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Movies that use another movie's theme music

post #1 of 15
8/20/03 at 5:58pm
Thread Starter 
I hate that. It pisses me off so much because I identify certain music to certain movies. I mean, who can possibly hear "In your Eyes" without thinking about say anything...?

Anyway, I just saw a commercial for the Two Towers DVD and they were using the music from Requiem for a Dream where everyone is spiraling out of control at the end. That theme just worked so perfectly for Requiem and even just hearing a snippet of it brings back all of the emotions that movie stirred up. Imagine my surprise when I hear the music coming from my TV, run into the living, and see the battle of Helm's Deep. Ugh.

Similarly, I was constantly taken out of the movie while viewing Pirates of the Caribbean as they recycled the music from The Rock (which I enjoy and have seen more than i'd like to admit).

I guess its a cost issue or just plain laziness, but why the fuck do studios do this?! Someone please explain.
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post #2 of 15
8/20/03 at 6:04pm
It's laziness, mostly. I know a guy who knows a guy who cuts trailers, and from what I've heard, the trailer editors are usually just handed small clips of the film with no music attached to them, and they have to find the music elsewhere.

I'm sure someone out there in Chewer-world cuts trailers for a living and knows more about this than I do.

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post #3 of 15
8/20/03 at 6:04pm
James Horner's scores always seem to be recycled like yesterday's garbage.

Case in point: using Horner's Mask of Zorro score (almost in its entirety) during Enemy at the Gates.

There are more, but everything seems to be escaping me right now...
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post #4 of 15
8/20/03 at 6:08pm
I'm listening to the remixed Requiem Overture as I type this. It's easily one of my favorite pieces of music from the last several years. I like the Kronos Quartet original, but I love the Overture version. Hell, I'd like to see it included in the actual ROTK film instead of just the trailers...it's that good.

Back to your question--I think that most of the time, marketing departments use theme music in their ads because familiarity sells--that's why you hear the Gladiator, Rudy, and Braveheart music constantly in trailers. (I assume.) But since only about nine people in America have ever seen "Requiem for a Dream," I'd guess that the New Line marketing department used the Requiem music because it fits the material so damn well.
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post #5 of 15
8/20/03 at 6:10pm
Using the Lord of the Rings music for the Terminator 3 trailer was cheap as hell, and very noticeable. Especially when the Terminator series has a perfectly fine theme tune of its own.
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post #6 of 15
8/20/03 at 6:18pm
Movies using other movies' themes in their advertising is nothing new, in fact, it's common practice. The reason they do that is because a lot of times a movie will start advertising before the film's score is complete. Better to sample some music from other movies than have a music-less trailer. Sometimes it's done to pretty great effect (I remember X-Men's final trailer did some great sampling of Dark City), but some movies get over-used (the music from Dave has been used more times than I can count).
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post #7 of 15
8/20/03 at 6:24pm
Jackie Brown is almost entirely scored with music from other soundtracks: starts off and ends with the theme from Across 110th street, when Jackie's in jail they play Long Time Woman (theme from The Big Doll House, I think), and there's music from the Vampyros Lesbos soundtrack in there somewhere (which is a great cd, btw). I'm still not sure how I feel about that--it all works well, but I think it'd be better to use music that's not already associated with a movie, even a movie noone remembers. I think Q was going for some kind of "recontextualizing", since that film incorporates alot of other elements from 70s movies.

You know that cool screaming music in Election, whenever one of the characters panics? That's originally from a spaghetti western called Navajo Joe (starring Burt Reynolds as a native american!). I saw it on TCM as part of a spaghetti western festival. But I think it works great in Election (it's used in a different, and I would say more effective context than in the original).
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post #8 of 15
8/20/03 at 6:44pm
Well John Woo's The Killer did it best using the Red Heat score.
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post #9 of 15
8/20/03 at 6:52pm
Quote:
Yando:
James Horner's scores always seem to be recycled like yesterday's garbage.
I agree with that. James Horner's score for A Beautiful Mind is just a re-mix of themes from Deep Impact, Sneakers, and Aliens all rolled into one. I still thought it was a great score though. I listen to it often.

Bad Boys 2 used the exact same score of The One not only in the trailer but during many parts of the movie also. Then I found out Trevor Rabin scored both movies. How lazy can you get?
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post #10 of 15
8/20/03 at 7:05pm
I was always really dissapointed that the Fellowship of the Rings made no use of The Battle of Evermore...that could be a pretty powerful score, the song certainly has an epic feel to it, and Lord of the Rings is its major lyrical source...
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post #11 of 15
8/20/03 at 8:09pm
I loved it when they used the Requiem for a Dream music on the Two Towers trailer. I don´t care if studios use music like that. It´s only a trailer.
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post #12 of 15
8/20/03 at 8:45pm
Quote:
Southern:
I was always really dissapointed that the Fellowship of the Rings made no use of The Battle of Evermore...that could be a pretty powerful score, the song certainly has an epic feel to it, and Lord of the Rings is its major lyrical source...
Led Zeppelin needs to be kept far away from LOTR.
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post #13 of 15
8/20/03 at 11:59pm
Sometimes it bothers me when it just doesn't seem right (case in point: K-19 used Crimson Tide's music in the trailer, yeah, they're both sub movies, but that's the problem). Other times, most notably the trailer for Pearl Harbor using The Thin Red Line's music, it is just right.

Of course, any score recycling is far better than putting the pop tune of the moment in there instead.
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post #14 of 15
8/21/03 at 2:01am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Gandalf´s Father:
It´s only a trailer.
Yeah, but my initial post also questions the use of another movie's music in the film as well, a la Pirates of the Caribbean. The score is an essential part of the movie going experience. It sucks to be taken out of a movie because you're trying to figure out why the score is so familiar.
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post #15 of 15
8/21/03 at 2:14am
yeah it is pretty pathetic, but i'm slow and forgettful so i don't really ever notice, i didn't even notice if the music in daredevil was really that bad like everyone said...

i think the only time i got upset about that was when they played Hans Zimmer -True Romance in Finding Forrester for the bicycle scene, that was kind of upsetting, and flavor of the week pop theme songs are annoying as hell too...
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