Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (soundtrack)

James Horner's original score for. The album was the second Star Trek soundtrack to be recorded digitally, a fact that was promoted by Atlantic Records at the time of its release.

Overview
Following the perceived creative failure of, director Nicholas Meyer and the creatives behind the follow up project sought a different tone for The Wrath of Khan. Enter composer James Horner, a relative unknown at the time, getting his big break with his introduction into the Star Trek universe... long before the music of Titanic brought him Oscars and fame.

In keeping with that new tone, and Meyer's vision of "Horatio Hornblower in outer space", Horner's score took on a distinctly nautical sound, far from Jerry Goldsmith's sweeping fanfares in the previous effort. Horner's score is harsher and edgier, with abrasive brass leading driving strings and clanking percussive elements. And yet, subtle hints of Goldsmith's orchestrations exist within the music of The Wrath of Khan such as the return of the | Blaster Beam, a unique musical instrument popularised by it's use as an accompaniment to the V'Ger cloud in Goldsmith's score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Identifiable themes exist throughout, including motifs for Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise, Khan Noonien Singh and the renegades aboard the Reliant, and a stand-out theme for Spock - that would return as the opening fanfare of.

While considered by many to be one of best (if not the absolute best) scores of the, Khan is nevertheless more about motifs and features fewer memorable – or hummable – marches than films like The Motion Picture and even Cliff Eidelman's. Still a benchmark in Star Trek and action film music in general, Khan set a standard to be expanded upon by other composers and Horner himself. This outing widely considered the formative work in Horner's career, which still echoes with elements from his work in Star Trek.

The cues presented on the commercial release do not follow the order they are heard in the film, presumably for strictly musical reasons. In the film, the cues are heard in the following order: 1, 5, 6, 3, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9.

Track listing
The commercial soundtrack release of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan contained a sampling of the music used in the film. Below is a list of the tracks made widely available.
 * It should be noted that the cues are significantly disorganized, with tracks arranged differently than how they are heard in the actual film.


 * * Contains TOS theme composed by Alexander Courage
 * &dagger; Contains dialog performed by Leonard Nimoy