100 replies to this topic

[NBooth]

For what it's worth, Amazon US currently has the original movie collection up for $39 as its blu-ray deal of the week.

[Peter T Chattaway]

You don't know how sad it made me, upon reading that news, to remember that I already own a copy.

[NBooth]

Peter T Chattaway, on 21 November 2011 - 02:17 PM, said:

You don't know how sad it made me, upon reading that news, to remember that I already own a copy.

My set came in yesterday and I'm re-watching the movies I've not seen in years: namely The Search for Spock (to which, I'm afraid, I was a little unkind) and The Final Frontier (to which I'm not nearly unkind enough). I haven't dug into any of the special features, though.

[NBooth]

Pre-Torchwood John Barrowman interviews William Shatner about Star Trek: Generations:

Edited by NBooth, 22 January 2012 - 01:03 PM.

[John Drew]

For only $3100 you could own this! Details here...

[Peter T Chattaway]

The day after Christopher Plummer won his Oscar, Intrada revealed that it has released an expanded edition of the soundtrack to Plummer's Star Trek movie (i.e. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country).

And so, with this, ALL SIX of the original-series films have now had expanded soundtracks. (The J.J. Abrams film had one, too.)

The expanded soundtrack albums -- most of which have come out in just the last few years -- have not all followed the same format, though:

• Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out in 1999, on the film's 20th anniversary, and was a 2-disc set: One disc contained the expanded soundtrack, and the other disc contained the 1976 album Inside Star Trek, which consisted of interviews with the actors and excerpts from some of Gene Roddenberry's appearances at conventions etc. It did NOT include a copy of the original, shorter soundtrack album.
  
  
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was a single-disc release. It did NOT include a copy of the original, shorter soundtrack album.
  
  
• Star Trek III: The Search for Spock was a 2-disc set: One disc contained the expanded soundtrack, and the other disc contained the original, shorter soundtrack album.
  
  
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was a single-disc release. It did NOT include a copy of the original, shorter soundtrack album, per se, but, wherever there is a difference between the movie version of a track and the earlier album's version of that track, I believe this disc includes the earlier album's version as one of the "extra" tracks at the end.
  
  
• Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was a 2-disc set: One disc contained the expanded soundtrack, and the other disc contained the original, shorter soundtrack album AS WELL AS some alternate and source cues.
  
  
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country will be a 2-disc set: One disc contains the expanded soundtrack, and the other disc contains the original, shorter soundtrack album.

FWIW, the expanded score to the J.J. Abrams film was released concurrently with the shorter, one-disc soundtrack album -- so no effort was made to include the shorter album with the longer album. I have not listened to either version often enough to discern whether there is any difference between the two versions of any cue that appears on both albums.

So... will we see expanded versions of the Next Generation movie scores, now? All but one of them were scored by Jerry Goldsmith, so, no matter how bad the MOVIES might have been, there's bound to be fans clamouring for more of the MUSIC.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Aha, so they ARE releasing expanded scores for the Next Generation movies! Starting, not surprisingly, with Star Trek: First Contact (1996) -- by far the most popular/successful of the Next Generation movies, and also the movie that brought Jerry Goldsmith back to the franchise after an absence of several years. (He had scored two of the less-popular original-series movies; after this, he went on to score the next two movies as well, plus he composed the theme music for TV's Star Trek: Voyager.)

Note, BTW, that this new album has a complete SCORE for Star Trek: First Contact -- meaning it has all of the instrumental music composed by Jerry Goldsmith and his son Joel -- but it is not quite a complete SOUNDTRACK, since it is missing the Roy Orbison and Steppenwolf tracks that the original soundtrack album had.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Peter T Chattaway, on 29 February 2012 - 02:09 PM, said:

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was a 2-disc set: One disc contained the expanded soundtrack, and the other disc contained the original, shorter soundtrack album AS WELL AS some alternate and source cues.

Apparently this was a limited-edition set that sold out within months, but all of the other expanded soundtracks are not-limited and remain in print, so Intrada is re-issuing the set with slightly tweaked packaging (though the CD program remains identical to the earlier release, which was put out by La-La Land Records).

[CrimsonLine]

Devin Faraci at BadAssDigest counts down his 10 Best Moments in STAR TREK History, and it includes several from the Original Series movies. My favorite line in the article:

Quote

It takes decades to earn a scene like this.

It's his #2 moment, and if you're a Trek fan, you already know what it's about.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Devin Faraci wrote:
: It takes decades to earn a scene like this.

Or a decade and a half, as the case may be.

[NBooth]

So I knew about the lyrics to the Original Series theme, but I didn't know that "Illia's Theme" from TMP also had lyrics--sung by Shaun Cassidy, no less:

Edited by NBooth, 07 December 2012 - 09:28 PM.

[Peter T Chattaway]

NBooth wrote:
: So I knew about the lyrics to the Original Series theme, but I didn't know that "Illia's Theme" from TMP also had lyrics--sung by Shaun Cassidy, no less:

Um, thanks, I've been trying to forget that I heard that version of the tune ever since I first came across it several months ago. 'Ilia's Theme' is one of my favorite soundtrack pieces ever, and I don't like having it tarnished like that!

Incidentally, they have released a 2-CD expanded edition of the Star Trek: Generations soundtrack now (and yes, I got one of the autographed copies). It has always been one of the lesser Star Trek soundtracks, in my opinion (along with The Voyage Home), but hey, I'm a completist -- and the new set does include the bit where Data sings 'Lifeforms'.

So I guess Insurrection and Nemesis are the only movie soundtracks that have not yet been given the expanded-edition treatment.

[NBooth]

Peter T Chattaway, on 07 December 2012 - 10:53 PM, said:

NBooth wrote:
: So I knew about the lyrics to the Original Series theme, but I didn't know that "Illia's Theme" from TMP also had lyrics--sung by Shaun Cassidy, no less:

Um, thanks, I've been trying to forget that I heard that version of the tune ever since I first came across it several months ago. 'Ilia's Theme' is one of my favorite soundtrack pieces ever, and I don't like having it tarnished like that!

Yikes. Sorry 'bout that.

[Peter T Chattaway]

NBooth wrote:
: Yikes. Sorry 'bout that.

'Sokay.

Interestingly, I don't mind the disco versions of the various Star Trek themes. It's just any version with lyrics that threatens to stick in my memory.

[Peter T Chattaway]

FWIW, my newest blog post: 'Music for Klingons, part one: Jerry Goldsmith'. Looks at how the "bad guy" theme from Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) went on to be used in Star Trek: First Contact (1996) to celebrate Worf's kick-ass heroism. In-between there are some interesting variations on the theme in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), where certain Klingon characters *are* presented as "bad guys" but, because we've already seen that the future will include "good" Klingons, there is an effort to spin the Klingon theme in a positive direction, as well.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Remember how John P. Meier said in Volume 1 of A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus that his was a two-book project? And remember how he said in (the 1100-page!) Volume 2 that it was now a three-book project? And remember how he said...?

Anyway. I started this Klingon-music thing assuming it would be one post, and then it turned into two, with the first installment on Jerry Goldsmith and then the second installment on the other guys. But no. Instead, the second installment is exclusively about James Horner (composer for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, the latter of which is the only film -- so far -- in which the Klingons are out-and-out baddies), and I've got to save Cliff Eidelman and Michael Giacchino for the third installment, which I'll write... whenever I get a chance.

Edited by Peter T Chattaway, 12 May 2013 - 09:57 AM.

[Thom Wade]

Peter T Chattaway, on 12 May 2013 - 09:56 AM, said:

Remember how John P. Meier said in Volume 1 of A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus that his was a two-book project? And remember how he said in (the 1100-page!) Volume 2 that it was now a three-book project? And remember how he said...?

Uh...I don't remember any of this.

[Peter T Chattaway]

'Music for Klingons, part three: Eidelman + Giacchino'. Looks at Cliff Eidelman's score for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and what it has in common -- and doesn't -- with Michael Giacchino's score for Star Trek into Darkness. (Keywords: vocals! Klingon lyrics!)

[Peter T Chattaway]

Phew. Took me a few hours, but: my latest blog post includes links to all the reviews I have written of the Star Trek films, including a few of the lengthier posts that I wrote or linked to earlier in this thread.

What I found most interesting is how I skewed rather positive on Star Trek: Generations when I reviewed it for the student paper in 1994 but came to see it as a "wasted opportunity" when the two-disc DVD came out in 2004.

[Thom Wade]

I was thinking about Nemesis...and among the many things that bothered me? The worst was the cheat of the film. It was as if they felt Data progressed so far they were at a loss with what to do in the future with him. So

Spoiler

So, Data sacrifices himself, but, hey, do not worry....We have the older model (who looks just like him!).

I presume had there been another Next Gen film we would have been treated to Data-esque antics in the vein of the early seasons of the show. Because we needed to recycle the weakest points of the Next Generation.