Customer Reviews

Star Trek - The Next Generation: Music From The Original TV Soundtrack (Encounter At Farpoint)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I love the next generation. Iv'e grown to love the characters and the stories. It's good to hear the music from one of the stories. Encounter at Farpoint is one of my favourite episodes. I've got them all on dvd. My favourite part in it is the Q character. I don't think the music stands by itself so much, but if your a fan of the show you'll love it.

This cd is very good. It contains music from the pilot episode of Star Trek- The Next Generation, including the theme song. The music is very clear, without a lot of backround noise. It has provided many hours of enjoyable listening. I would recmmend this cd for all Star Trek fans. Also, check out the collection of Star Wars cds. They are really good too!

"It just lies there, going nowhere." That's how another reviewer described the soundtrack to Star Trek Generations (by the same composer) and it applies equally here.

The original Star Trek had scores (pun intended) of strong and memorable melodies. That stupid Vulcan fight music alone is almost impossible to get out of your head once it's stuck there.

This tradition continued into the movies. Goldsmith's score for Trek I was a bit slow and dreamy, but quite good, especially the main theme. Trek II and III had outstanding soundtracks, and IV was quite good also. All four were good enough to motivate me to purchase the soundtrack albums soon after they became available.

Then came Star Trek: The Next Generation, and it totally reversed the trend. They re-used the Goldsmith theme from Trek I, which was great, but all the incidental music seemed flat and lifeless. None of it caught your attention, it just sort of existed on the edge of consciousness, like a fly buzzing around your head. It was passable with a story going on around it, but didn't seem at all worth listening to by itself. When the Farpoint soundtrack album came out, I gave it a miss for once.

Then came Trek V. Awful movie, great score. I bought the soundtrack for it and Trek VI soon after their release. Then came Star Trek Generations. Flat. Dull. Lifeless. Unmemorable. I gave the album a pass and didn't buy it until years later when I picked it up at Half Price Books.

Next came First Contact, with another Goldsmith score which was perhaps his best.

Yesterday I came across the Farpoint album in a used book store. The first thing I noticed was that it had been scored by the same guy who wrote the music for Star Trek Generations. "That explains everything!", I thought. Still, I thought, it was only $3. Why not give it another chance. So, I bought it to listen to on the drive home. Maybe it's better than I remembered.

Uh uh. Worse. The album should have a warning label, telling you not to listen to it while operating heavy machinery. Without the story going on around it, it was even duller than before. The music straggles around in search of a melody without ever finding one. One instrument might hit a note and hold it for 30 seconds or so trying to figure where to go from there. In fact, it sounded more like the orchestra warming up than the orchestra performing.

The final track on the album is McCarthy's unused main theme for Next Generation. This one did have a melody (though darned if I can remember it, despite listening to it twice). It came across as sort of a pale imitation of the Goldsmith theme. It tries very hard to be high and grand, without really succeeding, and sounds more like it should be the theme for something like Jason of Star Command than Star Trek.

The album isn't really bad enough to deserve 1 star. There is a market for toneless New Age music, so there are doubtless people who would enjoy it. And the two tracks with the Goldsmith/Courage theme are quite good. On its own merits, I'd give it 2, maybe 2 and a half stars. But several other reviewers made it clear that they'd rated the album artifically high, simply because it had Star Trek in the title, so I'll rate it artificially low to try to balance things out a bit.

"Encounter at Farpoint" (Written by D.C. Fontana and Gene Roddenberry, First aired September 28, 1987) was the two-hour pilot "movie" that introduced us to the new crew of the new starship "Enterprise-D" as they come together for the first time on "Star Trek: The Next Generation." The initial mission for the Galaxy-class starship is to check out Farpoint Station, which has been created on Deneb IV. Captain Jean-Luc Picard is not only trying to negotiate an agreement for Starfleet to use the station, but to try and learn how the Bandi built something that is clearly beyond their technological capabilities. But before they even get to the station, the "Enterprise" runs into Q, a mysterious and powerful being who puts the crew on trial for the sins of humanity. If Picard cannot convince Q to overturn the verdict, the crew will die (Warp 4).

In the second "part" of the story, the mission to Farpoint will be Picard's opportunity to prove the worth of humanity, but Q gives him only 24 hours to make his case. At Farpoint, Picard meets his new first officer and the rest of his crew, and on the planet's surface is surprised to discover that your wishes come true. Then a strange "ship" appears and starts blasting the Bandi city. You all know how small the Star Trek universe really is, so everything ends up being related and the "Enterprise" passes this initial test, because there are more episodes to come after this one (Warp 4.5).

In terms of the plot lines the first encounter with Q is of much more importance than solving the mystery of Farpoint Station. Little did we know that the trial would become the bookends for the series, but then I am betting that the creators did not know that either as the beginning. There is also a delightful cameo by DeForrest Kelly and the infamous "Imzadi" mental exchange between Riker and Troi that the producers quickly regretted (although eventually it would give us the best STNG book of the same title by Peter David). However, the masterstroke was the creation of Jean-Luc Picard and the casting of Patrick Stewart. Face it, one look at Picard and you know he is not Jim Kirk, but as soon as you hear that voice you just do not care.

An incredibly bad choice as the first episode to follow the two-part pilot, "The Naked Now" parallels "The Naked Time" episode from the original series. The key difference is that we had a much more solid understand of the characters on Star Trek before we watched them be stripped of their facades. The scene where Spock weeps for his parents and Kirk talks of his love for the Enterprise are emotionally significant because they have been set up by our complete understanding of these two characters. In "The Naked Now" the crew of this new Enterprise are still character types more than fully realized characters.

Consequently, this particular episode makes more sense out of context, if you fill in all that you learn about the characters in the years to come. But even from that perspective this a very shallow exploration of Picard and the others and just not worth the effort. "The Naked Now" continues some of the character and relationship exposition from the pilot, providing our first real proof of boy genius Wesley Crusher and the first hint of any feelings between Captain Picard and Doctor Crusher. The toss off scene of Tasha seducing Data does become poignant following her death, but right now it is just a joke (Warp 3).

I remember when I first watched this episode thinking it was not a good sign that the producers were already trying to rip-off the original Trek. When you watch the first season it becomes pretty clear that was exactly what they were trying to do with the vast majority of episodes. However, this particular episode represents the absolutely worst way to do so. The best, of course, would be the Deep Space Nine episode that blends so seemlessly with "The Trouble With Tribbles."

"Encounter at Farpoint" is worth a second look just to see how they laid the foundation for what was to come and even, in the show's second season, kicked it into warp drive. I still remember people actually gathering at my house to watch the first new "Star Trek" episode in two decades. As much as we cherish the original series because it gave us something so different from what we had to endure before in terms of science fiction on television, "Star Trek: The Next Generation" is really the flagship series in the franchise.

I LOVE IT SO MUCH THAT ITS LIKE A BIBLE TO ME!!!!

I LOVE IT SO MUCH THAT ITS LIKE A BIBLE TO ME!!!!