Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Ilia's Theme, Main Title, Klingon Battle

Today's song is my first post from a film soundtrack and will also be far more recognizable to most people than any of my previous posts.  Long before there was Goemon, Yoko Kanno or any kind of video game music in my life, there was Star Trek.  Specifically "Star Trek: The Next Generation", which ran from 1987 to 1994 - the years of my adolescence.  Star Trek didn't just help shape my ideas about drama and story-telling, it also shaped my morality.  Star Trek: TNG, like the original series, excelled when it presented a moral quandary and then took a stand - either political or ethical.  Not everyone will agree with Star Trek's views, but at least it didn't use the "everything is gray" moral ambiguity that passes for drama nowadays.  Cynicism is certainly healthy in small doses, but I have to admit some concern for kids who grow up today with children's shows that are so silly as to be meaningless, and adult shows that are so filled with selfish, cynical characters as to be... well, meaningless.

Star Trek: TNG, despite some flaws of its own, continues to be my favorite television series and likely will always be, if only for its relevance to my development.  And the musical core of that series is the "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" theme (or what I call the "Enterprise" theme) written by legendary composer Jerry Goldsmith.  In the case of Goldsmith, the term legendary is apt.  He's composed the soundtracks to "Stagecoach, "Planet of the Apes", "Patton", "Chinatown", "The Omen", "Alien" and many other classic movies from the 1960s until his death in 2004.  "Next Generation" used Goldsmith's theme as its main title, and as a result burned it into the deepest parts of my brain and the brains of many other TV viewers.  But this track is its first appearance, and as far as I'm concerned, the musical birth of Star Trek (no offense to fans of Alexander Courage and the original series' theme music).

I've edited the first three tracks of the "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" soundtrack to represent the music that is heard in the 2001 director's cut.  The first part is "Ilia's Theme" which is heard many times later in the film, but is used here in its complete form as an overture before the opening credits.  The second part is the "Main Title", the theme used in TNG and many other incarnations of Star Trek.  The main theme then blends into the third part, "Klingon Battle", which accompanies the first sequence of the movie.  The Klingon theme is another motif used by Goldsmith in future Star Trek movies, although it does not appear in the television shows.  Together, these three themes are a musical foundation for the giant franchise that followed, which included ten more movies and four more TV series.  But besides their thematic importance, they are also wonderful pieces of music, ranging from the tense battle scene, to the stirring main theme, to the beautiful overture.  Enjoy!

Album info: http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Motion-Picture-Collectors/dp/B00000FC5P