Customer Reviews

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

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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 !!!!

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!!!!

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.

I've waited a long time for this CD! The remastering, as others have commented, is first rate. The recording seems brighter and more balanced. The horns are sharp and really have punch now. Having the complete set of recordings is great too. The Enterprise destruction and Genesis planet sequence in my opinion is some of the best music scored to this movie and it didn't make it onto the original cd. There is a lot of new music to enjoy. To the folks that put this collection together, Thanks!

This is classic James Horner, from a time before he began to repeat himself; except in the sense of echoing his previous Trek outing (The Wrath Of Khan).
It follows up his work on that movie well, bringing in themes new themes without forgetting that this is a series.

The second CD does seem a little redundant, though, when 8 of the 9 tracks (wouldn't 7 of 9 been appropriate? ...But I digress) are on the first disc; though some of them (eg: 'Klingons') are distinctly different.

This is good music for Horner fans and Trek fans.
As an aside: just after buying this CD I realised that Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner scored the first and second movies in both the Star Trek and Aliens serieseseses respectively.

The man who wrote the score that helped Adm. Kirk defeat Khan at Genesis - James Horner - returns to help Kirk & the Enterprise crew return to that quarantined planet & rescue their crewmate in Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock. This release is the real deal - the complete score is here, presented in chronological order.

As one who owns both the original release and this expanded one, it was great to hear the previously unreleased cues on this CD. They included tracks like 'Spock's Cabin', where Kirk discovers that the late Spock's quarters had been broken into, and 'Mind-Meld', when Sarek does a mind-meld with Kirk to determine if Spock's kattra is inhabiting Kirk's body. 'The Klingons' Plan' uses low, sinister cues to portray the fiendish Commander Kruge and his Executive Officer Torg's diabolical plans to steal Genesis and hijack their leadership's peace negotiations. The best track was 'A Fighting Chance to Live', which uses a French Horn cue as the Klingons march through the Enterprise, then a chilling string sequence as the computer counts down the Enterprise's last few seconds. 'Genesis Destroyed' features bombastic trumpet cues as the commandeered Bird of Prey flies away from the exploding planet and heads for Vulcan.

Once again, James Horner proves why he's one of the premier Hollywood composers with this score. Although this one came before he was a household name with such films as 'Aliens', 'Titanic', and 'Avatar', Horner proves himself more than capable with this great score which includes some of the themes previously heard in Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan soundtrack. A must have for any Star Trek or soundtrack collector.

James Horner composed this score, and perhaps not surprisingly it bears an uncanny resemblance to his "Aliens" soundtrack. The Klingon theme is probably the highlight of the soundtrack and is a lot like the Marine's theme in "Aliens." However, Star Trek III's score doesn't quite reach the brilliance of "Aliens," making this sound like a practice run for Horner's alter triumphs. Make no mistake, this is a good soundtrack for Horner fans, but he's done better since.

If you know James Horner, you'll love this work, it rates among his classics such as STII, Krull, Aliens....you could tell the we're al made at the same time, a lot of the cues sound the same. To me James Horner did is best work in the 80's in this is one of them. Not as good as STII, but close...enjoy!

...then also you must have it this 2-Disc-Set, composed by James Horner.

Disc one contains the Film Score with a Total Time of 69:45

Disc two contains the 1984 Soundtrack Album with Total Time 46:57

Also there is a very informative 20-Page-Booklet.

FAZIT: Buy it!!!

James Horner's score for Star Trek III is a bit personal for me. It was the first soundrack I can ever remember wanting to own, and once my father finally did get me the cassette, my 8 year old ears must have listened to it about 1000 times over. Now that it's nearly 20 years later, that number is probably closer to 10,000, but never like this.

Film Score Monthly has made possible what I thought was impossible. I had given up hope that the Star Trek franchise would never get the expanded music treatment that the Star Wars movies and the Lord of the Rings movies got. Finally getting to hear recordings of the Self-Destruct sequence...finally getting to hear the spectacular music behind the Genesis Armageddon. It's more that I ever thought we'd ever get.

FSM's Star Trek III Expanded Soundtrack - a must buy for film and music lovers alike! My fellow Trekkies, you will have your club card revoked if this one is not in your collection!