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 |  |  | General Discussion:Goldsmith's VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA | 12 NEXTLAST | Last Post |
|  |  |  | |  |  |  | Posted: | Apr 30, 2010-1:10 AM | | | By: | Zooba(Member) | Main and End Titles as they appeared for the episode he scored: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ2lyDBLIlI His theme is not bad and I think gives the show a more dreary, dramatic feel than the well known Sawtelle Theme. I love that pulsating vibrating thing he does in the End Titles. What do you all think of Jerry's version? Zoob 
| | | |  |  |  | Posted: | Apr 30, 2010-1:18 AM | | | By: | Ford A. Thaxton(Member) | Main and End Titles as they appeared for the episode he scored: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ2lyDBLIlI His theme is not bad and I think gives the show a more dreary, dramatic feel than the well known Sawtelle Theme. I love that pulsating vibrating thing he does in the End Titles. What do you all think of Jerry's version? Zoob As much as I love Jerry's work, the Sawtell theme is the better of the two. It captured the spirit of the show.. Jerry's tune is more like a DIRGE and IMHO was really a downer for an action/adventure show. I can seel why it didn't last. Ford A. Thaxton 
| | | | | | |  |  |  | Posted: | Apr 30, 2010-5:58 AM | | | By: | Scott McOldsmith(Member) | I love his theme, but agree that Sawtell's was truly a wonderful, seafearing tune, which is ironic, since hie episodic scores seemed very corny and old fashioned. Considering how the show was somewhat lighter in tone, and in full color, it seemed odd to commission such a dark theme. The score for the episode itself was truly outstanding, also my favorite of Goldsmith's TV work. A shame re-use fees kept the GNP album so short, there are a number of outstanding cues which got left off. The act four climax was reused countless times from this point on as the musical coda for the series. a couple of episodes had scores which utilized the Goldsmith theme as their basis, which does show that Irwin Allen had planned to keep it. And it does fit the greater emphasis on sci-fi, but it was out of place. Irwin Allen had a habit of changing his series themes as the shows went on (only Time Tunnel was spared, but a single season series). Usually, though, these were done to give the impression of improvements, while the shows themselves grew more and more tired. However, the 3rd season Lost in Space, and 2nd season Land of the Giants themes were outstanding. When Irwin changed the opening credits a third of the way through the 4th season, he retained Sawtell's theme, but had it made more exciting, oddly by slowing it down, and deepening the brass. It was a fine change, I enjoy both versions. 
| | | |  |  |  | Posted: | Apr 30, 2010-9:52 AM | | | By: | 10Arrows(Member) | I still remember as a kid watching Voyage (age alert), listening to those sonar pings as each ring appeared on the screen. It was such an exciting beginning to the show. Not to mention the lyrical theme that just sounded like riding the waves above and below. Not that Goldsmith's music wasn't okay. As a matter of fact, I believe they used his cues, when the scene demanded that kind of danger and mystery. But as an opening title, Goldsmith's would never have cut it. Not that it was always a bad thing that theme songs changed on the Allen shows. The first season of Lost in Space was rather a-syncopated. Not that it was terrible, but it was mediocre. The later opening theme, with the countdown leading into the theme was a vast improvement. Back to Voyage. It has surprised me that it is about the only IA show that has never had any serious attempt at an update. I'm actually not sure whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. Still there was the (ghastly) Lost in Space movie, a new LiS tv series was within weeks of filming before it got pulled, a pilot for an updated Time Tunnel was made (the full pilot can be found on YouTube). I would enjoy an updated Voyage if they did it right, a BIG IF, I admit. To paraphrase Dr. McCoy "I know Hollywood imagineers. They love to change things!" If they did the hatchet job on the Seaview that the LiS movie did on the Jupiter 2 I would be one unhappy camper. 
| | | | | | |  |  |  | Posted: | Apr 30, 2010-12:18 PM | | | By: | Charles Thaxton(Member) | I still remember as a kid watching Voyage (age alert), listening to those sonar pings as each ring appeared on the screen. It was such an exciting beginning to the show. Not to mention the lyrical theme that just sounded like riding the waves above and below. Not that Goldsmith's music wasn't okay. As a matter of fact, I believe they used his cues, when the scene demanded that kind of danger and mystery. But as an opening title, Goldsmith's would never have cut it. Not that it was always a bad thing that theme songs changed on the Allen shows. The first season of Lost in Space was rather a-syncopated. Not that it was terrible, but it was mediocre. The later opening theme, with the countdown leading into the theme was a vast improvement. Back to Voyage. It has surprised me that it is about the only IA show that has never had any serious attempt at an update. I'm actually not sure whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. Still there was the (ghastly) Lost in Space movie, a new LiS tv series was within weeks of filming before it got pulled, a pilot for an updated Time Tunnel was made (the full pilot can be found on YouTube). I would enjoy an updated Voyage if they did it right, a BIG IF, I admit. To paraphrase Dr. McCoy "I know Hollywood imagineers. They love to change things!" If they did the hatchet job on the Seaview that the LiS movie did on the Jupiter 2 I would be one unhappy camper. the 90s TIME TUNNEL pilot was also an extra on the DVDs...not very memorable. 
| | | | | | | | | |  |  |  | Posted: | Apr 30, 2010-4:24 PM | | | By: | Jon A. Bell(Member) | I remember I hated it when that ep aired when I was a kid, I was glad it was gone the next week. I rather like it now, and really regret that electronic motive not appearing in the GNP cd. It weakens it by it's absense. P.S. I watched that ep again about 2 weeks ago and it's awfully silly. Implausible, too. Love that plastic and rubber set for the whale's innards- looks like a playground for kids at CHUCK-E-CHEESE! I remember seeing Voyage episodes in their original run (I was born in 1961), and actually remember the end credits of the first season (with the Seaview sticking out of the water) -- when I would've been 4 years old. I also remember specific episodes, like Jonah and the Whale, Leviathan, and The Mummy, all of which scared the hell outta me. 
| | | | | | |  |  |  | Posted: | Apr 30, 2010-4:40 PM | | | By: | mulan98(Member) | Goldsmith himself said that there was nothing wrong with Sawtell's theme and the producers shouldn't have hired him to replace it. The theme's dirge-like character certainly seems counter-intuitive to a traditional TV theme tune, and I doubt that Goldsmith would have written it that way unless he was directed to do so, probably by Newman or Irwin Allen himself. Concerning the episode's score, I think it's a real gem in Goldsmith's 60 output. Full of invention and interesting orchestration. It compares favourably to and holds up well against feature scores like Satan Bug and even Planet of the Apes. Certainly, it's his best TV score from that period that I've heard. Love it. Same as you it would appear. What's the source of Goldsmith's comment that "there was nothing wrong with Sawtell's theme and the producers shouldn't have hired him to replace it"? I can't imagine that Mr Goldsmith, having received the commission, doing it any other way than he wanted it. 
| | | | | | | | | | | | |  |  |  | Posted: | Apr 30, 2010-5:31 PM | | | By: | Eric Paddon(Member) | P.S. I watched that ep again about 2 weeks ago and it's awfully silly. Implausible, too. Love that plastic and rubber set for the whale's innards- looks like a playground for kids at CHUCK-E-CHEESE! As I recall, it's actually the "Fantastic Voyage" set that they were making quick use of for that episode. I enjoy the episode, but Sawtell's theme is the superior one. I still find it interesting though that we never did get the full end credit version on CD (only the abbreviated S4 version). I know there was an explanation of this awhile back, but I've forgotten it. 
| | | |  |  |  | Posted: | Apr 30, 2010-5:51 PM | | | By: | Charles Thaxton(Member) | P.S. I watched that ep again about 2 weeks ago and it's awfully silly. Implausible, too. Love that plastic and rubber set for the whale's innards- looks like a playground for kids at CHUCK-E-CHEESE! As I recall, it's actually the "Fantastic Voyage" set that they were making quick use of for that episode. I enjoy the episode, but Sawtell's theme is the superior one. I still find it interesting though that we never did get the full end credit version on CD (only the abbreviated S4 version). I know there was an explanation of this awhile back, but I've forgotten it. the full version you mention appears on on the CD SCIFI'S GREATEST HITS-FINAL FRONTIERS which was one of 4 put out by the SciFi Channel in the 90s. 
| | | |  |  |  | Posted: | Apr 30, 2010-7:28 PM | | | By: | 10Arrows(Member) | the 90s TIME TUNNEL pilot was also an extra on the DVDs...not very memorable. Sadly, all too true. It was some bad amalgam of StarGate and Sliders. LOL. As for the characters not being remembered - you forgot the Most Important Character of all! The SEAVIEW. Gods I loved the design of that ship - a better looking submarine has never been imagined (unlike that monstrosity on SeaQuest). It's the Seaview I most worry about them reimagining in some horrid fashion! 
| | | |  |  |  | Posted: | Apr 30, 2010-9:38 PM | | | By: | ToneRow(Member) | What I write here is all my personal theories, and not entirely based upon facts. The first season of "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" was, of course, shot in monochrome photography and started initially, in tone, as an international espionage show whose episodes alternated with plots from foreign powers to underseas menaces. Sometime during the middle of the filming of the first season, the production team shifted the focus away from its square earnestness in depicting both the (then current) Cold War paranoia and giant sea life in a somewhat disappointing fashion which somehow managed to be at once expressionistic whilst hoary. Directors from "The Outer Limits" were recruited to work on "Voyage"'s earliest segments. While many of these early episodes are well-directed, impressively shot in black-and-white chiaroscuro, they may fall into cliche-ridden territory, let down by the writing and the overall difficulty with the program's identity (not unlike the early segments of Boris Karloff's "Thriller"). Then, Irwin Allen and his production team hired scriptwriters such as Robert Hamner and William Read Woodfield and William Welch, along with directors new to the program, such as Sobey Martin - who would become regular workhorses on "Voyage". These changes in personnel helped "Voyage" attain a greater range of story material, a higher level of ingenuity in the writing, and workman-like/journeyman-like directors who could probably turnover an episode on time and on budget. This "revised" second-half of the first season had actors Richard Basehart and David Hedison loving the scripts written by William Read Woodfield. It was 2 segments written by Robert Hamner, however, that altered the direction of the series in some ways: Hamner's "Cradle Of The Deep" was the highest rated episode from that season, indicating audience interest in science-fiction based monsters. Another Hamner-scripted story - "The Human Computer" - featured Captain Crane alone on a deserted Seaview throughout most of the episode's duration. Since "The Human Computer" had long absences of dialogue, special music was needed. By this time near the end of the 1st season, the music written at the beginning of the series by cinema veterans Paul Sawtell and Hugo Friedhofer was already appearing to be out of fashion. Music for "The Human Computer" was not written by 60-year old men, but by men in their 30s: Morton Stevens and Michael Hennigan. This may be an important enough a point to stress because I think that Irwin Allen and his team wished to be atuned to their youthful audiences. Why not hire a composer who was working on one of the most popular hit TV programs at the time - "The Man From U.N.C.L.E."? They got Morton Stevens for "The Human Computer"; when it came time for scorng the new look of "Voyage"'s second season (in color, and with the Flying Sub), why not go for Jerry Goldsmith himself to inaugurate the first show? I'm speculating that Irwin Allen and his production crew were hoping that Goldsmith would deliver another memorable theme tune, with infectious rhythms and "hip" orchestrations to match the updated look and feel of the series, and to catch onto the Sixties vibe. What they got instead was Goldsmith's trudging-probing music which, while not sounding like a TV theme melody in the usual sense, sums up Goldsmith's interpretation of what a voyage down to the bottom of the sea floor might emotionally seem like - gradually going deeper underwater via sub or diving bell, witnessing marine life as if they could be from another planet (hence the electronic instruments that join into the theme), or perhaps uncovering a sunken treasure of gold doubloons (which may be why Goldsmith's "Voyage" theme always seemed rather Spanish-flavored in contour to me). Everbody is already aware of Goldsmith's theme hastily being replaced, for whatever reason(s), with the reliable expressive tune that Paul Sawtell wrote for the first season (which itself sounds like it came from Dominic Frontiere's music for "The Zanti Misfits" episode of "The Outer Limits"). Regarding Jerry Goldsmith's entire score for "Jonah And The Whale", I consider this extremely descriptive and almost avant-garde music he wrote for a TV show to be alongside his greatest film scores with respect to quality, contemporaneous with "The Satan Bug" and "Morituri", plus it looks forward to his late '60s apothesis, like "Planet Of The Apes". 
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