When a studio and/or a network launch a new, heavily-hyped show, you almost expect the music for the pilot episode to kick butt – as with every other aspect of the new show, money is lavished on everything in the hopes that the audience will stick around for later episodes, which will inevitably go through some lean times with tighter budgets. One show that was notorious for never quite getting around to the “tighter budget” part was the notoriously expensive – and popular – original incarnation of Battlestar Galactica. With elaborate space FX sequences constructed in much the same way that similar scenes had been done for Star Wars only a year before Galactica premiered, this was a show that didn’t know the meaning of “coming in under budget.”
Money was also lavished on Galactica’s lush orchestral music, and Stu Phillips clearly had fun with the wide-open canvas at his disposal. This 2-CD set, following on from Intrada’s release of the complete score from the Galactica pilot earlier this year, includes the complete score for the series’ earliest two-part extravaganzas. Portions of the music here have been included on the very-limited-run Battlestar Galactica: Stu Phillips Anthology 4-CD collection released by the now-defunct Supertracks label, but Intrada wasted no time in pointing out that this is the first time the complete scores from both of these two-parters has been released. (Truthfully, even if the scores weren’t complete, the rarity and insane secondary market prices on the Anthology set would still make this set a more attractive deal.)
Another plus is the premiere of the Galactica main titles as heard in the early weekly series episodes: following the bold main title with which everyone’s familiar through countless releases and re-recordings (and, in certain places in the new Galactica series, re-interpretations), the early episodes immediately launched into a secondary fanfare accompanying brief glimpses of that week’s guest stars. The fanfare, which wasn’t shy about proclaiming (sometimes quite rightly) that these big-name guests were a Big Deal, then slid down a few keys for a refrain of the Galactica theme, over which we’d see the credits for the writers, producers and director – and then things would come to a full stop for the beginning of the story. This piece of unapologetically bold music hasn’t been released before, and I’d forgotten how much I liked it. It’s kind of like old-school studio-system Hollywood breathing its last, and doing so loud.
Both discs feature quite a bit of musical material in common with the pilot, but each episode has its own unique themes. Lost Planet Of The Gods gets some fine mysterioso music (“The List / Critical / Phony Battle”) as well as a grand choral theme for Kobol (befitting the impressive second-unit scenes filmed in long-shot with extras costumed as Adama, Apollo and Serina, shot on location in Egypt). The choral music may seem a bit cheesy when held up to today’s sensibilities, but again there’s an old-school Hollywood aesthetic to it: this used to be the sound of epic. And it’s really not bad.
The music for The Gun On Ice Planet Zero finds its niche by exploring variations of the show’s recurring themes. Though established in the pilot, some of the themes go through some interesting permutations, including a low string version of the Cylon Basestar motif (normally blared by low brass), accompanying the Cylons’ plotting to destroy Galactica. If you’re a fan of the show’s major themes, this one’s a treat.
Where many series scale down their expectations after the pilot, in one respect classic Galactica does follow suit: Intrada lowered this limited edition to a run of 1,500 copies (down from 3,000 copies of volume one), but this may have been a miscalculation on the label’s part. The score for the pilot, whether complete or not, has been issued in many permutations over the years (the original LP, the German CD of that LP, a from-the-ground-up re-recording on Varese for the show’s 25th anniversary, the Stu Phillips Anthology). The music from subsequent episodes is much harder to come by (the Anthology was the only game in town prior to these Intrada releases), so there’s an argument that they probably could’ve sold 3,000 copies of this. The speed with which this volume has already sold out may change the quantities of future volumes. It’s nice to finally see this show’s lush music getting as much attention as the music for its latter-day remake.
Disc 1: The Lost Planet Of The Gods
- Main Title – Parts 1 & 2 (1:48)
- Imperious Leader & Baltar (1:28)
- Athena Vamps/Patrol Two Launch (1:36)
- Baltar – The Leader (2:04)
- The Abyss Part 1 (1:31)
- The Abyss Part 2 / Escape From The Void (2:56)
- Cylon Outpost (2:12)
- Virus 1A / Virus 1B / Virus 2 / Virus 3 (2:14)
- Virus 4 / Adama’s Medal / Top Of The Class / Ancient Writings (2:54)
- The List / Critical / Phony Battle (2:30)
- Captain’s Opinion / Launch When Ready (0:56)
- More Cylon Lair (1:53)
- Good Guys 1, Bad Guys Zero (4:25)
- We’re Going In (1:53)
- The Medallion / Starbuck In Trouble (1:43)
- Marry Me (1:05)
- The Wedding / Starbuck Captured (3:36)
- Ancient Ruins (1:28)
- Discovery Of The Tomb (2:44)
- Baltar Appears (1:24)
- Love & The Sphinx (0:43)
- To Light The Way / Blue Squad Reporting (4:28)
- Not The Last Of Baltar / Serina Dies / Boxey & Apollo (5:25)
- End Credits (0:30)
Disc 2: The Gun On Ice Planet Zero
- Main Title (1:48)
- Environment: Hostile (1:41)
- March Of The Centurions (2:32)
- Four Specialists (1:11)
- Cree Captured (1:05)
- Launch Bay Alpha (1:19)
- Blizzard (2:07)
- Death Point (3:15)
- Cold Journey (3:32)
- Bad Situation (1:37)
- Ravashol (3:35)
- Rough Ride (1:21)
- Icy Planet Lab (1:38)
- Cree To The Cold Cell (0:44)
- Cold Planet (1:58)
- Fire The Pulsar (2:58)
- Getting Closer (8:03)
- Pulsar Destroyed (1:53)
- Starbuck Loses (1:41)
- End Credits (0:30)
Released by: Intrada
Release date: 2011
Disc one total running time: 53:49
Disc two total running time: 43:41
