Varèse Sarabande and Craft Recordings announce the first-ever vinyl release for Michael Giacchino’s expanded Deluxe Edition score for J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek Into Darkness. The expanded Deluxe Edition version of composer Michael Giacchino’s score for the film arrives on vinyl. The collection comes housed in a premium slipcase with a Starfleet Insignia-shaped cut-out, allowing fans to pick their own cover image, and includes a 16-page booklet with behind-the-scenes photos from the set and notes from J.J. Abrams and Michael Giacchino.
Into Darkness is the 12th installment in the Star Trek franchise and the sequel to the 2009 film Star Trek, as the second in a rebooted film series. The returning cast of Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Greenwood, and Leonard Nimoy reprised their roles from the previous film, joined by Benedict Cumberbatch as the legendary Star Trek villain Khan. Set in the 23rd century, the film follows Captain Kirk and the crew of U.S.S. Enterprise as they are sent to the Klingon home world seeking a former Starfleet member-turned-terrorist, John Harrison.
The film was a financial success and received positive reviews from critics. Its gross earnings of over $467 million worldwide made it the highest-grossing entry in the Star Trek franchise. The film was nominated for Best Visual Effects at the 86th Academy Awards. One of Giacchino’s main tasks with the film was to evolve the themes from the previous installment and create new ones to reflect the film’s darker tone. A specific example of this was during the composition of the track “London Calling.” “[Director J. J. Abrams] just wanted it to feel like we weren’t in a Star Trek movie,” Giacchino said. “It was a very conscious decision to make that base sound different; then, from there, we were able to evolve to our theme for the character. I remember when J. J. heard it, he said, ‘Oh, it sounds English. That’s perfect!'” The score is also notable for featuring orchestration that contains piano, the first Star Trek score to do so since Cliff Eidelman’s music for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), as well as a choir singing entirely in the Klingon language (which appears on the track entitled “The Qo’noS Wartet”). The score also contains interpolations of the “Theme from Star Trek,” written by Alexander Courage.
Michael Giacchino’s (pronounced “Juh-key-no”) prolific output features some of the most popular and acclaimed projects in recent history, including The Incredibles, Coco, Jojo Rabbit, Ratatouille, Star Trek, Jurassic World, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Spider-Man: No Way Home, War for the Planet of the Apes and The Batman. His 2009 score for the Pixar hit Up earned Giacchino an Oscar®, a Golden Globe®, the BAFTA, the Broadcast Film Critics’ Choice Award and two GRAMMY® Awards. After almost 20 years of film scoring, Giacchino directed the very first Marvel special presentation, Werewolf by Night, in 2022.
