Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (Expanded) [Soundtrack]

James Horner (Author) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Number of Discs: 2
• ASIN: B003QRWZXO
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,064 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

The Star Trek III soundtrack has been available before but only in a 43-minute LP sequence. FSM's 2CD set features two programs, both newly mastered from recording engineer Dan Wallin's first-generation digital film mixes: Disc one features the complete score as intended for the film itself, including such long-desired cues as "Grissom Destroyed," "A Fighting Chance to Live" (featuring the Enterprise's self-destruct countdown and immolation in Genesis's atmosphere) and "Genesis Destroyed." In addition, previously unreleased film versions of cues such as "Klingons" and "Stealing the Enterprise" make their premiere, with differences that are subtle but noticeable to devoted fans. Disc two features a recreation (in better sound quality) of the familiar LP sequence-complete with Group 87's pop version of "The Search for Spock." The 20-page booklet features liner notes by Jeff Bond and Lukas Kendall and colorful art direction by Joe Sikoryak. Climb the steps of Mount Seleya today!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A FANTASTIC presentation of the score, June 9, 2010

By 

Martin Paternoster - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (Expanded) [Soundtrack] (Audio CD)

The same guys who brought you the complete Star Trek II - The Wrath Of Khan, went ahead and created this.

The first CD is the complete score in film order, remastered from Dan Wallin's original 24-track masters by Michael Matessino, and the sound quality is stunning.

Then the second CD includes, remastered from the same sources, a reconstruction of the original LP arrangement, with several cues notably different from the score itself.

On top of this, we have a beautifully detailed 20 page booklet, containing extensive notes about both the film and score, as well as cue-by-cue breakdowns of both CDs.

If you have the rare, now overpriced, and long out-of-pring GNP Crescendo release, it is now obsolete.

VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED !!!!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At Long Last, The Compete Star Trek III!!!, June 26, 2010

By 

Donavan Zuelsdorf "bigguy1969" (Mayville, WI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (Expanded) [Soundtrack] (Audio CD)

I remember buying the vinyle album back in 1984, and it remains one of my all-time favorite score albums. I was too excited to hear they finally made the expanded version of the soundtrack to probably my favorite Star Trek movie!!

James Horner returned to compose this score, after scoring The Wrath Of Khan, and wrote some of the most beautiful music in a Star Trek movie. Using old themes from TWOK and the Star Trek fanfare, he added more to Spock's already haunting and beautiful theme, and added his theme for the Klingons, and made the most emotional and beautiful music of all the films.

For this release, they released a 2-disc set. The second CD features the original release of nine tracks, including a disco-like interpretation of the main theme. The first disc contains all the music as heard in the film! Of particular interest is four tracks that were featured in the original release (Prolouge and Main Title, Klingons, Steeling The Enterprise, Returning To Vulcan) that were originally presented as alternate takes. For the new release, they are featured as they were in the film, with very notable differences. The best new tracks, for me, were Spock Endures Pon Far, A Fighting Chance To Live and Genesis Destroyed, are tracks that I wanted to hear from the beginning. The last track (That Old Black Magic/Tangerine/I Remember You) is source music featured in the bar scene where McCoy tries to charter a flight to Genesis.

The remastering and mixing are excellent, the strings and horns are loud and clear, and the percussion is bombastic. The music brings back the memories of the 80s, and remembering a great film!! This is one soundtrack that cannnot be missed! It is a great companion piece to The Wrath Of Khan and is one of James Horner's best scores. It is one that I absolutely love and I can hear over and over again! Don't miss this one!!!!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most ... human., November 11, 2010

By 

Pater Ecstaticus (Norway) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (Expanded) [Soundtrack] (Audio CD)

And then to imagine that the director of Star Trek III originally wanted his friend Leonard Rosenman to write the music for that movie! Well, he got his chance later, but I for one am happy James Horner was again hired to create some new music magic for Star Trek. About the music for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock James Horner can be quoted as saying: "It's just a much more interesting score and, for me, a much more beautiful and emotional score than Star Trek II." Although Mr. Horner may be right about beauty and emotion, I find it hard to believe that this music is more interesting. But now that a full extended version of the soundtrack for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock has arrived, we are better able to judge if Mr. Horner is right, but we should certainly take this music at it's own merits. Technically speaking, this remastered expanded edition is a gem on all accounts. The sound picture truly opens up and blossoms, all the beautiful instrumental color and detail drawing the listener in further than before and making for an exhilarating listening experience from beginning to end.

Concerning the merits of this music for me personally, James Horner's music for Star Trek has always been a favorite, in that it defines, for me, what Star Trek is mainly about (the wonders of space and the camaraderie of the main characters). Where I adore the mystery, eeriness and graceful beauty of Jerry Goldsmith's music of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, I really love the deep emotionality and warmth of James Horner's music for Star Trek. Again, his music is all about the wonder and the human element in Star Trek (especially the relationship between Kirk, Spock and McCoy).

The music for Star Trek III is generally more atmospheric and brooding, and necessarily touches on other things than the music for Star Trek II, like melancholy (for the loss of Spock) and (Vulcan) mysticism. Some of the best music in Star Trek II is very action-driven and at the same time focused on definite melodies or themes for the Enterprise, Kirk, Spock and Khan - the music is telling the same tale as we see on the screen in `pictures of sound'. Those themes were created new for that movie, and compared to the music for Star Trek II, Star Trek III has not much new to offer thematically. This is of course logical, because this movie is very much a continuation of Star Trek II, but the music expands on existing themes and adds whole new dimensions of atmosphere and emotion. I think that the music for Star Trek III not so much focuses on `telling the story' as on creating an atmosphere, a widest possible emotional canvas upon which the story unfolds.

James Horner's music is what probably started off my love for Star Trek. In its genre, James Horner's Star Trek III must be one of the most fantastically and emotionally inspiring of all (on par with it's 'companion piece' Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan). It has a nobilic but heartfelt kind of romantic and mystic quality to it (mirroring the intense Spock-Kirk relationship and the dramatic fate of the Enterprise NCC 1701) that I find very endearing. The soaring and melancholic string melodies - in 'Main Title', 'Returning to Vulcan' and the 'End Titles' really grip my attention, appealing to a simple kind but deeply seated need for pure and simple wonder, however uninspired the ideas behind the music sometimes may be: the presto cascade of sixteenth notes on the violins at the start of 'Stealing the Enterprise' is an almost direct quotation from 'The Fight' (Act I, scene 6) from Prokofiev's music for 'Romeo & Juliet'. (It can also be noted here that the music for the moment when the crew watches the burning wreck of Enterprise fall through the atmosphere of the Genesis planet is a direct quotation from Romeo and Juliet as well, namely from 'Juliet's Death'.)

The now obsolete GNP-Crescendo album is missing out on many important (little and some not so little) dramatic and action moments. With this expanded edition you get a sense of the story unfolding in the music from beginning to end (no jumping over or rearranging of cues for musical dramatic effect, or whatever, as in the original issue), giving a nice feeling of dramatic continuity. The additional music on disc 1 consists of eight tracks, namely the following:
track 3 (Spock's Cabin)
track 4 (The Klingon's Plan)
track 7 (Grissom Destroyed)
track 8 (Sunset on Genesis)
track 9 (Spock endures Pon Farr)
track 11 (A Fighting Chance to Live)
track 12 (Genesis Destroyed)
and track 16, sort of a bonus, the music played in the scene where McCoy goes into a bar to charter a space flight ...

I am personally happy to be able to hear, for the first time on album, the music for Grissom (last bit of track 4 - the Courage fanfare) and Enterprise (at the end of track 9 - Kirk's theme in a stealthy minor key) entering orbit around Genesis Planet. Now all the musical moments finally fall into place when listening to the album. Some of the music on this expanded edition in my view really is spine-tingling, vintage James Horner, like `Genesis Destroyed'.

Some musical tracks that we hear on the old soundtrack album (disc 2) were versions edited especially for that album. On disc 1 we can finally hear them in their original orchestration, truthful to what we hear in the movie. Track 2 (Klingons) is a notable difference: now, the first 1:10 are the brooding music we hear when the merchant ship is searching space for Kruge's bird of prey. A second difference is the beginning of track 6 (Stealing the Enterprise), where we now only hear the second violin-accompaniment, without the racing first violins we hear on the old soundtrack album. On track 13 (Returning to Vulcan) we now also have the ethnically styled music we hear when our heroes climb the steps of Mount Seleya and onto the outdoor temple complex where the high priestess is waiting for them.

Like with the expanded soundtrack album for Star Trek II, we get an excellent booklet (20 pages from front to back) written by Jeff Bond and Lukas Kendall providing a concise back-story on the genesis (pun intended) of Star Trek III, with some interesting quotes from James Horner, and a track by track exegesis of the music.

For all fans of Star Trek and James Horner, this is not to be missed. Highly recommended.