Film Music Free Friday: I Wouldn't Have Scored it Like That...

A discussion on the FSM forum regarding the music of Star Trek (which, inevitably, descended into a Goldsmith versus Horner debate - for the record, I view the first two scores as equally superb, but totally different so barely comparable) and I made a confession. I would have scored the opening - or rather more precisely, the opening titles - to Star Trek: The Motion Picture differently. Rather than the vibrant version of the now classic theme, I'd have gone for mysterious and ominous, using hints of the V'Ger material. Keep Ilea's Theme as the overture (the last ever, as I'm sure every fan knows), but against the black screen and stark, white writing, rumblings from the blaster beam, low brass chords.

When I floated this idea on a message board (often a terrible mistake), the response was actually surprisingly moderate/positive. It's not that I think Goldsmith did anything wrong, I have no doubt that Paramount, Rodenberry and Robert Wise wanted a big, epic theme to start the film; remember, the original viewers had never heard the now classic theme and might well have expected Courage's original theme. Indeed, this was the only area of contention regarding my suggestion on the message board; fans seeing the film on the big screen for the first time in 1979 would be having enough trouble accepting vastly different music as it was, without the opening to the film with a non-heroic couple of minutes. Therefore Goldsmith did what was asked of him. However, it strikes me that it would be vastly more dramatically satisfying to set a menacing and mysterious tone from the outset and slowly reveal what the menace is. Then, by the time you actually get to Starfleet after the opening segments with the Klingons and on Vulcan, the arrival of the main theme starts to give that traditional, upbeat Trek reassurance that Kirk is on the case and things might turn out OK in the end.

I also rather like the idea of an opening that confounds expectations. If you're not going to use the original TV theme, then you might as well do something totally different. Goldsmith's theme is, of course, very different to Courage's, but it still springs from the same, radiant, positive, adventurous outlook. While I've no doubt a few Trekkies were disgruntled that Courage's theme wasn't pride of place (possibly, fortunately we're saved due to the non-existence of online message boarding in 1979) but if you're going to go different, go totally different. As an experiment, I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to track in some of the V'Ger Fly Over or Cloud music (a couple of minutes would suffice) that could happily segue into the existing Klingon Battle (it is literally just the opening credits music I would change) and provide just a little more tension.

The way that Dennis McCarthy scored the opening to Star Trek: Generations is perhaps the best comparative in the Star Trek pantheon. I do remember being disappointed that Goldsmith wasn't signed on and it was perhaps surprising that they didn't stick with Goldsmith's theme for the first Next Generation movie, but McCarthy did his own thing and was often more successful than fans give him credit. However, his almost free form, impressionistic opening titles music, leading to a heroic version of the Courage fanfare is a masterful stroke. It doesn't play its hand too early, keeps the viewer guessing (especially with the shots of the bottle spinning through space which is a nicely surreal touch in an otherwise pretty unimaginative and crappy film). It also means that the reveal of McCarthy's main theme a bit later on is that bit more distinctive and dramatic; "this is the main theme, it's for the Next Generation crew... we're off on an adventure with them." Of course it never returned in later films, but that didn't matter at the time.

I was thinking that maybe there were a handful of films or bits of films I'd come up with to score differently, but realised there wasn't one I felt so strongly about as the opening to Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The only other I had idle thoughts about was Williams' score to Saving Private Ryan. Yes, it's lovely music and the end credits hymn is terrific, but it's a film that probably needs almost no music. There isn't a huge amount by Williams/Spielberg standards (less than an hour), but it's just a little too warm and fuzzy, overselling the gooey feeling inside you're meant to have from time to time. Fine in something like E.T. which is meant to tug at the heart strings like a steam train, but for Saving Private Ryan, one can't help but feel we should react from the stark realities of the situation and characters, not be spoon fed emotionally by the music. Shorter cues, rather than elongated, pastoral scoring might also have been more appropriate, at least outside of the opening and closing scenes and end credits.

If you have any thoughts on the issues raised in this article, please don't hesitate to contact our action helpline. Or, e-mail me with your thoughts. I don't really want "I wish X had scored Y film instead of Z" (i.e. I wish John Williams had scored every film ever made) but rather certain parts of a film, or even the whole film, that somehow doesn't work for you plus any comparatives as to how you might have done it differently. If there's enough interesting ideas, I'll put them together in a future article.