Can any music experts explain to me why the TNG theme is so good?
Can any music experts explain to me why the TNG theme is so good?
There's something about the TNG theme (played during the opening credits) that seems unique and special to my ear. But I don't know about music and orchestral production to make sense of it.
It sounds to me like the mix or maybe arrangement is somewhat unusual, even compared to other TNG era star trek themes. It seems to have a brightness and sheen to its tones that are almost synth like (??) But also the arrangement seems to hit some sweet sci-fi spot, like the way strings and trumpets with oboes/clarinets underneath (??) all mix together? Or is the chords that are played some where?
I don't know, but I've always thought it had a sheen and sparkle that almost sounds like star trek (or at least TNG star trek).
Anyone else notice something similar? Anyone know what's going on?
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Jerry Goldsmith was a master composer.
All the composers for Star Trek have been incredible in their own right. Everyone has their preferred (James Horner) but I have yet to not enjoy a Star Trek opening. And yes, that includes Enterprise. It tried to break the mold and failed, but I give it a pass because the visual sequence with it gets me still.
I will say that First Contact's theme is damn good. Especially when used at the end with the Vulcan meeting.
So you're saying you have faith in Star Trek theme songs? Faith in the heart. You're goin' where your heart will take you?
It's been a long road getting from there to here.
I saw a lot of opinions back in the day about it, and it almost seems like people were offended that they even tried to break the mold at all.
I don't actually mind Faith Of The Heart for the intro. My biggest problem with it is that its not an original song - it was written specifically for a movie that was completely unrelated to Star Trek.
I would probably appreciate it more if they wrote their own song for ENT - it could even be a country/pop song like FOTH, but it would still be a Star Trek song.
They definitely cherry picked the best bits of the song for the intro though. I like their cover more than the original.It was received very poorly, even tainting reception of the show (which turned out to be appreciated and wanting more, long after it was gone). People just expected a classical sounding instrumental, and it hit wrong. They probably should have test marketed the idea and had some fallbacks. Still, I remember seeing the opening of the first episode and catching the frigate "Enterprize", and thinking this was great regardless.
IIRC, Faith of the Heart was heir fallback. They wanted Beautiful Day by U2, but couldn't get the license.
Beautiful Day would have been worse, I think.
Mysterious Ways would have been interestingly ironic.
I thought it was weird at first, but actually liked it. I didn't really get the hate - there's plenty of shows I like a lot that I like the theme a lot less and especially today you can easily skip it.
Yeah.
Now you have me thinking of other movie songs that might've fit Enterprise, though. For some reason "Don't you forget about me" comes immediately to mind.
Honestly, the change on Enterprise being a lyrical song kind of fits because they aren't the Federation yet. It's a prequel. So it has this country tune playing in the intro instead.
Not country; rock. Extremely soft rock. It's a cover of a song originally performed by Rod Stewart. For the movie Patch Adams.
Really? Wow.
Here's the original version of the song: https://youtu.be/jrE5a-ehYS0
Wow. Thanks.
I think I like the Enterprise version different. It's an arrangement that does what the better themes like TNG do, where you start off gentle and build to something more exciting. Not as good to me as TNG, but it accomplishes the task of getting you into the mindset for the show.
I know this is probably going to get me booed, but I actually liked Enterprise's theme. Heck, I can sing along! And I loved the visuals.