate to have been his friend and received the scores to pore over. I think Jerry made some subtle changes but they did work. Funny how non-musicians only have their ears and brains to hear with, yet composers, though they do their best work, have to understand you can't get into someone's brain to figure out what they're hearing and what they can't, yet the original composer and his orchestra hear because of their disparate gifts as professionals. In Hollywood and in theaters you have all of those ears, sort of like eyes in an art gallery and we all perceive things, sounds, colors, dynamics, differently. And when something is bothering us sometimes we can't quite articulate what it is, only that something doesn't quite register. Then it's either review and revise or our ego will take charge and that spells trouble if we aren't willing to take the criticism, interpret the meaning or intended meaning accurately and try again, making changes until it hits the core of someone's soul. Even this is hard to explain, perhaps, but I guess it's because we're all different in life experiences, desires and life story. Those in decision making position in the entertainment industry, at least those who are successful in it, are compensated handsomely for their sense of taste and instinctive reasoning as to what the consuming public might enjoy as a total experience in the movie theater. It's the artistic POV that wins patrons and gives them the most surreal experiences on the silver screen and in the concert venue. All the best to you, dear sir. Thanks for sharing your story here. I've learned many things from reading the various comments. Bless you.
So I just read someone's dissertation on this score as I am arranging several cues for a concert coming up. One of the reasons why there were so many re-writes was that, because the special effects weren't working right, they had to literally hire a second team to come in and clean up the mess. Some of these shots weren't totally finished and edited until two weeks before the movie came out. Jerry had to compose reel by reel instead of all at once, and by his own account didn't leave his house for four weeks straight. It's frankly a gorram miracle the score turned out so thematically cohesive.
I think that Bob Wise was not hearing it clearly, but when Jerry rewrote it with the brass section more prominent, and I hear that, it was more pronounced along with tympani accenting the main melody. The previous one did sound like a seafaring theme with a sound that reminded you or me of ships on the water crashing through waves, but in hypothetical space, the star ship's movement is more smooth so I'm pretty sure Mr. Goldsmith, upon watching the footage again, came up with a new score that more closely matched the hero ship leaving the docking bay. Brilliance of horns, the French horns and dynamic trumpets and kettle drums did a much better job of presenting the scenes and made the key melody stand out even more prominently. I'm sure when he watched the first composition with the footage he may have sensed that something different had to be done in order to enhance the vision on screen. As a musician I know all too well the smugness we can get lost in listening to our own work or drafts the first time. The cutting room floor isn't the only place for things we listen to the second or third time and decide it's just junk. Musicians and composers often have to become their own best and worst critics during the process and it's a hard blow to ego, of course, but if the client ain't happy, it's time to do it again and be subjective, even if the truth hurts. You recover and like a baseball pitcher in the 9th inning, you give it your best shot and hope you strike out that last batter and get that guy out who's at third in the same play. Analogies...sorry. Dodger fan...LOL Peace.
And he used the string section well to accent the horns, IMO. That was the trick. It worked so much better. Watch a sailing film and hear the difference. A fictional star ship that never existed in real life, it's a challenge for any composer, I'd think, in finding the right balance musically. Bob knew something was off, but yes, hard to articulate when looking at the footage in post. Listen again, it's there. Cymbals and all.
+Michael Hill Agreed. In the first cue, when we see Captain Kirk, I do feel the brass is slightly overpowering to the strings. Jerry fixed Thai in the second cue. Also, the first cue does seem to flow better, in the second cue, I found the cymbal crash when we first see the Enterprise to be a bit startling. It wasn't as smooth of a transition as the first cue. Still, in love with his score. I only wish I could write a quarter or what Jerry and John Williams could do!
Me too, Tom. At least we learn from the greats a little. Might not have been as smooth but Bob Wise didn't give him much to work with as far as a musician talking to a composer in the craft. He just wasn't feeling it while looking at the picture I guess. And was asking others to help him find out what was missing or not making the moment. Mechanics of the audio spectrum, these guys and women who compose so very well. Imagine film without them and what a boring experience for us all. But there's still a chance for some of us, maybe, in the right genre. These only serve as studying the great composers of our time and learning key lessons in sound and musical structure, I'd think. What a privilege in this internet age we're in now. Instant access to scores of composers and their works now. Mozart would have a ball if we and others were alive today to hear their own works shared by an entire world of students, you'd think.
+Michael Hill Film scoring is frankly, going down the toilet. It seems to me that every score I listen to, sounds the same. Hans Zimmer and his cult of "composers" are taking over. Orchestras are all but obsolete. There are only a few true composers left. John Williams, Alexandre Desplat, Ennio Morricone and Danny Elfman are the true, film composers of our era.
The opening theme starts too abruptly, like being hit by a musical club. That, and the lack of good editing, are my 2 complaints. Robert Wise has directed some outstanding movies, but some scenes just drag on in TMP (and we're moving thru V'Ger... reaction closeup... and we're still moving thru V'Ger... reaction closeup... Hell, let's drag it on so that EVERYBODY gets their reaction closeup)
Would I love to get hold of that 2 piano score! Check my solo piano transcription of _The Enterprise_ here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XYvZU1ZMuOw.html
Whoa, you are being way unfair to Hanz Zimmer, who has more than earned the right to take his place among the great film composers you mentioned. He very much DOES compose, and his themes ARE personal, emitional, and have recall value. Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Inception, The Dark Knight trilogy, The Lion King, and The Last Samurai are all examples of his brilliance, and he's been called one of the top 100 living geniuses by The Daily Telegraph. You're just plain wrong about him.
It woulda been ALL trombone if Frakes had made it. And we'd have loved it just the same. Thanks TOS for the brilliant theme tune, which impossibly Stephen Barton & Freddy Wiedmann just made it more kick ass. Very happy we nicked it and it's ours😜😂
goldsmith, williams, morricone, barry, jarre, berstein and even cosma eat "composers" like jablonsky, zimmer, newton howard & co for breakfeast..hahaha..these "composers" of today program music, they do not compose. add some action sequencersounds and many orch percussion like taiko drums. but no music inside, no real emotion, no real lovely personal themes and no recall value...a sad thing. the great and real epic film scores are gone with the new generation of music programmer :-(
I disagree with you on Newton Howard, he is a pure genius of melody and compositions. His only Zimmerlike score was when he actually worked WITH ZIMMER. He's extremely talented, just listen to the King Kong or signs soundtrack, you'll be blown away.