I'm not sure if this has been talked about but I've always been curious on what the general influences and inspirations for the score of Star Trek: The Motion Picture? Surely Goldsmith must have found inspiration in either another composer or from something in his past work. An example is re-working the Raisuli theme from The Wind and the Lion into the theme for the Klingons.
I think this early ST:TMP trailer was scored with Williams' "Black Sunday."
I've sometimes wondered whether Jerry could have seen this version of the trailer. Could his pulsing "technology" motif in ST:TMP have been influenced by Williams' throbbing suspense-rhythm used here? (0:44 - 1:02)
(. . . I think there might be a tiny bit of "Marathon Man" in this trailer too -- at 1:21?)
I also noted in other threads that:
[1] The ST:TMP main theme seems to be in a similar meter to the march he'd written for "Players."
[2] The climax of "The Enterprise" cue (heard again in the "human adventure is just beginning" finale cue), with its suddenly-audible organ, after the other instruments have finished, is reminiscent to me of the climax of the theme from "2001," both Strauss's and North's versions of it.
I think Rosenthal was first to use the blaster beam in a score for spooky outer-space effect in his "Meteor" (1979), but "Meteor" only beat ST:TMP to theaters by a couple of months.
The 2001 influence permeated the production, but Jerry saw NOTHING. He wrote cues as the picture came in but, as we all know, it wasn't until they were actually recording that it was discovered that the music wasn't quite working. So most of what was done was scrapped and he went back to the drawing board during a one month break. There's really no way to explain where the final score came from. It literally just came to him out of nowhere after (and perhaps, in part, due to) that false start and he just went with it. And there really wasn't time to think about it. The muses were somehow speaking to him and it was simply lightning in a bottle.
The only influence I'd guessed at was The Day The Earth Stood Still. Don't ask me to pinpoint why, I just always felt there was a TDTESS-ness about the way V'Ger was scored. Whether that's something that came up between Wise and Goldsmith or not, who can say.
Just to be clear: I'm not claiming it *was* an influence, just that it seemed to me like it could have been.
The only influence I'd guessed at was The Day The Earth Stood Still. Don't ask me to pinpoint why, I just always felt there was a TDTESS-ness about the way V'Ger was scored. Whether that's something that came up between Wise and Goldsmith or not, who can say.
Just to be clear: I'm not claiming it *was* an influence, just that it seemed to me like it could have been.
I suppose The Cloud and maybe some other bits sound "Herrmann-esque", but I'm not sure I'd go as far as to call The Day the Earth Stood Still as an "influence".
Having said that, it's quoted fairly prominently in The Enterprise. Quoted might be too strong a word, but something very similar to RADAR (right?) can be heard at 1:10. It kind of stands out all by itself for a few seconds. I remember the day I put it all together that Wise directed both and I wanted to tell someone who cared. I had no luck with that.
Surely Goldsmith must have found inspiration in either another composer or from something in his past work. An example is re-working the Raisuli theme from The Wind and the Lion into the theme for the Klingons.
The Raisuli theme was based on an actual Moroccan melody. As Goldsmith needed to invest the Kingons with a similarly warlike, "foreign" feel, something along those same middle-eastern lines fit nicely.
Personally I think the Klingon theme is closer to the "Gorilla soldiers" shofar call in Planet of the Apes.
About the only specific musical influence I've ever sensed in the score is Holst in the cloud sequence... very much as if that scene had been temped with "Neptune, The Mystic" from The Planets.
4th Symphony by Vaughan Williams, a influence for the Klingon theme?, starting at 21:20
There are really no similarities there, but nice of you to post this version of the 4th that I hadn't heard yet.
"The Enterprise" and 2001? Yes, the piece as a whole is stylistically influenced by Richard Strauss (like Jerry's score for The Blue Max was, too), though I don't think there is a direct reference to any specific Strauss piece (Goldsmith was not immune to direct "quotations", like e.g. when he used Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms in a sequence for The Omen).
...of course at this stage in the game I actually miss the good old days of blatant temp track rip-offs. At least they were copies of interesting music. Now it seems like we're basically getting glorified trailer music in movies, and not very glorified at that.
...of course at this stage in the game I actually miss the good old days of blatant temp track rip-offs. At least they were copies of interesting music. Now it seems like we're basically getting glorified trailer music in movies, and not very glorified at that.
About the only specific musical influence I've ever sensed in the score is Holst in the cloud sequence... very much as if that scene had been temped with "Neptune, The Mystic" from The Planets.
I hear more of Holst great friend Vaughan Williams in those "Cloud" passages, particularly his score for Scott of The Antarctic, better known to most as his 7th symphony 'Symphony Antartica'.
I've heard that Goldsmith called it his "Vaughan Williams" score, it's been quoted around this board oft times. Whether the quote is true or where it originally comes from I do not know.
