There’s no doubt that Jerry Goldsmith made an enormous contribution to the sound of Star Trek, starting with his score to The Motion Picture in 1979. The themes he created for that movie would still be around at the time of the final Next Generation film Nemesis, in 2002, which Goldsmith himself scored. His full list of Star Trek credits shows in how much esteem he was held by the creative talent behind the franchise:
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Final Frontier
Star Trek: First Contact
Star Trek: Insurrection
Star Trek: Nemesis
Star Trek: The Next Generation (Opening Theme, arranged by Dennis McCarthy)
Star Trek: Voyager (Opening Theme)
Active in the Film and Television industry for over 50 years, Jerry Goldsmith was the original choice by Gene Roddenberry to write the score for ‘The Cage’, however he was unable to do so due to scheduling conflicts. He was given the opportunity to score The Motion Picture, and jumped at the chance, however initially the score he wrote didn’t meet with the Director’s (Robert Wise) approval. “There’s no theme” was Wise’s description of the problem, so Goldsmith went back and re-wrote the music to generate the ‘Enterprise theme’ that eventually become the theme to The Next Generation, and it also earned him an Oscar nomination.
He returned to the franchise after a 10 year break for The Final Frontier, which was a mix of new material and rearranged scores from The Motion Picture. We hear expanded versions of the Klingon theme throughout the movie (a piece we first hear at the start of The Motion Picture) and the ‘Enterprise theme’.
In 1994 Goldsmith write the main title theme to Star Trek: Voyager, which earned him an Emmy award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music.
In 1996 Goldsmith wrote the score for Star Trek: First Contact along with his son, Joel. As Jerry got older, he started to ask Joel to assist him in his various works. Joel was a talented composer as well, and after First Contact he was given the job of creating the music for the Stargate television franchise, which lasted until the end of Stargate Universe in 2011. In fact, in some of the cues for First Contact you can almost hear the beginnings of music that would later be used in the pilot episode of SG-1, for example in ‘Battle Watch’ and ‘Search for the Borg’.
For Insurrection in 1998, Goldsmith took the opportunity to try to expand the types of music in the Star Trek films, and used a variety of Synthetic instruments to achieve a more energetic and action-packed soundtrack. Of course he also returned to his classic themes from the previous movie, and the ‘Klingon Theme’ also makes a return for those scenes where Worf appears and returns to the Enterprise.
His final Star Trek score (and in fact his penultimate score before his death) was Nemesis in 2002. Again Goldsmith decided to use synthesizers, however this time in a much more subdued fashion, and the score as a whole is generally much darker than his previous efforts due to the darker nature of the film. The theme he wrote to represent Shinzon and the Remans is a simple five note affair; however you can hear it in its glory in the end credits sequence. Goldsmith’s diversity is also showcased with his ability to write emotional cues, for example the wedding scene and Data’s wake at the end of the movie. Probably the most unique aspect of the Nemesis score though is the use of ‘Blue Skies’ in the end credits, reinforcing the fact that Data is alive and well inside B4. Goldsmith managed to blend the sounds of a tune first sung in 1927 with a modern motion picture score to perfection.
Jerry Goldsmith passed away in 2004.
Joel Goldsmith passed away in 2012.
