Soundtrack Review: Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Star Trek Into Darkness Soundtrack Review: This is a review of the film score Star Trek Into Darkness by Michael Giacchino.

Star Trek from 2009 was an absolute scorcher from Giacchino. I love that score so much and I recently listened to it again and it was even better than before. The bar is set extremely high for the sequel Star Trek Into Darkness. What new themes will we hear? Will the style be different? Let me just say this, the sequel takes care of fans of the first score. The themes from the first film is here, except of course Nero’s theme which was an awesome bad guy theme. The new bad guy theme heard in ‘London Calling’ is not even close to Nero’s theme in terms of quality and fun, but it is an interesting theme where Harrison’s complexity is portrayed. It’s a shame the cue ‘Ode To Harrison’ isn’t on here, but I guess they are saving it for a Deluxe Edition of the score.

I’m not going to spoil anything for those who haven’t seen the movie yet, but fans of the franchise might know a thing or two about ‘The Kronos Wartet’ which is part Giacchino’s humor and part, a very big part of the Star Trek Universe. Jerry’s theme for those “kronosians” is still the best, but there’s some klangs here and everything, just not up to par with Jerry’s theme.

I constantly go back to the previous film score, but I’m kind of obsessed with that one so you’ll have to excuse me. The best parts of Star Trek Into Darkness are when the themes from the 2009 Star Trek movie comes into play. Into Darkness lacks an identity of it’s own. It’s there, it’s just a bit weak compared to the previous Star Trek film.

Still, Into Darkness is almost the perfect sequel score that honor the themes from the old film while trying to introduce new themes. The good thing is that should Giacchino score the next Star Trek film, the excellent themes he made for his first Star Trek movie will always be there. Continuity seems to be dismissed in many franchises, including this one, but it’s acturally refreshing to hear a sequel score that is so catered for fans of the 2009 film.

Star Trek Into Darkness is a great score, no doubt about it. It’s clearly one of 2013′s best scores, but in a fight, it would have been beaten senseless by the 2009 score in my opinion. The ending of this score is spectacular with 5 superb cues, ‘Warp Core Values’, ‘Buying The Space Farm’, ‘The San Fran Hustle’, ‘Kirk Enterprises’ and ‘Star Trek Main Theme’ and it’s easily worth the purchase price alone. My suggestions is that you pick this up immediately as fun times are about to be had!

HIGHLIGHTS:
1. Logos / Pranking The Natives
2. Spock Drops, Kirk Jumps
3. Sub Prime Directive
10. Warp Core Values
11. Buying The Space Farm
12. The San Fran Hustle
13. Kirk Enterprises
14. Star Trek Main Theme