Star Trek movies re-scored with Goldsmith music

[Gieferg]

The thing I don't really like in Star Trek movies is that they're lacking musical integrity that Star Wars has. I really appreciate Goldsmith score for TMP, this is my favourite Star Trek soundtrack ever and I always miss it when watching those movies scored by Horner, Rosenman and Eidelman. I miss it especially, when we have some Klingon action or Enterprise fly-bys on screen. The Final Frontier, considered the worst of the bunch (not by me) at least has the right musical vibe that makes me enjoying it probably more than it deserves.

So I've decided I will try to fix it. Not complete Goldsmith re-scores a it would be too much work, but at least some prominent sequences, or those scenes that can be re-scored relatively easily. As I don't have 5.1 equipment those will be only basic stereo tracks, re-scored sequences will be built around stripped center channels, sometimes filtered to remove original music, with some sfx rebuilding when necessary.

I've started it with "The Search for Spock" which has a lot of Klingon action so it is probably best one for it.

And here's a sample:

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Spent two days on this project:

Music has been changed at the beginning (just after the title appears), then scenes with Enterprise coming back to base, all Klingon attacks/space battles, hijacking Enterprise by Kirk & Co (that was quite difficult but I am happy with the results)., couple of scenes during final confrontation with Klingons (incuding the final duel) on the planet, final conversation between Spock & Kirk and end titles. In few places added quiet music in the background and short glimpses of main theme here and there.

Goldsmith music from TMP, Final Frontier and First Contact was used to replace original music. Horner music remains in the whole 20 minute long segment when Enterprise is back in base and Saavik and Kirk's son are on Genesis, crashing Enterprise as well as some parts of the finale on Genesis and Vulcan.

 

[Admiral Archer]

I have got to share my re edit of the ending to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan to feature Goldsmith's score. I agree entirely that the Star Trek films suffer because of their lack of a cohesive musical journey like the Star Wars films, and it pains me that we never got a kind of what-if alternate score CD collection of Goldsmith's takes on the Trek films he was unable to score (similar to his orchestrations of Alex North's score to 2001: A Space Odyssey). Even if that was never planned, it should have been for those of us who prefer Goldsmith's music over all else.

 

[Gieferg]

Yeah, that would be nice. I t is hard to re-score some scenes with material that was made for entirely different scenes, so I am re-scoring only some parts of the movie - mostly adding most familiar themes. Horner's music is good, but I just love Goldsmith's themes and with every single rewatch I miss them, so I've decided to do something with it and that's the reason I started this project for.

 

[Admiral Archer]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14McE0npEDDY6sh-drFLqM5N7ZiNydMsN/view?usp=share_link

The link above should take you to my attempt to edit some of Jerry Goldsmith's Star Trek music into the ending scenes of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Everything from Spock's final words to Kirk in the engine room through to the end credits has been rescored. This is a rough cut, so Leonard Nimoy's "Space, the final frontier" monologue is missing, and the torpedo blast sound effect is missing as Spock's burial tube is launched to the surface of Genesis, but it will give you a rough idea of what a Goldsmith scored TWOK might have been like.

 

[Gieferg]

Just watched it and it works very well I would say. Exactly something I am aiming for.
Do you remember which Goldsmith's cues were used here?

 

[Admiral Archer]

Just watched it and it works very well I would say. Exactly something I am aiming for.
Do you remember which Goldsmith's cues were used here?

I think so. In chronological order, I believe the track names are:

"A New Friend"
"That Song"
"First Contact"
and
"End Credits"

The first two tracks are from Nemesis, and the last two tracks are from First Contact. The track titled "That Song" also goes by "Remembering Data/The Enterprise".

 

[Gieferg]

Heh, end credits sounded familiar, I've just used that for end credits in Search for Spock earlier today

I think I'll get to TWOK later, but your music choices feel spot on, so I hope you dont mind If I re-iuse some of them in my re-score.

 

[Firebird]

Honestly, I don't think the Goldsmith music works very well in that Search for Spock clip. The cue doesn't really follow along with the way the scene was cut.

 

[Gieferg]

That clip is still work in progress.
Just first scene I've made before doing a closer examination of "Final Frontier" score. Puzzle is still shifting

 

[Grant]

Yup, the Trek movies suffer from not having the same composer for all 6.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Yup, the Trek movies suffer from not having the same composer for all 6.

Grant, everyone’s entitled to an opinion on music in Trek movies. I like the musical diversity of Trek films, though I admit I like that Michael Giacchino‘s unified tracks for the Kelvinverse and Horner’s unified duology. I love Jerry Goldsmith’s tracks for movies 1, 5, and 8-10 as well.

 

[Grant]

My opinion is that saying the TOS movies lack "integrity" because they have different composers is laughable. They can have that opinion though.

 

[ananta]

The different scores for different films are part of what give them their character and identity. I wouldn’t change a single one. Uniformity can be boring. The Star Wars scores all sound kind of the same and interchangeable to me.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

I like the unifying themes of Star Wars music. I suppose my perspective is different because I’m something of a music nerd.

 

[Gieferg]

Same here.
I really like musical integrity in movie series (like Star Wars, LOTR/Hobbit or Rambo). And the most jarring examples when the lack of it bother me are Robocop 2 (Rosenman), Thor series (great theme in the first reprised only once in Ragnarok), and Trek movies. Also, Goldsmith is one of my favourite composers, so replacing him with self-plagiarising Horner (or Rosenman who thought that his scores are best ever, even if they dont fit at all - like R2) is bad news for me.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

I like Horner’s work, and John Williams’ stuff for Star Wars takes a great deal of inspiration from Holst’s The Planets. Listen to “Mars: Bringer of War.”

 

[Bad Robot]

I generally dislike that out of ten movies, Goldsmith wound up getting no less than five.

 

[Jeyl]

I generally dislike that out of ten movies, Goldsmith wound up getting no less than five.

And by some measure, only one good Star Trek film.

 

[Bad Robot]

And by some measure, only one good Star Trek film.

I'm guessing there's not much chance that would be TMP instead of First Contact.

 

[Tosk]

My opinion is that saying the TOS movies lack "integrity" because they have different composers is laughable.

They said 'musical integrity'. As in the state of being whole or undivided.