dfenton85

(spoilers below)

I agree with you about the cue just below the London bombing with the London Calling theme and John Harrison's theme. It is my favourite unreleased cue.

I was never content with referring to that theme as "Dark Side of Starfleet" but it was the best I could come up with. I think its statements during scenes where Marcus didn't appear threw me off but your assessment that those scenes are indirectly linked to Marcus makes sense. I agree that calling it Admiral Marcus's theme is neater (the theme no longer appears after he is killed), although within the context of the movie Admiral Marcus and "Dark Side of Starfleet" are the same.

The scene where Harrison attacks the Starfleet meeting is the only major action cue that is unreleased but it is so heavily drowned out by sound effects that I can't comment on the music. I didn't hear any thematic material however. I really expected to hear a cool statement of John Harrison's theme during the shot of him looking at Kirk as he is transporting off his jumpship but Giachinno decided not to do so.

It's also amusing that most commentry about this OST I've read is assuming that a deluxe edition is a certainty. However from a profit-making point of view, I would be very surprised if Verese doesn't release a deluxe edition within a year to repeat the double-dip of the ST09 score.

I have been listening to the OST pretty much on a loop for the last few days and I'm just back from seeing the movie again with the intention of analysing the music and specifically what's not on the OST. I'm not doing an exact slate comparion like the post above, these are just my observations.

The most striking thing is that the major secondary theme that appears only once on the album (0:48 in Brigadoom) occurs 16 times in the film. I'm calling it the "dark side of Starfleet" theme although I suspect that may not be entirely correct. It is difficult to label this theme. In the second half of the movie, it certainly represents an adversarial force within Starfleet. Its usage during the movie's first half is more puzzling - we first hear a grand statement of it on brass during an establishing shot of Starfleet headquarters and soon afterwards a noble rendition is heard when we see the Enterprise in drydock. Its statements in the movie range from solo piano performances to full militistic brass with snare accompaniment. It is a nice little theme and it is a shame it has been practically ignored on the OST. However, I noticed a number of the cues featuring that theme are short in duration (that Starfleet establishment shot has a cue that is only about 10 seconds) which may explain its absence on the album.

The most memorable music from the prologue missing on album appears between Spock Falls, Kirk Jumps and Sub Prime Directive. That cue features three nice things - (1) a grand statement of the main theme when we first see the enterprise, (2) a quieter but tension-building version of the action ostinato heard in the latter half of Spock Falls, Kirk Jumps and (3) a noble yet desperate rendition of Spock's theme on horns. Again, a nice cue. Also, the opening track is not an album edit - the main titles transition into Pranking the Natives immediately. The only difference is that there is about 10 seconds of silence between the two in the film. Finally regarding the prologue, Spock Falls, Kirk Jumps starts immediately when Pranking the Natives ends. It could have been a single track on the OST.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the London Calling piano theme appears in two cues in the movie. The second of these is unreleased and it is probably my favourite unreleased cue. It starts again with that theme on piano but higher in its regiser, then it moves to the woodwinds and then the whole orchestral nicely morphs into the John Harrison material. The entire cue plays during a dialogue free scene, so it sounds great in the movie. It's a pity it was excluded from the OST as it would have fleshed out the London Calling theme a little more.

The OST features loads of action cues and most of the important quiter cues like Brigadoom and Buying the Space Farm. What is lacks are the tension building cues and therefore the listening experience suffers. There are two great tension/suspense cues I noticed that are unreleased. They both feature great little string ostinatoes. The first appears in the movie as the crew prepare to track down John Harrison (before The Kronos Quartet) and the second is for the scenes proceeding the Ship To Ship sequence. Both are great tension cues that contain permutations of the main theme. I think the album would have been a better listening experience had those two been included.

We have a track called Brigadoom but the movie actually has two scored scenes featuring the brig. The album track is for the second of those scenes.

I think the album actually does a good job of including all the main action cues. I didn't notice any glaring omissions in the same vain as Chute and Matter from ST09. The most puzzling and annoying album cut for me is that Gia's re-recorded rendition of Courage's original theme should have been included at the end of Kirk Enterprises. That track builds up to a dissapointing anticlimatic cresendo on album whereas in the movie it segues into a GREAT performance of the original theme.

So, had the album time been extended by an additional 10 minutes or so I could have been happy with it to the point that I wouldn't have been too concerned about an expanded edition. As it stands however, I can't wait for the (hopefully) inevitable deluxe release.

I saw Olympus Has Fallen a few weeks ago and although it is a weak sub-standard Die Hard knockoff, I couldn't help thinking a JW score would be awesome, kinda like his Air Force One. There is an extended action scene in the first act where the white house is taken over and all I could think while watching it is how cool the action cue would be if JW had scored it.

I know what you mean. If you recall, I posted a score survey last month but I've had a crazy busy schedule over the last four week I haven't had the time to compile and post the results. Hopefully I'll do it this weekend. I got 222 responses so I'm happy that it is a significant enough portion of the community to validate the findings.

If you can, I'd recommend IMAX. The movie does look stunning. We have a new "IMAX" screen here in Dublin but it is only really pseudo-IMAX because it is only marginally bigger than a large standard screen and nothing like the proper IMAX screens. I saw it in that screen and it still looks excellent. Unfortuately, there is no option for me to see it in 2D IMAX, which would be my preference.