During the "Valley of the Mind's Eye" segment, sung by Thomas Dolby, the opera stars shown appear to be, successively:
- Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow: Feodor Chaliapin Sr. as Boris Godunov, composed by Modest Mussorgsky
- Covent Garden Opera House, London: Adelina Patti (1865)
- L'Opéra, Paris: Boris Christoff as Don Carlos (1962), by Giuseppe Verdi
- Metropolitan Opera, New York: Rosa Ponselle as La Gioconda (1924), by Amilcare Ponchielli
- La Scala, Milan: Luciano Pavarotti as Radamès in Aida, by Verdi
- Sydney Opera House: Joan Sutherland as Lucrezia Borgia (1980), by Gaetano Donizetti
According to an interview in Keyboard Magazine, this was the first entry in the Mind's Eye series to feature a complete sound design, in an attempt to smooth over the stylistic variety of the original shorts. For instance, in the opening sequence, a police megaphone obscures the abrupt transition from a wild flight through a utopian city to a static shot of fleeing androids.
Michael Boydstun and Thomas Dolby worked closely together on the editing for about four or five months, exchanging video segments and rough music mixes, moving scenes around to achieve the best fit. The music soundtrack had to be kept apart from the sound effects tracks, to enable different surround mixes for the laser disc, according to Keyboard magazine.
In keeping with director Michael Boydstun's wish to push the Mind's Eye series' envelope a bit, soundtrack composer Thomas Dolby said in Keyboard magazine that he strove to move away from the isolated video clip format, by creating a more fluent cinematic, dynamic experience and a narrative flow. Alternating between tension and release would allow the graphics to breathe a bit, as far as the limited scope of original short clips would allow them to.
In the interview with Keyboard magazine, Thomas Dolby remarked that he was pleasantly surprised to find at his disposal more cultural, historical and architectural, and also painterly source material than the usual CGI futuristic flyovers and action sequences. This gave him far more narrative and musical scope to play with.
Talking to the German PC Player magazine, Dolby elaborated that he was particularly impressed with the imagery of Leonardo da Vinci's flying machine leaping off the page at the viewer, cave paintings coming to life, and the destroyed French Cluny Abbey getting rebuilt right before your eyes.
Talking to the German PC Player magazine, Dolby elaborated that he was particularly impressed with the imagery of Leonardo da Vinci's flying machine leaping off the page at the viewer, cave paintings coming to life, and the destroyed French Cluny Abbey getting rebuilt right before your eyes.