Mega TV producer Glen A Larson has a good number of credits to his name, although none quite ever gripped the imagination of viewers to the extent of other TV moguls such as Gerry Anderson with Thunderbirds and so on, or Gene Rodenberry's Star Trek, of course. One of Larson's most ambitious projects was to bring television sci-fi right up to date with the latest effects and a huge budget and the result was Battlestar Galactica. Larson was evidently more than a little inspired by Star Wars, the creation of the show running hot on the heels of Lucas' mythic creations. I always thought Battlestar Galactica was a pretty naff effort with dreadful acting and appalling dialogue which had neither the mythical status of Star Wars nor the humanity of Star Trek. To go with his vision, Larson drafted in fairly regular collaborator Stu Philips to pen the score.
With the big budget lavished on the show, the studio evidently believing they had a sure fire hit on their hands, the music budget could afford to be way above average. Unfortunately, it (rather unsurprisingly) suffers from 80's pseudo Williams syndrome. One of the biggest pieces of advice to aspiring film composers is to not try and be John Williams. Many of them want to be, but few have the skill to pull off the kind of swashbuckling music that he has written. In fairness, Stu Philips is a reasonably good composer, but any pretensions to be John Williams really aren't terribly successful. The Prologue is followed by the fairly romantic main theme which suggests John Debney's more recent SeaQuest theme as well as Miklos Rozsa's epic music from King of Kings (of all things). The theme crops up at regular intervals through the score, but just about avoids becoming grating.
Perhaps the most noticeable thing is how low key a lot of the music actually is. There are the obligatory brassy action sequences which are occasionally a little melodramatic for their own good. Otherwise, the general tone suggest underscore of bad dialogue sequences. Unfortunately, the banality of the dialogue is reflected in the somewhat meandering nature of Phillip's music which probably works fine in context, but drags just that bit on disc. The playing by the RSNO is typically splendid, although the cynic in my is inclined to suggest that the beefy performance makes the music sound better than it actually is. I'm sure fans of the show will love it and anyone with a fondness for 80's sci-fi music will no doubt enjoy every minute. It is enjoyable stuff, but it isn't something I'd be inclined to listen to very often unfortunately.
Rating ~ Total Time ~ 48:31