Goldsmith should have won the Oscar that year on the strength of this cue alone, hands down. His loss to Delerue, whose score for A LITTLE ROMANCE consists mainly of direct lifts from Vivaldi, is one of the Oscar's biggest and most baffling travesties.
Goldsmith was nominated for Alien and Star Trek in 1979, the rumour goes though, that Goldsmith was so incensed by his experience working on Alien and the result that he wanted the nomination struck from that years proceedings. The academy would not do so and the nomination remained. The rumour further goes that the academy was annoyed by this and sought to punish Goldsmith by making sure neither score would win the Oscar that year. Which is a real tragedy.
@@TromboneConductor767 I'm afraid you're mistaken, sorry! ALIEN was not nominated that year. In addition to Delerue's A LITTLE ROMANCE, the list of nominees were Schifrin for THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, Grusin for THE CHAMP (ugh), Mancini for "10" (which had almost no straight underscore), and Goldsmith for ST:TMP. With the exceptions of Goldsmith and Schifrin, a pretty weak lineup, especially considering all the fantastic film music of that year: TIME AFTER TIME which should have inarguably been among the nominess, THE BLACK HOLE, THE BLACK STALLION, ALIEN, CUBA, DRACULA, HURRICANE, PROPHECY, THE RUNNER STUMBLES, ZULU DAWN, and 1941, any one of them deserving of a place among the nominees.
The academy followed up the Star Trek / A Little Romance soundtrack vote travesty the following year, when The Empire Strikes Back (one of John Williams' two greatest soundtracks, now a stone-cold classic) lost to Fame (which was quickly and deservedly forgotten). Women vote.
Great ! Thanks :-) BTW : Omni Music Publishing just released a full orchestral score of the entire movie ! True Goldsmith’s masterpiece ! I also love Morton’s orchestrations. A gold mine for colors and textures :-)
In the Omni Music Publishing "Star Trek by J. Goldsmith in FULL SCORE" there are a lot of early version and a piece unused like "Praeludium" too!! Unpackage the book last weekend. A true Masterpiece!
Visiting here on Aug 8 2022 - Thanks for this epic work to score this phenomenal example of Jerry Goldsmith's excellence in film. One of the finest examples of big cinema film making of the 20th Century.
I know this comment is coming in late, but the last little bit of this track is so inspirational. For you to commit time and energy to study and reduce this score for our consumption just provides further inspiration to me as a film composer, a filmmaker and as a person who loves film. Thank you!
What makes the score so brilliant is not the just the BIG theme, the fantastic show-stoppers like this piece, but literally all of the score. The love theme, the impressionist texture, the orchestration (not Goldsmith, I know). An absolute powerhouse.
Goldsmith's score and the outstanding model work make this scene. A lot of people think it is tedious, and I might agree if it were not for these great elements.
He does make the scene almost feel as it something exciting is happening. And although it's hard to remember, I guess seeing the new Enterprise in all her glory for the first time on a huge movie screen was exciting.
@@ariochiv I agree. That was almost certainly the motivation for the lengthy introduction, to show that this was not just a low-budget TV show anymore. Though the novel thrill of seeing big ships on the big screen has faded ( necessarily) over time, this scene holds up in large part due to the detail of the design really making it feel like we are next to the large ship in space. And the score emphasizes the anticipation of the approach and the majesty of the big reveal.
@@stevenwatchorn9816 I think it kind of works for this first scene, but the movie is full of extremely long sequences where the characters are just staring silently at the viewscreen. At times it feels like they're stretching an hour-long TV episode to movie length, or like they've spent so much money on the special effects that they feel like they should have them on-screen for more time. I suspect a little of both is true.
Absolutely outstanding! Good work on the analysis, and fabulous work by Jerry Goldsmith, who may not always be my favorite but who is an undisputed master at his craft. I remember when this film was 1st released and Ilya's theme played before the curtains even opened as a prelude. Very unusual for the time, and a beautiful piece of music. The entire soundtrack remains one of his best works. And I absolutely love how it became the theme for the Next Generation.
Jerry Goldsmith, was a true maestro. This track is quite simply a 6 minute love letter to the Starship Enterprise. It's the Star Trek fans reconnecting with a lost love after 10 years and seeing that they still look as wonderful as they did the last time we saw them.
WOW! Great job. I've long wanted to see the notation for this. I was surprised to open RU-vid tonight and find you had created this score reduction. The Enterprise and Ilia's Theme are my two favorite tracks from the score. I think this could make a beautiful piano solo. Thank you for this!! 🎹🎵🎧
Absolute mastery at writing music for motion pictures here! Would be amazing to see also analysis of Goldsmith’s music for Rambo movies and The Blue Max.
This piece is a love letter to the Enterprise, the true main character of Star Trek. Treat her like a lady and she'll bring you home. Enterprise is the Grand Lady of the galaxy and is like a loving mother.
Thanks so much for this David! So interesting to watch and hear sequences from several decades ago and think about today's movies. There's still a lot of great movies, and movie music, around today - but tastes have changed dramatically and that's highlighted by both the music and images in this video. You just wouldn't get a 5 minute sequence like this in a major Hollywood film anymore - or very rarely. Movies still had the vestiges of a symphonic and operatic traditions then - sequences that were built poetically, and where the music had time to develop thematically, breathing and evolving against a slow series of images, allowing themes to dance and dodge their way through wide ranges of textural and rhythmic colour. Movie music is much more mood based now, generally. The music can be fascinating and textural, with a huge emphasis on evocative sound design. But structurally it tends to be a lot simpler - providing a kind of meditative wash over the images or, in the case of action, a rhythmic, pulsing bed. Consistency of rhythm and texture now seems to be preferred, and audiences are less interested in descriptive or prescriptive musical flourishes. This isn't necessarily better or worse - it's all valid and there's great examples of all kinds of musical and cinematic approaches. But, watching this video, it does make me appreciate the artistry of the music. There is a texture and sophistication in it that is largely unpopular at the moment, and I sometimes think that's a shame. A bit of a lost art I guess. I admire and enjoy the complexity of sound design and the evocative impact of a lot of today's modern music - but as a composer I'm just fascinated and amazed by the musical technicality of this, and how it becomes a story entirely of its own.
Your videos are informative and not really meant to be funny, but knowing that monster Bar 102 was coming I got a good laugh out of watching Shatner shrink as small as he did.
Hoping you'll analyze "Klingon Battle" from this movie. It's one of the greatest sci-fi action cues ever written. Just seeing the waterphone and blaster beam notation alone would be a real treat!
what's interesting is that the "interlude" section from bars 79-101 is carried over basically verbatim from the original version of the cue, which had an entirely different Theme B and a slightly different version of Theme A (which is actually used in the section), yet still fits the final theme
Fascinating analysis of a masterful piece of music. Thanks for posting. I hope you'll consider doing "Ilia's Theme" or James Horner's "Battle In The Mutara Nebula" from Star Trek II.
Love the videos, except one problem. "Cut to stunning view of the Enterprise " comment and the embedded video is the smallest frame used. Should have done a split frame as the Enterprise deserves it in all its majesty. Would only require 4x3 format and twice as many music composition frames.
Apparently Goldsmith was Richard Donner's first choice for Superman, though I love John Williams' score, I can't help but wonder what Jerry Goldsmith would have done
Can you do an analysis of the theme from Deep Space Nine? Am I the only one who noticed that the main motif uses the same notes from this/TNG main themes?
Won't be a popular comment, but i can almost hear Goldsmith's annoyance at having to re-score this scene. I think the use of the main theme here is awkward at times and too drawn out with forced added flourishes so as just to get to the next vital parts of the cue, but the scene itself is just too long imo. But overall the film is beautifully photographed and there are many highlights to the score.
Unfortunately, the whole movie is like this... long drawn-out scenes of characters staring at effects sequences. Must've been quite the challenge to score.
