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Michael Giacchino's Star Trek


Jay

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Maybe they wanted to give a movie based on a TV show a soundtrack with the feel of a TV show, rather than of a movie.

Grrrr.

Mission accomplished, then. Geez, even McCarthy's "Generations" score sounds bigger, fuller, more "spectacular".

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Y'know, I was actually expecting the sound to be even smaller and more claustrophobic, so it doesn't sound that bad to me. :lol: It's perhaps a little more expansive than some of his other recordings, but still...sure doesn't sound like a 100-piece orchestra. Sounded fine in the film to me, though. I consciously thought about it at several points, and I realized that it really wasn't bothering me at all.

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No, actually, it is very noticeable in the film, too, and it rather bothered me. Not everything needs to be Lost-claustrophobic.

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No, actually, it is very noticeable in the film, too, and it rather bothered me. Not everything needs to be Lost-claustrophobic.

You mean "cLOSTrophobic"? :lol:

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No, actually, it is very noticeable in the film, too, and it rather bothered me. Not everything needs to be Lost-claustrophobic.

I apologize for being incorrect - it must have been so obvious that I didn't even realize I was noticing it! :blink: In all seriousness, though, I did see it in an exceedingly large and resonant theater, so it may have contributed to the sound feeling a little fuller.

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Maybe they wanted to give a movie based on a TV show a soundtrack with the feel of a TV show, rather than of a movie.

Grrrr.

Mission accomplished, then. Geez, even McCarthy's "Generations" score sounds bigger, fuller, more "spectacular".

No, no no no no.

Generations, sound wise, is the worst sounding Star Trek album. As good as McCarthy's score is it still sounds like a TV score and the CD mix does not help it at all.

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Generations, sound wise, is the worst sounding Star Trek album. As good as McCarthy's score is it still sounds like a TV score and the CD mix does not help it at all.

What?

I disagree.

Generations sounds very nice. Far more balanced that Gia's score. Which sounds normalised.

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I apologize for being incorrect - it must have been so obvious that I didn't even realize I was noticing it!

No problem, glad I could be of help.

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Am I right in saying that this is the first score since The Search For Spock that used every aspect of Sandy Courage's title music?

So the 4 note opening, the fanfare and the actual theme.

No problem, glad I could be of help.

You sound almost Dutch in your arrangance. :(

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Am I right in saying that this is the first score since The Search For Spock that used every aspect of Sandy Courage's title music?

So the 4 note opening, the fanfare and the actual theme.

It seems the superior composers did not paid any decent tribute for poor sandy

Giacchino rules. :(

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Generations, sound wise, is the worst sounding Star Trek album. As good as McCarthy's score is it still sounds like a TV score and the CD mix does not help it at all.

What?

I disagree.

Generations sounds very nice. Far more balanced that Gia's score. Which sounds normalised.

Giacchino's sounds like a recording in a dry hall. Not the greatest recording, but not entirely unnatural. And there is a certain depth reverb to the instruments. McCarthy's, from what I remember, sounds artificial.

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I wonder, by the way, if Giacchino will use Goldsmith or Horner themes in later installments. Probably not, since it's an alternate universe?

You sound almost Dutch in your arrangance. :lol:

:(

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Am I right in saying that this is the first score since The Search For Spock that used every aspect of Sandy Courage's title music?

So the 4 note opening, the fanfare and the actual theme.

I think so. IV was the last one to use the theme, but didn't have the 4 note opening IIRC.

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I certainly wouldn't mind a few hints of them, fommes. I wouldn't want him to adapt them for full-time use, as wonderful as they are, but hearing bits of them here and there would be lovely.

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Yep, a few hints would be nice. Assuming they would fit in of course. But I especially look forward to how he will develop the (on purpose) simplistic theme in the next film.

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Ditto. I feel very much the same way about the scoring as I do about the character development: I think the approach works just fine for the "first" film, but I would be pretty disappointed if things didn't develop significantly in the films to come.

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And I think they realize that. I mean, everything I'm seeing says to me that they didn't want to just jump into anything here. They wanted to really establish this group of actors and this new setting for the TOS crew, and I think that's what they were doing here. I would really be surprised if both the scoring and character development stayed at this level.

And more than any hints of Goldsmith and Horner, I'm wondering if, now that he used it for the start of the end credits, Giacchino will start to use the Courage theme in the body of the score--even more prominently than Horner's usage of it in the SFS finale. In this context, I think it could actually work, maybe even as...a love theme? Dunno. What I do know is that I really enjoyed his arrangement, and I LOVED its usage when working with the Giacchino theme at about 0:54 of the end credits track. I think there's potential for development of both, and honestly, given the context of the film, I'm more interested in him working with those elements than Goldsmith's and Horner's themes.

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When he uses both his new theme and Courage's in the end credits is my favorite part of the CD.

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When he uses both his new theme and Courage's in the end credits is my favorite part of the CD.

that's the problem. The only parts of Speed Racer I like is when he quotes the TV theme

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Did he do that in the main statements of the Courage theme? I didn't notice any significant harmonic difference.

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It's not REALLY different, but it's not quite the same. The first "wrong" chord comes in at 0:16, if I'm not mistaken. ::listens to other arrangements:: Yup. It's different. The next chord, too - he jumps to the dominant too soon. The rest seems the same, though.

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When he uses both his new theme and Courage's in the end credits is my favorite part of the CD.

that's the problem. The only parts of Speed Racer I like is when he quotes the TV theme

I actually like the rest a lot too, but that moment when he mixes his theme with the TV one is a real highlight. Haven't heard Speed Racer though. I don't see it as a problem, afterall the best parts from KOTCS are from Raiders of the Lost Ark :eek:

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I don't see it as a problem, afterall the best parts from KOTCS are from Raiders of the Lost Ark :eek:

Hardly! Most of the ROTLA adaptations pale by comparison to the originals, making them inferior listening experiences to the new material, which is at least composed specifically for this film and doesn't suffer from being compared to the awesome early-80s LSO sound.

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I was joking that's why I put the :eek: although really my favorite part from KOTCS is the end of the credits, which is the good old Raiders March with a twist.

Anyway, my point is that this happens frequently, one of the most requested unreleased cues from Episode 3 is when Yoda leaves the Wookiee planet which is just Yoda's theme, even if we had quite a few different variations in ESB and ROTJ.

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What annoys me about Gia's use of the Courage theme is the way he reshapes the first 3 notes of the 8-note intro, where the original starts with a dotted-eighth/sixteenth note, instead Gia goes for the straight eighth-note. That really does not work for me and really annoys me every time I hear it.

Something similar was in the Superman Returns score, dealing with the melody of the Love Theme, but the reshaping of that didn't really bother me in that case.

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Anyway, my point is that this happens frequently, one of the most requested unreleased cues from Episode 3 is when Yoda leaves the Wookiee planet which is just Yoda's theme, even if we had quite a few different variations in ESB and ROTJ.

No it's NOT a re-quote from ESB or RotJ but a really great and unique variation of Yoda's theme. He made it sound like something from E.T. to fit that scene . Much different than a simple re-hash .

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Hey gang, check out post #1 of this thread.

I've re-done the complete cue list (including fixing a mistake I had about what "Nero Sighted" underscored that no one noticed!), as well as began to break down each cue by what scenes it underscores and what themes it contains. I hope to find time to finish the rest of the analysis soon!

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Looking good, man.

One thing I think you missed (unless this was coming in further layers) is that the brass melody at 0:13 of "Nero Sighted" is, I believe, some kind of secondary motif for Nero and/or the Narada and/or the renegade Romulans. It also played when Robau emerges from the turbolift to go to the shuttle, and I'm almost positive it plays at least one other place.

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Looking good, man.

Onething I think you missed (unless this was coming in further layers) isthat the brass melody at 0:13 of "Nero Sighted" is, I believe, somekind of secondary motif for Nero and/or the Narada and/or the renegadeRomulans. It also played when Robau emerges from the turbolift to goto the shuttle, and I'm almost positive it plays at least one otherplace.

Thanks Delorean, I actually didn't notice that recurring motif! You're right, it does play as Robau heads down the turbolift to leave in the shuttle for the Narada. If you can remember another time it plays let me know, and I'll keep my eye (ear?) out for it when I do the second half of the film!

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Good work! You might include that we hear Spock's theme in a non-ethnic instrumentation over the action motif in "Enterprising Young Men" when we see Spock walking around onboard the Enterprise. Also the ostinato that starts "Einterprising Young Men" (and recurs later in the score, and credits) already appears at the very beginning, barely noticeable under the opening horn statement of "Star Trek". building tension.

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Thanks!

I was trying to figure out what to call that piece of music that opens Enterprising Young Men and recurs elsewhere... I don't know musical terms like "ostinato" and such. I don't think it represents anything specifically either... and I never noticed it in the opening logos cue! Very cool

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Interestingly Giacchino uses two slightly different ostinatos at given times, alternating every 4 bars at the beginning of E.Y.M. for example, that also appear both in the credits (one interspersed with the classic theme, one following it). They have a common motivic core: e.g. in d-minor (like in E.Y.M.) it's the tetrachord (group of four pitches) c#-d-e-f. The difference is that in the first ostinato (in E.Y.M.) those notes are played in an upward motion, in the second one they're played in a downward motion. Also the first ostinato is only one bar in length (and thus repeated 4 times here), the second is 2 bars in length, thus played only twice to complete a closed group of 8 bars divided equally between the first and second ostinato.

In the credits, seperating occurances of the classic theme, the second ostinato is extended from 3/4 time signature to 4/4, by extending the first bar of repeated notes and adding a one-beat 16th-note slur at the end of the second bar, slurring back into the beginning of the first. :D

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I was joking that's why I put the :D although really my favorite part from KOTCS is the end of the credits, which is the good old Raiders March with a twist.

Anyway, my point is that this happens frequently, one of the most requested unreleased cues from Episode 3 is when Yoda leaves the Wookiee planet which is just Yoda's theme, even if we had quite a few different variations in ESB and ROTJ.

Not to mention the atrocious re-use of "The Duel" from TESB.

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That's more forgivable than the recycling of "Duel of the Fates" that follows, because it's better music to begin with. It diminishes the importance of that cue, because if it's meant to just be Sith vs. Jedi battle music, it wasn't used at all for fights with Dooku.

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I was joking that's why I put the :D although really my favorite part from KOTCS is the end of the credits, which is the good old Raiders March with a twist.

Anyway, my point is that this happens frequently, one of the most requested unreleased cues from Episode 3 is when Yoda leaves the Wookiee planet which is just Yoda's theme, even if we had quite a few different variations in ESB and ROTJ.

Not to mention the atrocious re-use of "The Duel" from TESB.

this prove how little you know about the RotS score by placing Yoda's Departure with the re-use of The Duel

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No it shows you how little you know about what I was talking about.

Maybe if you took time to think instead of freaking at every thing posted you would realize I wasn't talking about Yoda's departure.

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That's more forgivable than the recycling of "Duel of the Fates" that follows, because it's better music to begin with. It diminishes the importance of that cue, because if it's meant to just be Sith vs. Jedi battle music, it wasn't used at all for fights with Dooku.

Not really because DOTF was composed for the prequels and was supposed to be used, according to the gospel of Lucas, in Episode III.

The Duel is lazily forced into the cue and Williams didn't even attempt to compose music around it that would allow it to flow with the rest of the cue.

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It doesn't really matter. That's a score I lost interest in years ago.

OMG!!!! You spoke against Star Wars!!!!!!! ;):lol:

I'll post this before anyone else does - action-smiley-073.gif

;)

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