Many composers reuse or borrow featured materials from their previous works or even from other composers. While there is controversy about plagiarism and recycling, there are many movies that reuse the soundtrack of other movies. One example is James Horner, a famous American composer born in August 1953 and died at the age of sixty-one in June 2015 due to plane crash who is well known for Star Trek II (1982) and Star Trek III (1984), Jumanji (1995), Titanic (1997), Avatar (2009) and more. According to the James Horner Film Music website, Horner won two Academy Awards in Best Original Dramatic Score for Titanic and Best Original Song for “My Heart will Go On” in 1997, one American Music Award in Favorite Soundtrack Album for Titanic in 1998,
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In Jumanji, most of the scores are distinct and scene specific as can be seen in the titles of each score, such as “Bats in The Attic,” “Missing Mom and Dad,” and “Mosquito Attack” (Dobbins, “Jumanji Review”). According to Dobbins in “Jumanji Review,” the main theme and motif in “A New World” and “Alan Parrish” for in the score in Jumanji is very similar to the themes and motifs of “Reunited” and “Main Title” in Don Bluth’s An American Tail also composed by James Horner. Horner reused his previous score in An American Tail to Jumani because An American Tail is about a young mouse who came to America to find this family and one of the main character in Jumanji, Alan Parrish is reunited with his friend after several decades with two young siblings to finish playing the game. The theme song for Alan Parrish is similar to the themes and motifs in the An American Tail to illustrate that Alan Parrish is one of the protagonist and is still an innocent child even though several decades has passed since he was trapped inside the game. It is challenging to point out which score he reused from his prior works because James Horner rearranged his previous film scores so that they fit in the film he is currently working on, in this case Jumanji. The way he rearranged also goes well with the flow of the movie and does not sound odd or out of place. Rather, James Horner reused to …show more content…
According to the YouTube video “Avatar, Enemy At the Gates, Troy, Willow Soundtrack Similarity”, ferociousfrankie published a video stating that the four-note motif used in both Avatar and Enemy at the Gates can also be heard in Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy in 2004, and Ron Howard’s Willow in 1988 all composed by James Horner. According to Bryant Frazer in Studiodaily.com, This motif also can be found in the “Symphony No.1 in D minor Op. 13” by Sergei Rachmaninov, a Russian pianist and composer who lived in between 1873 and 1943. Thus, Horner borrowed a four-note motif from a classical composition in his score for Willow and he recycled it in Troy, Enemy at the Gates and Avatar. James Horner is not the only composer who borrows from old classic composers. John Williams, one of best American composer and several of the famous films he composed are Steven Spielberg’s Jaws in 1975, John Lucas’s Star Wars in 1977, Chris Columbus’s first three of Harry Potter series which is adaptation of J. K. Rowling’s book series Harry Potter, is also famous for borrowing elements from classical composers and couple of them are Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Richard Wagner. The four-note motif usually played by trumpets accompanied by string orchestra and is used by Horner in those four films to convey feelings of devastation, danger, loss, and
In Jumanji, most of the scores are distinct and scene specific as can be seen in the titles of each score, such as “Bats in The Attic,” “Missing Mom and Dad,” and “Mosquito Attack” (Dobbins, “Jumanji Review”). According to Dobbins in “Jumanji Review,” the main theme and motif in “A New World” and “Alan Parrish” for in the score in Jumanji is very similar to the themes and motifs of “Reunited” and “Main Title” in Don Bluth’s An American Tail also composed by James Horner. Horner reused his previous score in An American Tail to Jumani because An American Tail is about a young mouse who came to America to find this family and one of the main character in Jumanji, Alan Parrish is reunited with his friend after several decades with two young siblings to finish playing the game. The theme song for Alan Parrish is similar to the themes and motifs in the An American Tail to illustrate that Alan Parrish is one of the protagonist and is still an innocent child even though several decades has passed since he was trapped inside the game. It is challenging to point out which score he reused from his prior works because James Horner rearranged his previous film scores so that they fit in the film he is currently working on, in this case Jumanji. The way he rearranged also goes well with the flow of the movie and does not sound odd or out of place. Rather, James Horner reused to …show more content…
According to the YouTube video “Avatar, Enemy At the Gates, Troy, Willow Soundtrack Similarity”, ferociousfrankie published a video stating that the four-note motif used in both Avatar and Enemy at the Gates can also be heard in Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy in 2004, and Ron Howard’s Willow in 1988 all composed by James Horner. According to Bryant Frazer in Studiodaily.com, This motif also can be found in the “Symphony No.1 in D minor Op. 13” by Sergei Rachmaninov, a Russian pianist and composer who lived in between 1873 and 1943. Thus, Horner borrowed a four-note motif from a classical composition in his score for Willow and he recycled it in Troy, Enemy at the Gates and Avatar. James Horner is not the only composer who borrows from old classic composers. John Williams, one of best American composer and several of the famous films he composed are Steven Spielberg’s Jaws in 1975, John Lucas’s Star Wars in 1977, Chris Columbus’s first three of Harry Potter series which is adaptation of J. K. Rowling’s book series Harry Potter, is also famous for borrowing elements from classical composers and couple of them are Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Richard Wagner. The four-note motif usually played by trumpets accompanied by string orchestra and is used by Horner in those four films to convey feelings of devastation, danger, loss, and