The original soundtracks to the second and third Star Trek movies have recently been rereleased in their entirety with extensive liner notes. I ordered both and listened to ST II: TWOK last week all in one sitting in the study and thoroughly enjoyed it. The music itself is awfully good standing alone - you hear a lot of things you just don't get in the movie. Well, actually that's not necessarily good because you hear a lot of things going on that at least initially sound like they're gumming things up, but that's just because I had not heard them before. Horner's music is noticeably dense and wild here, which is a little jarring because years of hearing the movie in VHS made me think the score was a lot simpler than it actually was.
What really makes these CDs, though, is the extensive and gloriously well-written liner notes that give you something to read during each track, with adjectival descriptions of the tone and instrumentation used, as well as explanations of where things came from, i.e. whether it was Horner, the producer, or what.
I can't wait to listen to III - just have not had time this week with all the work going on at the Hub.
