What's the best
a) music from a series or movie
b) intro to a series

I would have to go for the theme from Dr. Who for a)

For b). I would say Babylon 5, season 3 intro...

Anyone else?

Later

Pete

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PJE

There's so much I don't know about astrophysics. I wish I had read that book by that wheelchair guy.

I'll go for Morricone's score for John Carpenter's The Thing and The intro to Dr Who.

The electronic score in Forbidden Planet. Quite otherworldly and far ahead of its time.

Obviously, Star Wars is a great score, my favourite being Duel of the Fates.

I quite like Dune, which is quite different to any other I have heard.

B5 could have done with a full orchestra to get the best out of the compositions. My favourite is Long Twilight Struggle (intro to season 3).

James Horner on Star trek 2 and Aliens has some pretty rousing stuff

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Best Intro, NO CONTEST!

Enterprise, Season One!

Back ...

When, IT WAS GOOD!

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Best intro by far was UFO.

A couple of laps behind it: Thunderbirds, Blake's 7, Space: 1999 and Red Dwarf.

Then The Prisoner and Hitch Hiker's Guide.

Doctor Who was good to begin with, but it doesn't tingle my spine the way it seems to do for some fans.

Then there's the original Star Trek.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel, the (chronologically) later Star Treks.

Sorry Zaphod, but the Enterprise intro was the barrel itself!

Tank! - Yokko Kano

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Bernard Herrmann wrote the some of the best SciFi movie and TV film scores. Counting only some of the SciFi and/or Fantasy films:

The Day the Earth Stood Still
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
The Three Worlds of Gulliver
Jason and the Argonauts
Mysterious Island

The Twilight Zone: Intro and Closing Credits Themes and incidental music, plus complete music for episodes:
Where is Everybody?
Little Girl Lost
Living Doll
Ninety Years without Slumbering
I Am the Night - Color Me Black

(also non-SciFi great films like Citizen Kane, North by Northwest, Psycho, etc... =D>

If we're going to vote for non-science fiction movies, I nominate The Fog of War. It is hands down the best soundtrack that I've ever heard. And I think it would make a great score for any sci-fi movie.

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There is alot I like in the The Fifth Element's soundtrack. Alien has some very cool music reflecting the space environment and building the tension of the scene.

For me, how much I enjoyed the series has a lot to do with what I think of the music. The Hitchhiker's theme brings a big smile to my face . . . but so does the little set of chimes they use to announce a BBC production, just because I know that anything I watch after it (Dr. Who, Red Dwarf, etc.) is gonna be cool.

Star Wars music is . . . just iconic. I remember a story about a role-playing group. The GM (or DM, or Storyteller; I don't remember the system) wanted to introduce the story arc's big villain in a memorable way, so right after he said, "Well, you're in what looks like a throne room," he picked up the remote for his radio, hit a button--and the Imperial March comes on the speakers. Well, the players didn't even wait for the rest of the flavor text. They began shouting over eachother in an attempt to get their actions on record first: "I run like a little girl!" "I run like a faster little girl!" etc.

You don't even have to know Star Wars to know that music means Bad News in a big way.

Izunya

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Wash: Oh God, oh God, we're all going to die?

- from Serenity

I have recollection that the Star Wars theme(s) were a rip off of Wagner or someone similar to that. Anyone know about this? It could have been a research topic for me in grade 13 music but I studied how an organ works (the liver...HA!)

Later

Pete

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PJE

There's so much I don't know about astrophysics. I wish I had read that book by that wheelchair guy.

Dude, Williams rips off everybody.

That being said, Star Wars doesn't sound a whole lot like Wagner to me. More like Holst. I'm fairly sure he lifted one of the signature rhythms right out of "Mars." And recently I've been hearing shades of Carmina Burana in his work; he's played around a little with eerie choral stuff in the most recent movies, and it's difficult to do eerie choral stuff without referencing Carmina Burana. (A fact that irritates me a little, because the piece has more to it than just the famous "O Fortuna" chorus that everyone knows, but nevermind.)

Come to think of it, he wrote the Harry Potter theme music too, didn't he? The one that sounds just a bit like Prokofiev's Cinderella?

Thing is, I don't really mind. Heaven knows that Star Wars isn't an original concept. And it's not like Williams can "spoil" Carmina Burana for me. There's something to be said for putting old ideas together in new ways. In some ways, I miss the days when movie makers weren't afraid to grab any piece of music that fit and make it their own. I think that the coolest scifi theme ever would be The Rite of Spring . . . it's just that no-one's put a scifi movie to it . . .

8-[ Aaaand it would appear that my music geek is showing. Nevermind. The point is, as far as I know, Star Wars music is a rip off of Holst.

Izunya

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Mal: Define "interesting!"
Wash: Oh God, oh God, we're all going to die?

- from Serenity

Given the gadget count, can I have Mission: Impossible? Schifrin at his best.

I have an almost unreasonable liking for the music to Event Horizon, as well.

Hey, glad someone else noticed Williams' rip-offs.

Heck, when my wife, son, and I first saw Star Wars in 1977, during the opening "blockade runner" scene, I leaned over to my wife and said "Sound familiar?" "Yes, but what is it?" she replied. "It's the last few measures of Mars from The Planets." "That's it!" she replied.

BTW, another thing that struck me right off re the Star Wars music was the main theme. It sounded like a speeded-up version (with a few different chord/rhythm changes) of the theme from Born Free.

Speaking of the Rite of Spring, I'm doing some sampling so another poster who didn't hear any Stravinsky or Prokofiev in Jaws will have to be tone deaf not to do so.

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I'm with you re Herrmann. Not just for science fiction, but music in general. What a composer! Don't forget Vertigo!

Alexander Courage would have to be a runner-up, along with Jerry Goldsmith, and Louis and Bebe Barron for their wonderful and effective innovations.

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Paul Beardsley wrote:
TOS theme better than TNG's?? :-k ... :-? ... =;

As Izunya said, Williams uses bits and pieces of music from other composers, but Wagner wasn't one of them, as far as I know. What Williams did borrow from Wagner (and other composers) is the idea of the leitmotiv, which means that the each major character has his or her own "theme" music. There's the theme for Darth Vader (the aforementioned "Imperial March"), and Luke and Leia both have their own themes.

I agree with the mention of Star Trek II as some of the best music put to sci-fi. The whole nautical feel of the music just seems to fit the scope and theme of the movie.

I did enjoy George Thorogood's B, b, Bad to the Bone in T2!

I'm partial to the theme music from Firefly. I'm a sucker for a well-played fiddle.

Only in and after The Empire Strikes Back. In Star Wars, the Darth Vader motif wasn't a march, but instead a rather simple rising four-note minor-key figure in the brass and accompanying woodwinds.

BTW, Williams is perhaps the best example of attempting to affect the Stravinsky motto "Lesser artists borrow; great artists steal."