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Examples of composers re-using music in films they compose?

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Elitist1945

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Was watching a clip from Jumanji and at around 1:15 the soundtrack sounded very familiar. In fact, so familiar that I instantly recognize what film it sounded like: Titanic at the 5:25 part. Both composed by James Horner.

What other examples of composers re-using music do you know of?

EDIT: I know 're-using music' isn't the right term, I just couldn't think of how else to put it.
 
James Horner was notorious for not only reusing his own music (and themes) but the music of classical composers, especially in the early periods of his career.

Jerry Goldsmith used the same action motif in a series of shitty thrillers that he scored in the 90s (Chain Reaction, Executive Decision, U.S. Marshalls).
 
I came here to say James Horner and that's all the thread is lol

The guy didn't bother with new melodies for some reason and it was really distracting and detracted from my opinion on him
 
The score for the speeder chase scene in AOTC as well as the Quidditch match in Chamber of Secrets were both very similar.
 
John Williams did this, Chamber of Secrets literally has music from Attack of the Clones.

That wasn't actually Williams' doing. There was a schedule conflict and so William Ross was brought in to adapt some of Williams' music from the first Harry Potter for select scenes. Oddly, music from the early chase sequence in Clones made it into the Quidditch scene.
 
James Horner was notorious for not only reusing his own music (and themes) but the music of classical composers, especially in the early periods of his career.

Jerry Goldsmith used the same action motif in a series of shitty thrillers that he scored in the 90s (Chain Reaction, Executive Decision, U.S. Marshalls).

How dare you
 
Wasn't a lot of Moricone's score for The Hateful Eight based around some unused stuff from The Thing? I suppose that counts.
 
I definitely remember 12 Years a Slave sounded like Hanz Zimmer just reused music from Inception.
 
John Williams did this, Chamber of Secrets literally has music from Attack of the Clones.

That wasn't actually Williams' doing. There was a schedule conflict and so William Ross was brought in to adapt some of Williams' music from the first Harry Potter for select scenes. Oddly, music from the early chase sequence in Clones made it into the Quidditch scene.
Shit, I just remembered this bugging me about 10 years ago.

Interesting to see how that came to be.
 
What pops into my head is how similar Gladiator and Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks are at points.

Eg. Gladiator (until 9:35) | Pirates (until ~9:45)

Basically same thing with a tempo change and a bit more repetitive on the Pirates version.
 
IIRC, didn't Morricone use some earlier works he wrote for a different soundtrack in The Hateful Eight? Although in this case, I don't think they were used in the earlier film, but written for them.
 
James Horner was notorious for not only reusing his own music (and themes) but the music of classical composers, especially in the early periods of his career.

Jerry Goldsmith used the same action motif in a series of shitty thrillers that he scored in the 90s (Chain Reaction, Executive Decision, U.S. Marshalls).
excuse me
 
I love most of his scores but you always know when it's Danny Elfman for sure. At least when it's Burton related lol
 
That wasn't actually Williams' doing. There was a schedule conflict and so William Ross was brought in to adapt some of Williams' music from the first Harry Potter for select scenes. Oddly, music from the early chase sequence in Clones made it into the Quidditch scene.

Interesting. It was just the first thing that came to mind when I saw the topic.
 
Michael Giacchino - Reuses some chords from the theme of the video game Black in Star Trek 2009

John Williams- It's hard to tell the difference between Harry Potter and Star Wars Prequel music at some points

Brian Tyler strait up uses some God of War Ascension music in Guardians of the Galaxy

Danny Elfman loves Bongos
 
Toy Story 3's COWBOY! by Randy Newman is the best example.

Half of the song is the main theme of his rejected Air Force One Score, and it's SOOOOO easy to tell!
 
Toy Story 3's COWBOY! by Randy Newman is the best example.

Half of the song is the main theme of his rejected Air Force One Score, and it's SOOOOO easy to tell!

There's a lot of examples of composers using themes from their rejected scores in later projects. I think that's a more justifiable practice since no one was going to hear them anyway.
 
Definitely James Horner. You can hear the same score in Aliens and Star Trek II.

I'm sympathetic to Horner on this one, though. Cameron kept changing the cut on Aliens given him less and less time to compose. He had an insanely small handful of days to turn the final score around.

Given his tendencies later in his career, it was clear he did it a lot. But I think he gets some slack on that one.
 
I'm sympathetic to Horner on this one, though. Cameron kept changing the cut on Aliens given him less and less time to compose. He had an insanely small handful of days to turn the final score around.

Given his tendencies later in his career, it was clear he did it a lot. But I think he gets some slack on that one.

In a way, it's miraculous that the Aliens score ended up having as many memorable moments as it does. "Bishop's Countdown" ended up being used in trailers for years after it was written.

Things were very tense between those two for a long time until they made up for Titanic. I remember reading that things got physical on the scoring stage in Aliens. Cameron is a scary man.
 
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