By Michael Giacchino

Disney, out now

Lightyear takes its composer back into the realms of intergalactic space adventures, and with a great tone, from the opening hopeful rising countdown type music – count-up, if you prefer – of a 1990s optimistic adventure.

In a brief promo interview with Comicbook.com, Giacchino said that to get into the vibe for a sweeping uplifting space ranging score he thought back to stuff he enjoyed when he was 12, and what made him feel good, musically, back then. It’s certainly true that the score carries with an air that would fit with many different SF adventures – Explorers, perhaps, or Flight Of The Navigator. Not in the sense of echoing cues from those movies, or suchlike, but this score feels like it would suit a tween’s adventures with aliens and trying out spaceships, and being introduced to a big wondrous universe.

Oddly, though, what Giacchino doesn’t mention in that interview is Star Trek, yet this score is in so many way reminiscent of some of his lighter and cheerier adventure cues from the 2009 Star Trek movie, or Star Trek Beyond, both of which he scored. Thankfully we’re not talking about James Horner levels of self-plagiarism, just that he gets back into that vibe.

That said, some that countdown/countup music here is very reminiscent of  some cues from his work on the Star Trek movie trilogy, especially the latter parts (“Earthbound And Down”, if I recall rightly) of Into Darkness. “Time To Space Your Fears” I’m especially looking at you. The main theme here – a lovely four note leitmotif – starts with the first two notes of Trek theme before rising octave twice rather than staying level, dropping an octave and doing a rise-fall-rise triplet as his Trek movie theme does.

A lot of the score is built around that ticking clock, the counting towards glory, and launches, and victory, playing with a good range of tempo-based cues, with breaks for Zurg’s more comedically dark theme, and the uplifting Lightyear theme, while still finding time for some woozy electric guitar in pleasantly surprising places.

Zurg’s theme reaches a marvellous apotheosis in “Zurg’s Displeasure”, where he has a full on triplet – but non-Imperial – march with a dark voice choir just on the right side of parody of so many SF villain themes. At the same time, there is room for some quieter introspective music too, most notably in “The Lone Space Ranger” and “To Infinity And Be Gone”, which are quite touching and reflective, especially with the glassly echoing piano passages.

Verdict: This does rely a little bit too much on the ticking clock countdown and buildup motif, but somehow it’s also just sheer joyous fun, and quite unlike Giacchino’s usual genre selections of orchestration and tonality. Just… fun. 9/10

David A McIntee