Sitting in the theatre back when I was 12...everyone was enraptured by this opening music. We're all in for *something* epic ! By Grapthar's hammer, we had no idea!
My favorite Star Trek title sequence. Does away with Goldsmith’s and Horner’s anthems (which I do love,) and pulls from Stravinsky’s Firebird and Holst’s Planets to produce something far darker, setting the tone immediately as something less “fun” but more serious and interesting. Underrated.
The score definitely has a “classical” sound to it, which makes the overall theme of the movie far darker than what we’ve become used to in the TOS series of movies, and you can hear echoes of Stravinsky’s Firebird and Holst’s The Planets (specifically “Mars; The Bringer Of War”) in the opening credits theme and the end credits. As much as I love Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner’s opening title themes for the TOS movies, there’s something about this opening title theme which is quite compelling and powerful.
I agree! Rather than the usual majestic theme, this one was filled with a sense of danger. Right from the credits, it makes you wonder what perils the crew will face this time.
Honestly, I totally agree here. I was at a performance of Holst's "The Planets" this past weekend, and immediately pieces and influence from movement one (Mars, the Bringer of War) reminded me entirely of *this* intro overture. It is a very nice thing to see how intro music for Trek movies like ST6:TUC pulled from things like Stravinsky's Firebird and Holst's Planets to produce something that in its own right can stand on its own as a very dark, serious, yet equally interesting and powerful piece just for one movie's overture. Especially with the inspiration added as well from TOS' Klingon / Enemy music to pull the 'powerful' and 'loud' notes in to imply that there's power, enemies, and something nasty on the horizon for this movie. I especially like how it immediately flows right at the end of the track right into a powerful scene - the explosion of Praxis - which in itself the combination caught me off guard initially. It remains, however, a wonderful movie transition, and an amazing musical piece with just the Overture.
I remember being a kid sitting on my dad’s lap in the theater at 4-years-old. It was my first movie and I was so amazed that I apparently stayed quiet the whole time. I’ll never forget this intro with the moon exploding and the Excelsior getting slammed by the shockwave. Then later the Enterprise-A slowly cruising over the screen before fighting it out with the Bird-of-Prey. We still watch this film and love every minute of it. Trek at its best, right here.
The best opening theme for the best star trek movie, and what a sendoff for the original crew. Just in time for something awesome before hollywood started throwing its brain away too.
@@mrandrossguy9871 I didn't mind it so much. Chang is the mirror image of Kirk, Kirk must work through his hatred of the Klingons and, even though military tactics are used (not all by him, remembering Excelsior), the movie at least fumbles its way towards a character arc where a warlike man (Kirk) can come to recognize a peaceful solution to his own demons and those that infect the world around him. I admit its execution might be considered flawed. I can't remember if I was cognizant of the Chernobyl == Praxis metaphor of the film (fall of the Iron Curtain) when I saw it now, because I've read too much about the film and my own memory of 1986 is starting to fade, but Chernobyl was a pretty recent event when the movie was first screened, and my best recollection is that the US-Soviet metaphor was pretty much clear from the beginning, at least as soon as Praxis is mentioned as the Klingon's primary energy production facility. I thrilled to watching Nick Meyer's "Time after Time" (1979) with Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner) as "Jack the Ripper". My dad had a copy of the novel "The Seven Per Cent Solution" by Nick Meyer, that Sherlock Holmes novel he did. I never read it, but by 1986, I was already aware that Meyer had done it, and so when Spock gets all Holmes-y, my high school self was savvy enough to realize, "Oh, Meyer likes Sherlock Holmes, sure, let's have a little bit of that!" It was almost meta-fictional. Spock refers to "an ancestor of mine." Did he mean Arthur Conan Doyle? or Sherlock Holmes? Is Spock perhaps informing the audience that he knows he's a fictional character? After all, three movies ago, Uhura confronted "Mister Adventure" in the transporter room in San Francisco and said, "This isn't reality.... this is fantasy." Anyway, I understand your just criticism about Star Trek VI but it was a perfectly serviceable Star Trek movie to me. I was learning to be a string bass player too, and we had done Stravinski's Firebird Suite, basis for Cliff Eidelman's dark score for Star Trek VI, so I was in the right mood to hear that wonderfully dark and forboding theme at the beginning, inspired by Stravinski: the music told you this was going to be a dark and bloody movie.
My favorite Star Trek movie ever. Final film for original crew, Enterprise bridge look awesome, the crew look good in their age, the score was awesome especially the opening when you know this film will be more serious compare to what it was before.
Sure was startled when that explosion came when i saw it first time in the theater, and heard several others cry out in surprise as well. Awesome effect !
I saw STAR TEK VI in 70mm six-track Dolby Stereo SR SS at the world famous CIC Empire Leicester Square, Feb 14th 1992, via the JBL / Lucasfilm Ltd THX Sound System, the opening score had a rumble low end of warm bass and when the score ended dramatically that explosion rocked/jolted me back in the rocker seat with sheer bass sub bass slam!! It rumbled shaked the Empire 1 like a small earthquake hitting.
@@andysummersthxcinemaandmyc7748 , great comment! Wish I had been able to see it on the big screen in 1991, but even watching on VHS as a little kid, I knew "Star Trek VI" was something special.
@@andysummersthxcinemaandmyc7748 Also, I've reconed and loaded 15" and even 18" JBL subwoofers into custom cabinets I built myself... I understand that warm bass you're talking about, intimately.
Forever a mystery to me regarding why Mr. Eidelman largely fell off the planet after creating this. This was a big a breakthrough score for him as ST II was for James Horner (although part of that score was re-used from earlier works like Wolfen), but the leap to the upper echelon of composers that many of us expected never happened.
Check our Cliff's IMDB profile. He has been busy every since scoring this movie. He has had 25 scores since 1991 so I say that's a big committment to the movie industry
@@darransykes5703 Only 10 since 2000 and nearly of those all for minor projects. "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" (a nice score) was the only noteworthy one. He appeared to be on the fast track to the top echelon with Goldsmith, Williams, Horner and Silvestri, but for whatever reason, it didn't happen.
@@soylentteal if i ever make a proper Hollywood movie, Id most likely ask Cliff to score the movie. Star Trek 6’s score proves that with the right material, he can make some really memorable music
@@soylentteal I hate how he hasn't scored a single Picture since 2012. Even worse, he's but one of a large group of ultra-talented but largely forgotten Film Composers who *should* score several films a year, have proven their mettle but are never given the opportunity: Trevor Jones, Don Davis, Elliot Goldenthal, Frederic Talgorn, Edward Shearmur, Robert Folk...
I saw this on opening night in the UK. Valentine's Day 1992, 30 years ago today. It was a special night as everyone was in costume. It remains my most powerful memory of seeing a film at the cinema.
Definitely my favorite of the tos movie openings, mainly for the pretty factor (the gorgeous colors going from magenta to teal and back again). And the music is nothing short of epic.
Contrast gamma levels boasted creating an unnatural white explosion can you see the green. It should all be pure white like the early DVD least it almost got it right but way better at the cinema 35mm SR and 70mm SR with pure colours.
Andy Summers you do realize this is RU-vid and RU-vid does what RU-vid wants. If you want visual quality RU-vid isn't the place for that. Bitrate way too low for that.
I think you been hanging around avs forum too much. I am ex-projectionist so I know what to look for and listen for and I can tell this is ether the late DVD edition or the shockingly bad bluray.
Very interesting point here is that the score is startlingly similar to Shostakovich Symphony #10. Listen to the first movement, right at the beginning it sounds just like this opening. Take it a little deeper, and you find that the Shostakovich symphony was about the fall of the ring of Stalin. This Star Trek movie is about the fall of the Klingon Empire, representing the fall of the Soviet Union. Pretty darn cool.
Interesting indeed and I hear what you mean. What I understood was that Eidelman meant it to resemble the dark piece "Mars, the Bringer of War" from Holst's "The Planets." Nicholas Meyer had the odd idea to use "The Planets" as the primary score for this movie, but Holst's heirs said no.
Cliff eldeman may have been strongly influenced by that piece or maybe did this score as a tip of the hat to Shostakovich Symphony #10. I'm sure doing something very similar to that piece and it's meaning had a lot to do with the theme and story of this movie. 👍😎🎵🥁🎇
I'll always appreciate my dad getting me into Star Trek. One of my fondest memories of Star Trek 6. Ill not forget turning around to look at the projector in the cinema (Roxy Hollinwood), then you tapped me, and i turned round. Then we watched this absolute marvel. Times like this don't come again.
Correct, the entire film is basically Star Trek's take on the end of the Cold War and how old enemies move forward as future allies. Especially poignant since this movie came out as those events were happening for real.
I love the dark theme that Star Trek VI has. Cliff Eidelman really did pack an incredible punch here with his score. Bringing an incredibly dark opening and a great emotional farewell at the film's end. Very Oscar worthy.
Events in the movie mirror real world events from today, as well. The movie is all about high level conspiracies, assassination, cover-ups and power struggle.
This was the film that made me fall in love with Star Trek. For a little kid watching this, there was an element of horror with the movie and the music. Suspense and Horror are now my favorite genres in cinema thanks to this film.
Let's be honest. With nearly any other Star Trek movie opening credits scene, we usually skip/fast forward through it. But the music with this one is just so powerful, you're not even watching the credits, you're just letting that overture wash over you. Much like the famous Descent into Mystery music from Batman.
After James Horner’s brilliant scores for Star Trek II and III, this one is the next best!!! The music really ramps up at the end and prepares you for the opening BANG for the explosion on Praxis
When I first saw this film was a bit shocked at first how much action came in the first second but then again that’s one of the main features of Star trek films and series i think It’s the proof I have seen too many
I remember seeing this in theaters when I was really young, the explosion of course scared the shit out of me. However, by far, this is one of my favorite opening themes for Star Trek.
Same here. Before this, I'd only ever seen Star Trek films and episodes on video, for these two reasons: 1. The lack of larger suburban cinema complexes in my neck of the woods before 1991 (when the six original Hoyts cinemas at Westfield Tea Tree Plaza were opened); and 2. My parents' preference for drive-ins, and even then, such outings were infrequent (for cost of living reasons, naturally). 💡
@@johnbockelie3899 It certainly did, and while the film was shot in Super 35, the visual effects were shot in VistaVision if I'm not mistaken, and the Kirk vs Martia-disguised-as-Kirk fight scene used the VistaGlide system pioneered in Back to the Future II and III. 🙂
So unlike the movies of today that try to have a grand opening sequence to only then follow it with "24 hours earlier." Great music and script here made for one great movie...
This my favourite Star Trek theme. So resonant. Holst is still in there. But Eidelman's theme you so much. Suspense, Danger, Darkness, Immensity and then the explosion!! Wonderful!!
This wasn’t so much a triumphant rise to the stars, but a glorious and enduring descent…to places and ideologies unknown, emotions and philosophies repressed, and an undiscovered country of truth and revelation leading to the boundless possibilities of existence.
Always loved this opening, so much that I used it in lectures to illustrate supernovae (with permission) And since the next shot is Sulu's teacup, I pointed out that thats how we get the chemical elements to make tea.
Actually, before he died Gene Roddenberry did see The Undiscovered Country "According to the Memory Alpha,. Roddenberry saw the film three days before he died and "gave thumbs up all around", but called his lawyer to have him demand that 15 minutes of what he considered militaristic footage be removed, but his death prevented such a demand from being made." "n the Star Trek VI Blu-Ray, I think it was stated that Roddenberry initially hated the script, because he felt it was too militaristic. However, a production member confirmed in an interview that, after Roddenberry saw the finished film, he was very pleased with it"
I love the whole concept of this opening theme to VI. Looking at it now, it feels like a very big apology by Paramount after the disastrous production of V. It felt like 'Out with the silliness, this is something very serious.' And I credit Nicholas Meyer after what he gave us, with II and co-writing IV, by saving the Star Trek franchise yet again. He really was very underrated by his whole contribution IMO. This score is incredible, I love it so much because of how dark and influential it is to Holst. Even though I cherish the previous scores by Horner and Goldsmith, the series needed to end on an epic note with the original cast. Cliff certainly did that and he should have done so many more scores. I wasn't too keen on the hue bleachy coloured titles, I wish it would be pure white but it was great to appreciate the credits whilst listening to the tone the film is going to take us. It also felt very different not seeing producer Harve Bennett's credit as he left the series at this point. He gave us some of my best movies of the franchise. This was probably likely the last film I enjoyed from Star Trek as the films since just didn't have the same watchable value, especially the reboot films which I was very let down by.
The reboot films definitely lack the power, substance and overall classicness of these original movies. To be fair it's impossible to replace that OG cast, especially Kirk, Spock and Bones.
Harve Bennett left because he wanted to do a prequel. He thought it would be a good way to celebrate Star Trek’s 25th anniversary by telling the story about how the crew of the Enterprise first met at Starfleet Academy. Apparently William Shatner was supposed to be in the beginning of the movie but then the movie would shift to the past and take off from there. I’m glad that Harve was overruled by the producers but it’s a shame he quit working at Paramount just because his idea got rejected. The TOS cast deserved a proper sendoff after the box office disaster that was Star Trek V. Interestingly enough the idea of making a movie about the Enterprise crew’s academy days was revisited in 2009. Those movies fizzled out after only three sequels.
Wow, Wrath of Khan and this opening seem to have the strongest scores out of all the movies. I wish First Contact had a more epic opening score to go with that amazing film as well. Meyer, Nimoy and Frakes were just the perfect directors for their respective Star Trek films. It's no coincidence that their films were\are considered the best of the franchise.
First contact was disjointed, the entire Zephyram Cochran angle was lame until the very last 60 seconds. Everything that happened on the Enterprise was pure awesomeness.
He despised the film, and got into a very heated argument with its director, Nicholas Meyer about the militaristic tone of the story. Roddenberry called his lawyer to inquire about suing Paramount but he died a couple days after the shouting match with Meyer.
@@anthonylogiudice9215 One of the saddest truths is that the two best things to happen to Trek was Roddenberry creating it, and Roddenberry having it taken out of his hands. He created a true masterpiece of science fiction, but he seemed so intent on pushing it into a narrative dead-end by eliminating any concept of real character development.
I recall seeing this on a flight out to California in 1992. Mom was going to a FASEB convention and meet some college friends of hers, while I was looking forward to going to Disneyland. In fact, I can still remember the Federation meeting scene ("They are dying." "Let them die!") during an ad for a cable movie preview in our hotel room on and off. BTW, 2:58 pairs the late Spock with the same duo who co-penned the story for the ill-fated _Superman IV: The Quest for Peace_ with Christopher Reeve 4 years back.
Its a March, one of the most famous uses of a March in a movie, but other movies have done so both before and after Star Wars. John Williams wrote many of them. In fact, if you look at movies that John Williams scored, many of them begin with a March.
After Star Trek V, Nicolas Meyer really did save this franchise, again. Star Trek VI is a great example of getting the most out of a small budget. Opening scene: simple stars and a great overture by Cliff Eidelman. Simple, but it works. I understand that Meyer wanted to shoot a complete set of opening scenes with the Big 7. Each in retirement living various kinds of new lives. Each being summoned one at a time for one last mission. But all that had to be cut due to budget constraints. They jumped right to everyone suddenly appearing in the conference room. In hindsight I wish they could give Shatner's Star Trek V budget to Meyer's Star Trek VI.
You know, thinking back on it, that must've been one hell of an explosion to reach from Praxis, which is a moon of Q'onos, to the Klingon Neutral Zone where the Excelsior was mapping anomalies. Also, gotta love how many of the side cast were either returning or went on to make other Trek appearances. Michael Dorn as Worf is an obvious one, but David Warner was Chancellor Gorkon in this and the Federation representative on Nimbus III in Star Trek V, Brock Peters reprising his role as Admiral Cartwright and would later be Joseph Sisko in Deep Space Nine, and Kurtwood Peters as the President of the Federation who would later go on to be the Krenim commander in Voyager.
One of the Most Epic "Startings" of a movie Or Cinema in General ! Other than Star Wars of course But I must Include StarGate 1994 As A Legendary opening As well !!!
I absolutely couldn't believe that klingons were still alive on praxis- I mean, a blast creating a subspace Shockwave across a good part of the beta quadrant. There shouldn't have been anything left.
@@wjrneo2 Ironic that half the planned effects shots were cut from the film by Paramount, fearing a repeat of the ST V fiasco. Of course, *this* movie wasn't hamstrung by an incompetent effects team and a hideous story/script.
@@soylentteal I Like and Respect 'The Final Frontier' for the fact that Shatner Wanted a Classic Feel to it Again even though he admitted it didn't go as He hoped, much like TMP and 'Voyage Home' .
To think, this memorable score was all thanks to the requested Jerry Goldsmith refusing to score this movie after the box office failure of Star Trek V. That's not to say Goldsmith wouldn't have produced something equally good, but there's no denying how good THIS one turned out.
It would certainly have been much closer to the star trek standard in terms of melody and style. If someone who had heard all of the previous scores heard st6’s score it would be much more difficult to say it came from a Star Trek movie. Eidelman does use the trek light motif sparingly. So the traditional Star Trek melodies are there if you listen long enough. But I love the score so much I am glad I own it on cd.
The first time I saw the planet's explosion in the theater, I was blown away by it (pardon the expression). It was awesome! Lucasfilm used it in Star Wars: Episode 4: A New Hope: Special Edition and Star Wars: Episode 6: Return of the Jedi: Special Edition. How do you like that? Star Trek influenced Star Wars.
