Soundtrack Review: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Posted by Jon Blough

April 28, 2009

Welcome back! Have you subscribed to my RSS feed yet? Make sure you don't miss anything by getting all Soundtrack Geek posts by Email. Also check out Soundtrack Fans, a new social network for soundtrack fans. Thanks for visiting!

This is a review of the motion picture score Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home by Leonard Rosenman.

“Without Courage’s fanfare briefly popping up in the bookend cues, you wouldn’t even know this was a Star Trek score…FAIL”

While I may not own very many comedy scores, I can understand the requirements of the genre and respect them. Sometimes it makes scores seem haphazard, and thus the album experience can slip a little, but still most of the good ones prove to be fun enough to make you overlook their inconsistency. The trouble is placing a comedy score into a series that already has a strong dramatic presence, which is what Leonard Rosenman was faced with when composing for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. And…well…oh, how can I put this lightly…um…HE FAILED.

Lacks Dramatic Weight

You’d think we’re getting off on the right foot with Alexander Courage’s Fanfare opening the album, and Rosenman’s following theme is boisterous on a level Goldsmith never got to. For a more comedic take on Star Trek, the theme is a good start, especially with a cacophony of bells behind it, but as the score goes on you realize it lacks both the dramatic weight and the malleability that are essential for grounding in the series (how director Leonard Nimoy felt this take was better than Goldsmith’s classic is beyond me). Later takes throughout the album continue the uplifting spirit, but few are terribly memorable, and none contain the fine orchestration of that opening piece. And considering the lack of strong secondary motifs throughout the album (the whale’s theme is nice but unmemorable), the idea is not strong enough to define an entire album nor workable enough to exist outside of the realm of bouncy optimism.

Too Simple

What continues to disappoint is how alarmingly simple the whole thing is. Rosenman sacrifices the genre’s past excellence and creativity by simply going for, as Hans Zimmer would put it, the jolly theme. There’s no intellectual creativity (like Goldsmith’s Spock theme) or sense of wonder throughout, a real shame given the time travel plot inclusion. Any depth or unique orchestration is woefully absent, with nothing approaching the awesome presence of the blaster beam. Most parts feel like a generic low-grade science fiction score, robbing the score of consistent sweeping power and menace (“The Probe” = ominous fail!) central to any real appreciation of the overall whole. Action in “The Whaler” and the opening two minutes of “Crash/Whale Fugue” go through the motions without creating any excitement and overall feel quite sparse. “Chekov’s Run” feels at home in a Sousa march, while “Hospital Chase” feels too much like a Christmas celebration.

The death knell for this score is the horrendously dated 80s material that shows up in “Market Street” and “Ballad of the Whale”. It would feel more at home in a New York buddy cop movie, a schmaltzy comedy (did some of Tootsie sound like this?), or a Mario Bros. game, but in a Star Trek film (yes, even a comedic one) it just feels so…WRONG. Comedy can obviously be done with an orchestra, and also with respect to the musical roots of the series, thus for me all the qualities I just mentioned feel like blasphemy here. If I wanted smooth jazz, I’d turn on the radio.

Conclusion

The real shame is that one great cue lost in the midst. “Crash/Whale Fugue” has a feeling of wonder amidst the soaring string parts in the fourth minute and lovely woodwind work in the sixth. There a nice uplifting close that truly makes the cue exceptional. Were Rosenman’s score tailored more in that style opposed to directionless comedy, perhaps the bouncy title theme could’ve coexisted with it to make an enjoyable score. Still, it seems unlikely that the score could have featured the required heft that defines the solid, even great work in this series. I’ll close with perhaps the most damning of statements: without Courage’s fanfare briefly popping up in the bookend cues, you wouldn’t even know this was a Star Trek score.

Album (36:09)
1. Main Title (2:39)
2. The Whaler (2:01)
3. Market Street (4:37)
4. Crash/Whale Fugue (8:16)
5. Ballad of the Whale (4:59)
6. Gillian Seeks Kirk (2:42)
7. Chekov’s Run (1:20)
8. Time Travel (1:28)
9. Hospital Chase (1:14)
10. The Probe (1:16)
11. Home Again: End Credits (5:38)

Listen to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home by Leonard Rosenman below: