Favorite Movie Music: Star Trek: First Contact

My favorite of the many, many permutations of the Star Trek theme used in the film adaptations has to be the theme from Star Trek: First Contact (1996), composed by Jerry Goldsmith. Goldsmith is a prolific composer who among other things also did the themes for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), which would later be adapted by Dennis McCarthy for Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987. Goldsmith is also responsible for the sad and haunting Star Trek: Voyager theme, another of my favorites.

The First Contact theme song is a beauty. It is stirring, optimistic, and yet a little bit wistful, as befitting a film that was among the last outings of the popular Next Generation cast, and which concerned the human race at a pivotal point in its history: In the film, set largely in the last decades of our current century, humanity has been devastated by a large-scale nuclear war, the population has been reduced to a few survivalist communities hanging on in fringe areas like the northwest woods of the former United States, and it seems as though the entire human race is on the verge of extinction. Despite this, one dedicated scientist, Zefram Cochrane, has been working on a method to break the light-speed barrier, an act of sheer, stubborn boldness that will eventually bring humanity into contact with the many other alien races in the galaxy and ultimately provide our salvation. Into the middle of this come the terrible Borg, who, facing defeat in a battle with Starfleet two centuries later, have sent a probe back in time to "assimilate" 21st-century earth while its defenses are down, and thus nip the Federation in the bud.

Though the Next Generation cast would go on to do two more films (Insurrection in 1998 and Nemesis in 2002) before finally hanging up their uniforms, these were respectable but ultimately minor contributions to the fading Trek canon (which of course got a big boost in 2009 with the release of J.J. Abrams' hit $150-million reboot of the original series). So I prefer to think of First Contact as the final voyage of the Next Generation crew. It's got all the elements of the best of Trek: A solid story (including a return to a past earth, similar to another high point in the film series, 1986's Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home), some good comedic moments, scary villains, interesting character development (especially for perennial audience favorite Commander Data), and some great guest actors, including Alice Krige as the supercreepy Borg Queen, James Cromwell as drunken warp-speed pioneer Zefram Cochrane, and Alfre Woodard as Cochrane's ass-kicking assistant Lily Sloane, not to mention cameos by favorite recurring characters like Lieutenant Barclay (Dwight Schultz) and the holographic Doctor (Robert Picardo) from the Voyager TV series. The film was directed by Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker himself), who is arguably a better director than actor, and who directed several of the later seasons' best episodes. And of course, it has what will always be a tearjerker moment for me, the titular "first contact" between humans and Vulcans. All in all, maybe the best of the entire Star Trek film run.

Favorite Movie Music: "Princess Leia's Theme"

One of the best things about fantasy and science-fiction films is the awesome soundtracks that go with them. (In fact, too often the soundtrack is the only good thing about certain fantasy and sci-fi films.) As both a fantasy/sci-fi fan and a music fan, movie soundtracks have always represented a geek sweet spot for me. I'm not ashamed to admit that I carry around a playlist of my favorite movie music on my iPod, and listen to it frequently. So during the next few weeks I'm going to be posting about some of the best moments from movie soundtracks over the years.

And of course, the undisputed king of movie soundtracks is John Williams. Even 35 years later, I can remember, as clearly as if it was last week, being a 9-year-old boy sitting in a darkened theater in 1977, shoving a sticky fistful of buttered popcorn into my face, and being almost blown out of my seat by the first, stirring chord of the Star Wars opening theme. (Still, in my opinion, the greatest movie theme song of all time.) How much of the unprecedented crossover success of that film was due to the amazing music? It's impossible to say, but it's equally impossible to imagine Star Wars with any other sound.

One of the reasons John Williams rises above the average film-score composer is his classical approach. Even at their best, most film composers are doing no more than a glorified version of what those olde-tyme pianists used to do in the silent-film moviehouses: Watch what's happening onscreen and come up with some incidental music to go along with it. If it's a love scene, play some sweet, romantic music. If it's a fight, play something with lots of staccato punches. If it's scary, play something tense and suspenseful. And that's it; no greater vision is involved.

Williams, on the other hand, is a real composer, who arranges his soundtracks according to the rules of symphonic structure. His music is meant to tell a story on its own, without needing any reference to what's happening onscreen — which might be why it holds up to repeated listening, for example on a geeky iPod playlist. To a classical music fan, his influences are clear: Beethoven, Mahler, and Holst, in particular. That opening chord of Star Wars is in many ways the spiritual descendant of the one-two punch that opens Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony: For the listener, it's a slap across the face from an entire orchestra that makes you shut up, stop what you're doing, and pay attention.

Every one of Williams' soundtracks, though, also includes moments of tenderness. Everyone knows the main theme from Star Wars, but check out the less well-known "Princess Leia's Theme." It's a perfectly composed romantic melody. Note how Williams introduces a simple, plaintive theme with a single, masculine trumpet (perhaps representing lonely Luke Skywalker, stuck on his farm on Tatooine), then echoes it with a solo, feminine flute, for the Princess. After this intertwining of the two instruments, the theme is taken up by the string section, who give it some added, yearning romance, and finally by the entire orchestra, who turn it into a stirring and tragic love song.

Unfortunately, the love story that Williams was writing for doesn't actually exist in the movie Star Wars (because George Lucas shied away from it, but that's a topic for another blog post). So you can consider "Princess Leia's Theme" as music for the greatest space-opera love story that never was.