Tom Guernsey

Personally I don't think I'd call Horner's music any more cinematic than Roseman's, the main theme is very bracing and the secondary theme (the 6/8 one) is romantic (in a the classical music sense) and pretty sweeping. I think his score has got better notices since the expansion even if there's still quite a few who hold a grudge because James Horner didn't score it. I've always liked, and for my money, the fun action cues are perfectly fine in context. It is the most light hearted of the original movies and a couple of breezy action cues don't distract too much. Rosenman hits the dramatic beats very effectively elsewhere.
 
As a kid I always loved TFF, indeed I even loved the effects, but now realise how janky they are. I always loved Jerry's score and, after the 1999 expansion of TMP (which I still have as a playlist created from the 3CD LLL expansion, I always thought it was a terrific programme), was probably the Star Trek movie score I wanted expanded the most. The Mountain is indeed a wonderful intro* but it has some of Jerry's best 80s/90s action music, one of his best combinations of synths with the orchestra and the quasi-religious music for the finale is perhaps the best example of Jerry scoring the movie the filmmakers intended to make but didn't have the budget for. I've said it before, but the thing his later scores often lack (and the Giacchino scores almost entirely lack) is the awe and wonder/romance of space travel/exploration sound that the original 6 movie scores have in spades. TFF might not have achieved its ambitions, but Jerry scored it as though it did (without it sounding like it doesn't fit). I never really understood why the plot of TFF was disowned - sure the movie may not be great, but a madman trying to find god on an alien world could easily have been an episode of TOS!
 
*It follows my favourite rendition of the TMP theme, even if the horns and other brass are all oddly mixed the same side - sorry if that now becomes a thing can't not hear! I always miss the synth whoosh that is used during the segue from the Courage fanfare to the TMP theme in later recordings, it always feels like something is missing. I'm hoping that Omni will publish the score sometime as I'm curious as to the differences between this and the TMP version of the main theme, they are definitely slightly different. I always like (dare I say, prefer?!) the way he segues out of the TMP theme in the later version too, those unexpected harmonic changes tell you things are about to change.
 
A friend of mine commented that he didn't like how slow the TMP theme was in cues like The Enterprise or other more low key quotes of it. I guess when you're used to it at TNG speed it might seem oddly slow, but those gentle renditions are great. The cello version at the end of Let's Get Out of Here from TFF is wonderful (now playing!).
 
Definitely agreed with Generations after TNG. TNG is a great show and well worth watching and there are plenty of "essential" episode lists, although if you start at season 3, you can't go far wrong. Generations was a missed opportunity, with some good ideas badly executed and some bad ideas (not to mention gaping plot holes) that scupper things. Having said that, Dennis McCarthy's score is actually pretty great, the main theme is perhaps a bit basic, but the action music is decent and his more wistful material is gorgeous. The sad music near the end (won't spoil it just in case!) and the finale cue are particularly lovely.
 
I endorse watching DS9 though, a superb show, especially once it got going, again in the 3rd (but definitely 4th) seasons. Great Dennis McCarthy main theme too. First Contact is well worth a watch and Jerry's First Contact theme is probably the best thing he wrote after TFF.
 

Personally I don't think I'd call Horner's music any more cinematic than Roseman's, the main theme is very bracing and the secondary theme (the 6/8 one) is romantic (in a the classical music sense) and pretty sweeping. I think his score has got better notices since the expansion even if there's still quite a few who hold a grudge because James Horner didn't score it. I've always liked, and for my money, the fun action cues are perfectly fine in context. It is the most light hearted of the original movies and a couple of breezy action cues don't distract too much. Rosenman hits the dramatic beats very effectively elsewhere.
 
As a kid I always loved TFF, indeed I even loved the effects, but now realise how janky they are. I always loved Jerry's score and, after the 1999 expansion of TMP (which I still have as a playlist created from the 3CD LLL expansion, I always thought it was a terrific programme), was probably the Star Trek movie score I wanted expanded the most. The Mountain is indeed a wonderful intro* but it has some of Jerry's best 80s/90s action music, one of his best combinations of synths with the orchestra and the quasi-religious music for the finale is perhaps the best example of Jerry scoring the movie the filmmakers intended to make but didn't have the budget for. I've said it before, but the thing his later scores often lack (and the Giacchino scores almost entirely lack) is the awe and wonder/romance of space travel/exploration sound that the original 6 movie scores have in spades. TFF might not have achieved its ambitions, but Jerry scored it as though it did (without it sounding like it doesn't fit). I never really understood why the plot of TFF was disowned - sure the movie may not be great, but a madman trying to find god on an alien world could easily have been an episode of TOS!
 
*It follows my favourite rendition of the TMP theme, even if the horns and other brass are all oddly mixed the same side - sorry if that now becomes a thing can't not hear! I always miss the synth whoosh that is used during the segue from the Courage fanfare to the TMP theme in later recordings, it always feels like something is missing. I'm hoping that Omni will publish the score sometime as I'm curious as to the differences between this and the TMP version of the main theme, they are definitely slightly different. I always like (dare I say, prefer?!) the way he segues out of the TMP theme in the later version too, those unexpected harmonic changes tell you things are about to change.
 
A friend of mine commented that he didn't like how slow the TMP theme was in cues like The Enterprise or other more low key quotes of it. I guess when you're used to it at TNG speed it might seem oddly slow, but those gentle renditions are great. The cello version at the end of Let's Get Out of Here from TFF is wonderful (now playing!).
 
Definitely agreed with Generations after TNG. TNG is a great show and well worth watching and there are plenty of "essential" episode lists, although if you start at season 3, you can't go far wrong. Generations was a missed opportunity, with some good ideas badly executed and some bad ideas (not to mention gaping plot holes) that scupper things. Having said that, Dennis McCarthy's score is actually pretty great, the main theme is perhaps a bit basic, but the action music is decent and his more wistful material is gorgeous. The sad music near the end (won't spoil it just in case!) and the finale cue are particularly lovely.
 
I endorse watching DS9 though, a superb show, especially once it got going, again in the 3rd (but definitely 4th) seasons. Great Dennis McCarthy main theme too. First Contact is well worth a watch and Jerry's First Contact theme is probably the best thing he wrote after TFF.
 

The Picard Manoeuvre. As it were. Although there we make almost all our heroes and heroines miserable so we can redeem them. Unless we kill them off. Die you heroic bastards.
 
It's an interesting observation made earlier in the thread that both this and KOTCS have to deal with Indy ageing/changing in some way whereas the original three films didn't in any meaningful way. I guess Last Crusade got closest with Henry Jones Snr appearing but Indy for me definitely feels like someone you just want to adventure with during a particular period of his life. Sure you can have the odd flashback, but it's not meant to turn into an expanded universe. Even Young Indy is about the places and adventures more than it being about Young Indy becoming actual Indy.

On Radio 2 weekday afternoons, Sara Cox uses The Mission (NBC News) theme as her bed music. Better than the other music on her show 😜

...and the Little Mermaid remake soundtrack manages to be 3 minutes shorter than the original Little Mermaid soundtrack. The amount of music on Aladdin and The Lion King was at least pretty generous, but Disenchanted (and Enchanted for that matter) both got royally screwed over in the release stakes. My fingers remain crossed but as it stands, a very parsimonious release.

It was originally called 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 Sunset.
 
I'll get my coat...

Secret of NIMH - pretty sure I've seen it before, but thought it would be good watch again following recent discussions on Jerry's marvellous score. Given that it had a pretty restrictive budget, it's impressive they could afford him, but we should all be grateful - according to the IMDB, he worked extra weeks writing it to get it just right, which clearly paid off. For a fairly modest scale movie, the music is quite big at times, but somehow manages not to overwhelm what's on screen. While Ravel and a dash of early Stravinsky are perhaps the biggest influences, I particularly enjoyed the Prokofiev-esque woodwind writing, perhaps the passages that most clearly presage James Horner's work for Don Bluth. Shocked to discover that the cue "The House Raising" basically scores a breeze block being magically lifted out of some mud. Not joking. I still can't really get on with the song which is a gorgeous melody, but the twee factor is amped in both the in-movie and end credits versions. James Horner's songs for Bluth suffered a bit from this (as well as silliness) but, dammit, that man could write a great power ballad.
 
As for the film itself, the rats of NIMH (and its secret) are almost a sub-plot in their own movie. There's quite a lot of setup with Mrs Brisby and her family who need to move to avoid become mouse puree but can't because of her sick son or something. It's kinda sweet but a bit twee and you can't help but think there's a more interesting movie to be made focussing on the rats and how their society developed after escaping NIMH, which is dealt with during a flashback sequence. Mrs Brisby and family aren't the most thrilling of protagonists. The animation is beautiful, however, using lots of special animated effects - the sparkle of water or part of magical lighting effects, light haze and glow, shadows etc. - that would have been far more difficult to accomplish in the 80s than now where you could just overlay these effects by computer. The character gestures tend to be a little over the top at times, a little more subtly in movement would have conveyed the drama/comedy/whatever just as effectively.
 
Final word on the picture quality which could clearly do with some cleaning up. The actual animated characters mostly look fine with the dirt and grain more obvious in the backgrounds. Apparently it was cleaned up for DVD release but I guess Blu-Ray is just less forgiving.

Thanks, that's news to me.

My favourite online classical store, Presto, have samples from Still as well as selling it digitally for a very reasonable price (including hi-res as well as standard lossless FLAC).
 
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9496051--still-a-michael-j-fox-movie-soundtrack-from-the-apple-original-film
 
1. Pinky (1:58)
2. That’s Boring (1:43)
3. Growing Up (1:37)
4. First Casting (1:05)
5. Hollywood Struggle (2:33)
6. A Chip & A Chair (1:22)
7. The Audition (2:38)
8. Becoming Michael J. Fox (2:29)
9. Tracy (2:54)
10. Being a Father (1:00)
11. Parkinson’s Yeah! (2:47)
12. Feel It, Live It (1:25)
13. Late Night TV (1:20)
14. Drink and Disassociate (1:47)
15. Is This What You Want? (2:41)
16. Home to TV (1:35)
17. No Way Out (3:02)
18. Why Me? (1:17)
19. Life at the Beach (5:28)

...and the Little Mermaid remake soundtrack manages to be 3 minutes shorter than the original Little Mermaid soundtrack. The amount of music on Aladdin and The Lion King was at least pretty generous, but Disenchanted (and Enchanted for that matter) both got royally screwed over in the release stakes. My fingers remain crossed but as it stands, a very parsimonious release.

It was originally called 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 Sunset.
 
I'll get my coat...

YES!  God, Sha Ka Ree, and Kahless, YES!! 🖖🏻 

I'm clearly the only person who never really thinks of them as one long score, but that's just fine! TWOK is just so much busier and more densely written - the intricacy in the orchestral writing, especially in the action music, compared to TSFS - is absolutely breathtaking at times. Battle in the Mutara Nebula onwards is very different to the style of scoring he employed for Stealing the Enterprise, for example. Plus you have the key difference of the antagonist music, the change from Khan to the Klingons (even if they are somewhat both related to the danger motif).
 
Of course, they are both terrific scores but TWOK wins for me every time, I just love its ridiculous bravura. I mean those gushing strings at around a minute into Battle in the Mutara Nebula are more or less apropos of nothing, but it's an absolutely terrific moment. The way he bounces between the various musical ideas in TWOK is almost JW or Jerry levels of skill, it's quite astonishing.
 
It's funny that Jerry was so opposed to any use of the TV theme, especially as he and Courage were colleagues (and I think friends?). While we're on the subject to idle speculation, I wonder whether Jerry just didn't think to re-imagine the Courage fanfare as a grand, trombone/horn led affair - like he did for TFF onwards - and was fixated on the rather more skittish version used in the TV show and the bongos and soprano main theme itself. Also, it may not have occurred to him that he could just quote the fanfare. Dare I say it, maybe he heard what James Horner did with it - basically turning the Courage fanfare into the opening of a Mahler symphony (Symphony No 1 to be precise) and realising that it could be reshaped into a striking opening that could quite neatly segue into his own TMP theme.
 
Having said that all, Dennis McCarthy technically got their first when he arranged the TMP theme for TNG. In fact, until I wrote that, it never occurred to me that TNG was the first time the Courage fanfare was used as a prelude to the TMP theme (being 2 years before TFF).
 
Have to agree that Rosenman's take on the original Courage theme for the opening titles doesn't work at all, the accompaniment just plods along behind it so there's zero momentum. Perhaps if he'd arranged it more like his own main title, with overlapping, bell like trumpets, it could have worked well. It doesn't seem beyond of the realms of possibility that Rosenman did a deliberately uninspired take which made his seem much more exciting. Giacchino's version is a bit overdone, but at least it's pretty exciting and makes you realise how much the 60s style and arrangement, while fun, takes a bit away from what a grand adventure theme it could actually be. However, I totally agree that Rosenman did a great job incorporating the original theme into the Enterprise A reveal at the end.

...and the Little Mermaid remake soundtrack manages to be 3 minutes shorter than the original Little Mermaid soundtrack. The amount of music on Aladdin and The Lion King was at least pretty generous, but Disenchanted (and Enchanted for that matter) both got royally screwed over in the release stakes. My fingers remain crossed but as it stands, a very parsimonious release.

...and the Little Mermaid remake soundtrack manages to be 3 minutes shorter than the original Little Mermaid soundtrack. The amount of music on Aladdin and The Lion King was at least pretty generous, but Disenchanted (and Enchanted for that matter) both got royally screwed over in the release stakes. My fingers remain crossed but as it stands, a very parsimonious release.

It was originally called 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 Sunset.
 
I'll get my coat...

I'm clearly the only person who never really thinks of them as one long score, but that's just fine! TWOK is just so much busier and more densely written - the intricacy in the orchestral writing, especially in the action music, compared to TSFS - is absolutely breathtaking at times. Battle in the Mutara Nebula onwards is very different to the style of scoring he employed for Stealing the Enterprise, for example. Plus you have the key difference of the antagonist music, the change from Khan to the Klingons (even if they are somewhat both related to the danger motif).
 
Of course, they are both terrific scores but TWOK wins for me every time, I just love its ridiculous bravura. I mean those gushing strings at around a minute into Battle in the Mutara Nebula are more or less apropos of nothing, but it's an absolutely terrific moment. The way he bounces between the various musical ideas in TWOK is almost JW or Jerry levels of skill, it's quite astonishing.
 
It's funny that Jerry was so opposed to any use of the TV theme, especially as he and Courage were colleagues (and I think friends?). While we're on the subject to idle speculation, I wonder whether Jerry just didn't think to re-imagine the Courage fanfare as a grand, trombone/horn led affair - like he did for TFF onwards - and was fixated on the rather more skittish version used in the TV show and the bongos and soprano main theme itself. Also, it may not have occurred to him that he could just quote the fanfare. Dare I say it, maybe he heard what James Horner did with it - basically turning the Courage fanfare into the opening of a Mahler symphony (Symphony No 1 to be precise) and realising that it could be reshaped into a striking opening that could quite neatly segue into his own TMP theme.
 
Having said that all, Dennis McCarthy technically got their first when he arranged the TMP theme for TNG. In fact, until I wrote that, it never occurred to me that TNG was the first time the Courage fanfare was used as a prelude to the TMP theme (being 2 years before TFF).
 
Have to agree that Rosenman's take on the original Courage theme for the opening titles doesn't work at all, the accompaniment just plods along behind it so there's zero momentum. Perhaps if he'd arranged it more like his own main title, with overlapping, bell like trumpets, it could have worked well. It doesn't seem beyond of the realms of possibility that Rosenman did a deliberately uninspired take which made his seem much more exciting. Giacchino's version is a bit overdone, but at least it's pretty exciting and makes you realise how much the 60s style and arrangement, while fun, takes a bit away from what a grand adventure theme it could actually be. However, I totally agree that Rosenman did a great job incorporating the original theme into the Enterprise A reveal at the end.

I'm right here with you buddy!  I completely agree with all this!

I'm clearly the only person who never really thinks of them as one long score, but that's just fine! TWOK is just so much busier and more densely written - the intricacy in the orchestral writing, especially in the action music, compared to TSFS - is absolutely breathtaking at times. Battle in the Mutara Nebula onwards is very different to the style of scoring he employed for Stealing the Enterprise, for example. Plus you have the key difference of the antagonist music, the change from Khan to the Klingons (even if they are somewhat both related to the danger motif).
 
Of course, they are both terrific scores but TWOK wins for me every time, I just love its ridiculous bravura. I mean those gushing strings at around a minute into Battle in the Mutara Nebula are more or less apropos of nothing, but it's an absolutely terrific moment. The way he bounces between the various musical ideas in TWOK is almost JW or Jerry levels of skill, it's quite astonishing.
 
It's funny that Jerry was so opposed to any use of the TV theme, especially as he and Courage were colleagues (and I think friends?). While we're on the subject to idle speculation, I wonder whether Jerry just didn't think to re-imagine the Courage fanfare as a grand, trombone/horn led affair - like he did for TFF onwards - and was fixated on the rather more skittish version used in the TV show and the bongos and soprano main theme itself. Also, it may not have occurred to him that he could just quote the fanfare. Dare I say it, maybe he heard what James Horner did with it - basically turning the Courage fanfare into the opening of a Mahler symphony (Symphony No 1 to be precise) and realising that it could be reshaped into a striking opening that could quite neatly segue into his own TMP theme.
 
Having said that all, Dennis McCarthy technically got their first when he arranged the TMP theme for TNG. In fact, until I wrote that, it never occurred to me that TNG was the first time the Courage fanfare was used as a prelude to the TMP theme (being 2 years before TFF).
 
Have to agree that Rosenman's take on the original Courage theme for the opening titles doesn't work at all, the accompaniment just plods along behind it so there's zero momentum. Perhaps if he'd arranged it more like his own main title, with overlapping, bell like trumpets, it could have worked well. It doesn't seem beyond of the realms of possibility that Rosenman did a deliberately uninspired take which made his seem much more exciting. Giacchino's version is a bit overdone, but at least it's pretty exciting and makes you realise how much the 60s style and arrangement, while fun, takes a bit away from what a grand adventure theme it could actually be. However, I totally agree that Rosenman did a great job incorporating the original theme into the Enterprise A reveal at the end.

I don't know how, but it was part of the Trek III LP when it was released in 1984. IIRC it was an LP sized single with a single side. Weird.
 
 
It's funny how Shatner's performances land. "Khaaaaaaaan" didn't get it's reputation for being silly and over the top until it was on video. In The Motion Picture after the transporter accident Kirk says "Oh my god." Which was just a line of dialog in 1979. But after decades of The Legend of Shatner people thought it was funny somehow and it was taken out of the director's edition.
 
I've always thought "I have had enough of you" was appropriate and in character for the scene.
 
"You Klingon bastards" always felt more awkward than tragic to me for 39 years. He just doesn't pull off the emotion, to me, which makes it slightly comic. It's the repetition that I don't think sells it. Yes, the crew reaction is terrific. As is playing it with no score. When he barely pulls it together a moment later it has all of the emotion but it's more believable. I'm not saying Kirk wouldn't have lost it, but I don't think Shatner was quite up to it. Too bad, because he is SOOOO GOOD in the rest of the film. The mind meld scene kills me every time.
 
 
You just nailed why it works so well. He never plays it as "Ladies and gentlemen it's our very special guest star THE STAR TREK THEME!". He can use it for punctuation just like he would any of his own music. It can actually be both front and center as well as understated.
 
OTOH that opening statement of the theme was one of the most thrilling moments in a theater in my life. 1) We hadn't heard since the original series and 2) it's not the big happy statement that it is anyplace else. It's haunting. It sounds legendary. (Yes, I realize he used almost the same effect in the opening of Battle Beyond the Stars. It's hard to do legendary with music you had never heard before.) It almost sounds dangerous.
 
As delighted as I was with the straight up joy of the trumpet  in The Voyage Home opening, nothing will ever top that theme at the top of The Wrath of Khan.

I think “you Klingon bastards” was excellent, elevated by excellent direction, editing to the other crew reactions, and the cold silence of the scene with no score.  Kirk falling over into his chair is exactly what anyone would do. 
 
 Now I … have had … enough of youuuuu!
 
That was hammy.  But good hammy. 

Yes he absolutely does.  The way he goes back and forth weaving between his own themes and the Courage fanfare is natural and organic.  Like the quote in “Kirk in the Space Shuttle “ as Sulu mentions how he’s delighted to be on the Enterprise again.  He also uses it to great effect in “Kirk Takes Command” and at the end of “Chekov Lies” as a transition to the turbo lift scene with Kirk and Saavik. 

It was originally called 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 Sunset.
 
I'll get my coat...

It was originally called 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 Sunset.
 
I'll get my coat...

Secret of NIMH - pretty sure I've seen it before, but thought it would be good watch again following recent discussions on Jerry's marvellous score. Given that it had a pretty restrictive budget, it's impressive they could afford him, but we should all be grateful - according to the IMDB, he worked extra weeks writing it to get it just right, which clearly paid off. For a fairly modest scale movie, the music is quite big at times, but somehow manages not to overwhelm what's on screen. While Ravel and a dash of early Stravinsky are perhaps the biggest influences, I particularly enjoyed the Prokofiev-esque woodwind writing, perhaps the passages that most clearly presage James Horner's work for Don Bluth. Shocked to discover that the cue "The House Raising" basically scores a breeze block being magically lifted out of some mud. Not joking. I still can't really get on with the song which is a gorgeous melody, but the twee factor is amped in both the in-movie and end credits versions. James Horner's songs for Bluth suffered a bit from this (as well as silliness) but, dammit, that man could write a great power ballad.
 
As for the film itself, the rats of NIMH (and its secret) are almost a sub-plot in their own movie. There's quite a lot of setup with Mrs Brisby and her family who need to move to avoid become mouse puree but can't because of her sick son or something. It's kinda sweet but a bit twee and you can't help but think there's a more interesting movie to be made focussing on the rats and how their society developed after escaping NIMH, which is dealt with during a flashback sequence. Mrs Brisby and family aren't the most thrilling of protagonists. The animation is beautiful, however, using lots of special animated effects - the sparkle of water or part of magical lighting effects, light haze and glow, shadows etc. - that would have been far more difficult to accomplish in the 80s than now where you could just overlay these effects by computer. The character gestures tend to be a little over the top at times, a little more subtly in movement would have conveyed the drama/comedy/whatever just as effectively.
 
Final word on the picture quality which could clearly do with some cleaning up. The actual animated characters mostly look fine with the dirt and grain more obvious in the backgrounds. Apparently it was cleaned up for DVD release but I guess Blu-Ray is just less forgiving.