Friday Favorites: Favorite Scene – Star Trek: Generations

Welcome to “Friday Favorites” which highlight some of my favorite movie-related things.

It would be safe to say that Data is one of my favorite characters in all of art, literature and storytelling.  He’s most certainly my favorite TV character.  There’s something about his story of an android longing to be human, without realizing that in all the ways that matter he already is, that’s innately compelling.  Add in a dash of Pinocchio and Frankenstein’s Monster and you’ve got Data.  Those of us who were big fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation were thrilled for many reasons when it transitioned to the big screen at the end of its run.  But for me, one of the greatest joys of the movie is Data’s acquisition of the emotion chip, leading to this small scene, which remains one of my favorite things I’ve ever seen:

In the film, Data installs the emotion chip after a failed attempt at humor during Worf’s promotion ceremony. Continue reading

Why is it so hard to make a good soundtrack album?

The third CD that I ever bought was a film soundtrack (the first two were Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous” and Garth Brooks’ “Greatest Hits”).  It was the soundtrack to Independence Day, and I actually bought it in the hopes of it having R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” which for some reason I really wanted on CD.  I was disappointed when the song was missing from the soundtrack album, but after listening to the CD I realized how much I enjoyed the score, composed by David Arnold.  Thus began my obsession with film scores, and my collection of albums showcasing them.

I’ve been listening to the Jurassic Park soundtrack for the past week or so on my commute to work, and I’ve realized that there are several very big problems with the film score album as a whole in the industry.  I don’t know why it’s so damn hard to put together a decent album from a film score, but I’ve come up with a list of several of the problems: Continue reading