Let’s talk a little about the 50th anniversary activities with which you will be involved. You're helping promote the Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage concert tour, which is underway now. You'll be hosting Star Trek: The Cruise. You'll be the headliner at the massive Star Trek Las Vegas convention/event in August…
I’m excited for all of them. The concert tour is a really great invention. Brady Beaubien and Justin Freer are partners who have done other concerts with other movies, Godfather being one, where they played all the music, on stage, to the film playing on the screen. For the Star Trek concert tour, they have the charts that Jerry Goldsmith and others wrote. In other cases, there were no charts, so they had to listen to the notes and write them down. And, for Star Trek, they’re exploring themes, like “Man Against Machine.” So they’ll take two or three scenes from various Star Treks, put them together, and play the music live on stage to the scenes on the screen. The audience becomes aware of how movie music enhances a scene, how it is lovely as music itself. Much of the music from Star Trek, especially Jerry’s, would stand on its own, in a symphonic way. But, really, what people will discover is how important music is to the movies.
What do you recall of collaborating with Goldsmith when you directed Star Trek V: The Final Frontier? And how did his music complement your work as a director?
It was brilliant music. And I have been told by many people that it is the best music of any of the Star Treks. I talked to Jerry several times, during which we planned where the music would go, and then I left him totally alone. There’d been times when some of the directors would lay certain rules on the composers, that they couldn’t understand. One of them was no drums. It was no drums and no something else… maybe no oboe, or something. “But, what?” “No, we don’t want any drums.” “But drums are at the heartbeat of an orchestra.” So I didn’t do any of that, and he brought forth a beautiful sequence of music.
Didn't Shatner want a choir to feature, but Goldsmith said "Nah, I'll do it with synths" and Shatner said "I want a choir, Jerry" and Goldsmith wrote some numbers on a piece of paper and handed it to Shatner who said "It'll sound great with the synths".
Apocryphal perhaps, but probably not too far from the truth.
One of My Clients was on Boston Legal...which was Produced over at Raleigh Studios...I was on the set with my Client. And there was William Shatner. I told Shatner...that Paramount did him wrong with Star Trek V and continued to screw him over the redo of Visuals that ILM should be doing. Shatner agreed with me. I also talked about The Great Score that Jerry Goldsmith wrote...I told Shatner...It is one of Jerry's Best to the Star Trek Series. Shatner was truly nice and a cool fellow to me.
Jerry Goldsmith score was one of the few good things in the movie. The score greatly helps in digesting the movie. Again, Goldsmith music always made any turkey of a film look like Citizen Kane. And he scored many of those and yet came out as the sole winner.
Jerry Goldsmith score was one of the few good things in the movie. The score greatly helps in digesting the movie. Again, Goldsmith music always made any turkey of a film look like Citizen Kane. And he scored many of those and yet came out as the sole winner.
