Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Soundtrack

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Soundtrack, Ron Jones / Brian Luzietti, 1997

The Star Trek: Starfleet Academy soundtrack is a prime example of how – and why – the conventions of Hollywood film music became deeply ingrained in orchestral game music from an early stage. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy belonged to the short-lived mid-1990s wave of games built around full-motion video. And if your game looks like a film, it makes sense for it to sound like one as well.

Interplay therefore decided to record Starfleet Academy‘s soundtrack with a live orchestra. In 1997, that was still something of a novelty. Yet it was also integral to capturing the Star Trek franchise’s trademark romantic spirit of bold spacefaring. Interplay went one step further and hired Ron Jones to compose the Star Trek: Starfleet Academy soundtrack. Having done outstanding work on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Jones was ideally placed to preserve the franchise’s characteristic sound.

What Jones achieves here is more than a faithful extension of his television work, though. He fully realises the game’s cinematic ambitions: his full-bodied, skilfully orchestrated music would not feel out of place in any Star Trek feature film, and he clearly relishes the chance to write for a full orchestra without the restrictions of episodic television.

The score’s undisputed highlight is its opening track, “Starfleet Academy Theme”. Yes, Alexander Courage’s classic theme for the original Star Trek television series is expertly woven into the piece. However, it is Jones’ own Starfleet Academy theme that takes centre stage. It is a beautifully sweeping melody, less audacious than the themes by Courage or Jerry Goldsmith, yet still wholly capable of bringing to life the sense of wonder and noble exploration so central to Star Trek as a franchise – at least before the 2009 reboot.

Jones’ other contributions split fairly cleanly into battle cues and non-action material. They do not quite reach the same level as “Starfleet Academy Theme”, but they come close. The score’s more melodic pieces sustain that opening track’s spirit of exploration and adventure in stirring fashion. Their expansive melodies are consistently charming, yet each cue also finds its own way of responding to the scenario it underscores.

The lighter orchestrations of “Exploring the Unknown” – including celesta – and details such as the chromatic ululations in the woodwinds and strings create a sense of mystery that is both enchanting and intriguing, perfectly suited to the cue’s title. “Discovery” takes the darker side of that material and nudges it into more quietly volatile territory. At the same time, the piece never sacrifices the alluring promise of discovery that makes both tracks so appealing. “Crew Introduction”, meanwhile, is the album’s most tender cue, presenting the Starfleet Academy theme in a hushed, intimate rendition. With remarkable ease, it captures the sense of aspiration and hope that would inhabit a place like Starfleet Academy.

Jones’ action tracks are equally strong, and avoid the pitfalls that militaristic game music so often faces: monotony built from repetitive snare drums and string ostinati, topped off with token heroic brass figures. Jones is far too shrewd for that. On the claustrophobic tension-builder “Surrounded”, for instance, he frequently shifts the orchestration to keep the music alive, allowing the woodwinds in particular to add colour to the texture. Likewise, on “On The Edge”, the orchestra’s lighter percussion provides the martial pulse, preventing the rhythms from becoming too plodding or overbearing.

“On The Edge” and “Red Alert” are less restrained than “Surrounded”. Both cues press ahead at a steady but never monotonous pace, keeping the action consistently exciting. “Evasive Manoeuvres” and “On To Victory” allow more room for heroism and melody, reintroducing the Starfleet Academy theme to mark the tide of battle turning in the player’s favour – tellingly, these are the only two cues on the whole soundtrack to settle into a major key, the score’s harmonic language tracking the player’s fortunes as directly as its melodic choices do. The intensity of Jones’ action writing reaches its peak in “No Way Out”. Its dire, discordant melodic material lays the groundwork for hammering brass fanfares, and the cue’s energy builds steadily across its second half before arriving at a dramatic and impressive close.

Jones’ contributions are, quite literally, only half the story, though. Brian Luzietti provided the music for the game’s briefings and cut-scenes. Unfortunately, his work cannot hope to match the standards set by Jones – or indeed by Luzietti’s own work on Descent. His subdued, bland cues generate little more than a generic atmosphere of foreboding or cautious optimism, and the fact that he is confined to synthesised music rather than a live ensemble hardly helps.

What Jones delivers on Starfleet Academy, in the end, is one of the best science-fiction video game scores. His compositions alone are strong enough to secure the soundtrack’s place in game music history. Alongside Total Annihilation, also released in 1997, this score set a formidable standard for the Western live-orchestral game soundtracks that followed.