Star Trek

Comment: You know the feeling when you hold a soundtrack in your hands, from a movie that was big before you were even born. There are several possibilities, emotional tendencies you can have during your first listen. The first possibility is that you truly feel the age of the music, and you can smirk merely for feeling some nostalgia. Another possibility would be that you think the music is good, but didn't age very well. Or there is this rare, magical feeling, and you'd die to travel back in time just to hear the music on the big screen.

Jerry Goldsmith has achieved exactly that: wonderful, timeless movie magic that I believe carved Star Trek The Motion Picture from a rough diamond into a true gem.
The story of a Voyager satellite of our time being lost, and returning to become a threat to mankind is, in my mind, a simple, and yet brilliant story that was never topped in any of the sequels. The story provokes questions still relevant as ever, and creates an air of wonder, never ceasing fascination for the unknown and an adventurous longing for philosophical exploring.
And this is exactly what the Star Trek main theme captures to perfection.

The pinnacle of Goldsmith's genius in this regard comes in the appropriately titled "The Enterprise", a cue that ranks amongst the Top 10 of the best single pieces ever written.
The thematic music like the Enterprise or the foreshadowing Ilia's Theme takes nothing from the battle music or the soundscape for V'ger.

The V'ger flyover sequence is jawdropping, elegant, and eternally captivating and fascinating because of Goldsmith's dark, awe-inspiring, strange, yet emotionally involving music.

There is not a single moment of musical redundancy in Star Trek The Motion Picture. The score is a complete, bone-thrilling listen from start to finish.
Jerry Goldsmith wrote several Star Trek scores after this one, and even Star Trek First Contact brushed on it, he never fully revived the thematic grandesse, the emotional splendour and the rhythmic thrill as showcased in Star Trek The Motion Picture.

Comment: Composer Jerry Goldsmith weaves a tapestry of classical and avant-grade music for an incredible film score that stands alone on is own incredible artistry.

This is a tour-de-force in how a soundtrack can speak in a voice that sounds fascinating and beautiful without even a trace of knowledge of the movie.

Comment: Like his fellow film composer John Williams, the resume of the late Jerry Goldsmith is the kind that any self-respecting film composer would kill to have. That resume spans every Hollywood genre: westerns (HOUR OF THE GUN); horror (THE OMEN); World War II (PATTON); and, of course, science fiction (the original 1968 sci-fi classic PLANET OF THE APES). And one of his greatest scores in the last-mentioned genre is the one he composed for STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE in 1979.

While STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE was considered by many to be very ponderous, in contrast to the classic 1960s TV series that spawned it, a majority of people found Goldsmith's music to be spot-on perfect. And that it is. Apart from the majestic main theme music, which was to serve much later on for the spin-off series "Star Trek: The Next Generation", Goldsmith weaves a tapestry of interstellar sounds redolent in many ways of such 20th century classical masters as Debussy and Holst, and even some avant-garde influences, in the "Cloud" and "Vejur" cues. With all this, it is a bit surprising that the composer didn't win the Oscar in 1979 for this score (though he was also nominated that same year for ALIEN, which may have resulted in a cancelling-out due to double nominations).

Oscar win or not, STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE was one of Goldsmith's finest achievements in the film scoring business. To paraphrase one of Mr. Spock's famous sayings, Goldsmith lived long and prospered.

Comment: This is arguably the best score of any of the Star Trek movies (I would give it the edge over James Horner's ST II score, as well as the ST VI score, though both of the latter are excellent), and is an amazing work of music taken on its own. The main theme is majestic (when played at the correct tempo, rather than the ridiculous up-tempo version used for STTNG), and the rest of the pieces are evocative and atmospheric. I had this on LP when I was growing up, and somehow wound up playing the B-side over and over as I read the Hobbit for the first time; Vejur Flyover is the sound of Mirkwood, to me. At any rate, it's worth owning. Check it out.

Comment: This is the soundtrack that started this fantastic franchise. The incomparable Jerry Goldsmith on this one. Nothing less than perfect. Make sure this one is in your Star Trek collection.