Sonic Images announces the cancellation of its upcoming release of Ron Jones‘ soundtrack from the PC game Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Despite this announcement, copies of the CD have already been sent to both mainstream and fandom reviewers as advance copies for review. (This title is unrelated to the later TV series of the same name.) 
A wise Vulcan once observed that “having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.” After Interplay’s 1997 release of the critically acclaimed PC game Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, which wowed late ’90s gamers by incorporating freshly shot footage of William Shatner as Admiral Kirk, resplendent in his monster maroon, incorporated into CGI settings at the franchise’s famed training ground, it was announced that Sonic Images would be releasing the equally acclaimed Ron Jones soundtrack on CD. Jones, whose sound had been integral to the first four seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation on TV, had run afoul of showrunner Rick Berman’s desire to tone down and scale back the show’s music. Berman wanted second-movement musical wallpaper; Jones, in his own words, wanted to be “Jerry Goldsmith Jr.”, and after Jones’ understated score for The Drumhead, and despite his award-winning, attention-grabbing score for the two-parter The Best Of Both Worlds, the composer was sent to franchise Siberia (or perhaps Rura Penthe would be a more apt metaphor). Jones found other work, and wasn’t heard from again by Star Trek fandom until this game. Landing Jones to do the music was a big deal within the soundtrack-minded segment of the fan base.
Sonic Images, at that point awash in Babylon 5 soundtrack releases, struck a deal to license Jones’ music for a wide release, but the late-1998 release window ran afoul of Paramount’s plans to concentrate all of its marketing and merchandising fire on the then-incoming movie Star Trek: Insurrection. (Hey, at least back in those days, Paramount was actually 
trying to deliver on merch. In the 2020s landscape of ill-conceived T-shirts, sporadic Funko pops, and model starships and “museum grade” action figures now priced out of many fans’ hands – and that’s even before moronically-applied tariffs – it’s hard to imagine a time when the studio was saying “Too much stuff, all at once! We need to space these releases out!”) Sony’s plans to release a 20th anniversary Star Trek: The Motion Picture soundtrack were pushed into 1999. And Sonic Images’ license lapsed, not to be renewed, despite the fact that the product had been pressed. The company ate the costs of having gone to production, though copies had already been sent out in advance to reviewers. But for the public, the release was dead. Interplay would later do its own pressing of a CD combining ten tracks of Jones’ music with that of another composer, Brian Luzietti, whose tracks originated from an expansion to the game; these CDs saw release primarily in Europe.
I eventually added the Interplay CD to my collection, and all was right with the world. The same material – or at least Jones’ tracks – resurfaced on Film Score Monthly’s massive, aimed-almost-exclusively-at-the-lucrative-Earl-shaped soundtrack collecting market box set Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Ron Jones Project in remastered form, along with even better music from Jones’ later Interplay opus, Starfleet Command, which had not gotten a CD release before. My obsession with finding and owning one of the advance review copies of the Sonic Images release faded as marriage, fatherhood, divorce, more fatherhood, and pulling up a lawn chair for the decline of western civilization ensued. I forgot about it.
And then Douglass Fake, founder and head of the Intrada soundtrack boutique label, passed away. I had flung a not-inconsiderable sum of money his way for many of Intrada’s lovingly-remastered soundtrack releases over the years, all of which were things of expertly-presented beauty that had brought me much joy. He didn’t have my permission to go. Just rude. Turns out we’re all limited-edition pressings that can be cancelled at any time.
Doug’s massive personal collection was consigned to FSMCDs.com, where a copy of the Sonic Images Starfleet Academy CD wound up on the sale list at a surprisingly not-back-breaking price. If I was going to throw my money at Doug one last time, it wouldn’t hurt to close the circle on the Starfleet Academy soundtrack. So that covers the physical object. What about the music it contains?
The track listing is different from the easier-to-find Interplay CD, though the Sonic Images pressing is better mastered (the sound is a lot brighter on the cancelled release) and has one additional track from the game’s soundtrack. Possibly for aesthetic reasons and possibly for legal reasons, Interplay retitled nearly every track for its pressing; the tracklist below notes which tracks are equivalent to which between the two versions of the soundtrack. The extended credits music suite for the game appears only on the Sonic Images release – not even the FSM Ron Jones Project box set includes this track. Jones’ action music is positively boisterous, with a lot of timpani work that would never have happened in Berman-era TV Trek, with hints aplenty of his TNG scores for Heart Of Glory and The Battle. But I find the exploration-oriented music much more interesting: fans of the nautical wonder of James Horner‘s Star Trek film scores will find a lot to love in these tracks.
Filling out the track list (and the CD run time) is a quartet of tracks that make up the “Star Trek: The Next Generation Suite for Virtual Orchestra”, a selection of Jones’ episode scores (which, in the ’90s, were very much in demand) played entirely with synthesizers and samples. The suite’s version of the TNG theme is oddly logy, even more lacking in energy than what we heard on TV back in the day. The other tracks are popular, much-loved slices of Jones’ TV work, but also odd choices: Heart Of Glory tracks “Let’s Make A Phaser” and “A Klingon’s Feelings” had already had their original recordings included on GNP Crescendo’s 1996 The Best Of Star Trek compilation, and that same year, an outstanding new recording of the Skin Of Evil cue “Tasha’s Farewell” (with a full orchestra) had appeared on Silva Screen’s Space And Beyond. (The original recordings of all three would eventually appear on the aforementioned Ron Jones Project.) In hindsight, but also in the context of the real-time release that never happened, these tracks are a curiosity at best; either the originals or superior recordings were already within easy reach in 1998. (The tracks’ purpose may be not unlike that of Jeff Lynne‘s Mr. Blue Sky album of re-recorded ELO hits: Jones would fully own the new recordings and could potentially license them out without any involvement – or payment – to Paramount.) The Sonic Images CD does augur in with a shorter running time than Interplay’s pressing, which probably also explains the presence of the “Suite For Virtual Orchestra” section, which is capped off by a brief original, “Explorer’s Hymn”, which ironically sounds more like something from Jay Chattaway‘s (!!) Space Age soundtrack.
With all due respect to my learned Vulcan colleague quoted above, I’m glad I got to hear, see, and hold this version of the Starfleet Academy soundtrack for myself, just to satisfy my curiosity. Now that there’s a Starfleet Academy TV series just around the corner, it’d be neat to hear anything from the game soundtrack quoted in its music, but I’m not holding by breath; I have learned that holding my breath in any way related to a soundtrack bearing the title “Starfleet Academy” is simply unwise.
- Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Main Theme (4:09) – appears on Interplay or FSM CD as track 1
- Tied Combat (2:50) – appears on Interplay or FSM CD as track 5: “On The Edge”
- Crew Intro (1:51) – appears on Interplay or FSM CD as track 6: “Crew Introduction”
- Exploration (1:58) – appears on Interplay or FSM CD as track 4: “Exploring The Unknown”
- Losing Combat (2:23) – appears on Interplay or FSM CD as track 10: “No Way Out”
- First Victory (2:23) – appears on Interplay or FSM CD as track 8: “On To Victory”
- The Explorers (1:59) – appears on Interplay or FSM CD as track 9: “Discovery”
- Stand Off (2:50) – appears on Interplay or FSM CD as track 7: “Red Alert”
- Defeat (2:23) – appears on Interplay or FSM CD as track 2: “Surrounded”
- Final Victory (2:23) – appears on Interplay or FSM CD as track 3: “Evasive Manoeuvres”
- Finale (4:11) – does not appear on Interplay or FSM CD
- Star Trek: The Next Generation Suite For Virtual Orchestra Theme (2:23)
- Let’s Make A Phaser (1:49)
- A Klingon’s Feelings (2:44)
- Tasha’s Farewell (6:44)
- Explorer’s Hymn (2:53)
Not released by: Sonic Images
Non-release date: 1998
Total run time: 46:00
2025 music review by Earl Green