Star Trek: Ranking All 13 Movie Soundtracks
2. Star Trek – Michael Giacchino
If Jerry Goldsmith's Star Trek: The Motion Picture set the tone for thirty years of Star Trek music, Michael Giacchino's score for JJ Abrams' Star Trek (2009) reset that tone.
Discarding the sweeping, majestic, fantasy themes that characterized past Star Trek features, Giacchino embraced an almost super-heroic tone, replacing the grand Star Trek march of the Goldsmith days with a fast-paced, ear worm of a main title, best encapsulated in "Enterprising Young Men". This identity informs nearly every musical piece in Star Trek, from a somber take in "Hella Bar Talk", a militaristic version in "Hangar Management", a triumphant blast in "Trekking Down The Narada", and an epic, choral rendition in "Nero Death Experience", to name just a few.
Secondary themes in Star Trek include a lyrical, often emotional motif for Spock on erhu and an over the top, quintessentially villainous theme for Nero, accompanied by a literally screaming choir when the Enterprise encounters the Narada over Vulcan.
Unlike previous Trek scores, Giacchino's Star Trek fully embraced Alexander Courage's Star Trek: The Original Series main theme, hinting at the memorable theme in several places within the film before giving it a full performance during the end title sequence in which Giacchino's own theme intermingles with the classic fanfare.
A fresh take on Trek's classic sound, Giacchino's Star Trek infused as much energy into the dormant franchise as the on screen action itself and remains one of the best genre soundtracks of the 2000s.