It’s that time of the evening… and time for your last Audio Edition of the week!
Today on the show Doug and I talk about movies ripping off the trailer music from other movies (man I really really hate that). The movies opening this weekend… Doom looks terrible… Kiss Kiss Bang Bang looks great, the new trailer for Underworld Evolution and how good Kate Beckinsale looks in tight black leather, new Ice Age 2 casting and the poster child for squandered opportunty Queen Latifah, our worship of Steve Martin, compositing briliance and a little bit more Transformers news. It’s a full 20 minutes my friends.
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if you guys feel like going way back talking about ripped off movie music.
In 1983 there was a movie entitled The Right Stuff about the men who became America’s first astronauts. In that movie, there is a scene in which the first seven he-men astronauts are shown walking together in slow motion while Bill Conti’s music plays a triumphant march-like theme. We see our heroes, on which America has heaped our dreams of glory in winning the space race against the Communist Soviets.
It appears, however, that Bill Conti’s music isn’t exactly original. The theme comes from the first movement of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. (I’ve heard both, the resemblance can’t be coincidence).
And there is also a section that resembles gustav holsts “jupiter” So completely stolen.
The john williams superman theme, the love theme to be specific, i stolen from R. Strauss’ “Death and Transfiguration”
just remember what Stravinsky once said: “Talent borrows, genius
steals.”
The theme from The Goonies by Dave Grusin is used all the time in trailers. Drives me nuts. For the life of me I can’t think of any now though.
Peter Jackson’s “King Kong” teaser trailer used the score from the end of practically all the “Fantastic Four” trailers, and Warner Bros have used part of the “Batman Begins” score in their trailer for “V For Vendetta”. And they are ALL recent!
This could be old news but, the soundtrack of LOTR is surprisingly like the soundtrack to Requiem for a Dream. The music was by the Kronos Quartet. I can’t believe how much they sound alike.
I can listen to these audio editions all day. Thanks for keeping me company whilst I am in sick bay you guys! *winks*
Hey There Mogulus,
Actaully I must correct you.
Yes, the Autobots and Decepticons crashed on earth and upon awaking in the ARK they were reffitted into “modern” vehichles…
However… what doug was asking was NOT “How can they come to earth millions of years ago when there were no cars”.
What Doug’s actaul question meant was “How can they NOT have come in prehistoric times. If they come in modern times how can you exlain them already being in the form of Earth vehicles.
I hope that clears that up.
Geek out.
~John
Ok guys. what gives. you two CLAIM to be geeks. But you exposed yourselves for what you truely were in this audio edition, and i almost laughed out loud at your gaff. Now, i’m not busting your chops. i just think it’s funny.
you said something to the effect of “If there is a transformers live action cybertron scene, they can’t be transforming into cars and airplanes… so what would you do?”
sigh. i shake my head.
do you wish to know? lol ok… in the cartoon, pilot episode, the cybertron scenes showed the transformers transforming and figbting… but they looked slightly different. Their parts were modified and when they transformed, a robot that , say, looked like an f-15 tomcat on earth would look like an alien fighter from independence day on cybertron….
after their crash on earth and millions of years dormant, a service robot comes to life and feeds into the broadcasts on tv and radio of the present day. It then programs the other robots and modifies them to transform into earthen mechanizations.
i laugh with you, not at you, and hope that clears up your question.
they’re actually going ahead with another knight rider movie? i say anoher because i seem to remember a “knightrider 2040” or something like that on tv here. it was like an updated version of knight rider or something… still it’s cool that michel biehn is in it. his tv show last year, hawaii, was actually quite nice.
1) Well, trailer music rip-offs:
let’s not forget Glory. It was an amazing score (back when Horner knew his stuff) and i’ve caught that music in numerous other flicks/trailers. While we’re at it, bits and pieces from Carmina Burana (the muscal piece by Carl Orff) can be found in numerous trailers. past that, scores popping up in other films is a huge pet peave of mine. everytime AMC decides to play Scream 2 on a friday night, i can’t stand the parts when the Broken Arrow theme plays in the background as “Dewey’s Theme.”
2) also, i know this is a few AudioEditions late, but incase no one else has got to it, the human dude in the Transformers series was named Spike, and his son’s name was Danny (or Daniel).
3) i’ve recently caught wind of a Knight Rider movie in the works…the only reason i know about it is because it has the greatest character actor of all time in it, Michael Biehn of Terminator and Tombstone fame (and Navy Seals, if anyone actually saw that…). Even though Mike isn’t in the leading role, i’m still a little excited about this and i can’t wait to see how it turns out, straight to video or not…
outside from that, another FANTASTIC audio edition guys…keep up the great work…
It seems for awhile there that every action movie trailer used the music from Aliens. Unfortunatly, none of the actual titles are coming to mind…….. but there was ALOT of them.
Oh yeah, and any trailer that wants to convey a sense of wonder seems to use Edward Scissorhands music.
Wilford Brimley in tight leather………… mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Dareen is right about trailer music that it’s common practice to use music from other movies for a trailer since the score is usually the one of the last things produced.
goto http://www.soundtrack.net/trailers/index.html to find out what music is used for trailers.
But those popular song do fit the theme on what is happening on screen while it is playing. I thought Jesus Walks was perfect for the Jarhead trailer
I get totally pissed of about stealing other music. Most recently, I almost turned off my TV when I watched the commercial for “The Weather Man” and it featured “Where is my mind?” by the Pixies.
No big deal? Not at all. This is THE song that is played at the end of “Fight Club” as the buildings are crumbling. It is also the only song in the entire movie. I also got upset by the commercial’s use of voice over ala Fight Club.
I also have issue with trailers using popular songs not from that time period. The first time I really noticed was that the end of “The Lords of Dogtown” trailer where they used Green Day. But to me the worst offender is Sam Mendes for allowing “Jesus Walks” to be used with “Jarhead”. That is worse than Kronos Quartet being used is everything (to me it is).
Oh Darren,
You’re just jealous of our “trailer ranting” skilz. :P
Oh… and seriously… GOOD LINKS!
Cheers.
1) Movie trailers and music.
I think you guys are making too much out of this. First, while composers are hired, many times early teaser trailers do not have the completed score to the film at that time. It is a common Hollywood practice, there is nothing new under the sun.
By the way, it isn’t the ‘Jurassic Park’ music you sometimes hear. That theme is from ‘Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story”. Other popular temp tracks you might hear are snippets of “Under Siege”, “Gladiator” and “Last Of The Mohicans” is really getting a lot of time recently…”Die Hard” is sometimes used, and then there’s the temp track trailer king…James Horner’s “Aliens”!
Someone named Kevman has a rundown of the most popular (and overused) movie temp music in teaser trailers- a very good list, but hard to read due to some background graphics:
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/8356/movietrailers2.html
Now, sometimes movies are sequels, so sequels using temp music from past installments don’t count. But when the final trailer for a film comes out, if the score is finished, then it will be in the trailer.
While we’re at it, I don’t want to hear anymore overused songs, H’wood should find something new. You mentioned ‘The Matrix”- one of the commonly used tunes is, aside from Lunatic Calm’s “Leave You Far Behind” is The Propellerheads “Spybreak”. That’s not the score, just previously recorded tunes that happened to be in that film.
2) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
I am a huge Val Kilmer fan. I thought he was great in last year’s “Spartan”. I’m also looking forward to seeing this film to see how well Shane Black directs. I been hearing nothing but good stuff about the film. Sadly, it isn’t opening in my area, and I’m not at the Austin Film Festival, where it is showing. (I previously went there a few years ago) Shane Black is one of the panelists there as he has been years previously. Okay- I’m not that worried. I lot of good fims so far this year open mostly by word of mouth and/or audience response. I’ll be seeing it soon.
So what did I see tonight? I…got..talked..into it….sorta…
3) Doom. If you like the game, good for you. Play it and avoid this turkey. Karl Urban, Rock and hottie Rosalind Pike cannot save the film. I hear some people love this crap, and especially that dreaded ‘first person shooter’ three minute sequence. I liked it for four, five seconds. I liked the scene where a guy bangs his head in a pexiglass window. I indentified with that character. Cheer up… I went to the cheap matinee…my six dollar loss is my loss and not yours. So is ninety minutes of my life I will never get back. Count your blessings.
Oh and…
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051020/REVIEWS/51012003/1023
“Toward the end of the movie, there is a lengthy point-of-view shot looking forward over the barrel of a large weapon as it tracks the corridors of the research station. Monsters jump out from behind things and are blasted to death, in a sequence that abandons all attempts at character and dialogue and uncannily resembles a video game.”
-Roger Ebert
Good show, but…too much ranting on the trailer thing.
-DJS
stream of conciousness while i listen to the udio edition…
so i suppose i’m going to get into this as well, the track in question is by the kronos qaurtet, and was for the “requiem for a dream” soundtrack. there was a remixed version version featured on the remix album that was then used in lord of the rings, bringing it to a wider audience, and that is what everyone knows it from now.
i assume the reason this is done is because it’s reltively cheap (saves you having to come up ith some crap yourself) and can elicit a kind of emotion. eg. your film could be a slow moving thing, but the trailer is cut to make it seem like a fast action thing, then you’d have to use an outside song.
there have been a films that have ripped on the gladiator music. can’t remember which ones, but it really pissed me off watching the trailers.
ooh! “sky captain and the world of tomorrow” totally ripped off stargate (the tv show, not sure if its the same music used in the film)
queen latifah squandered? what about halle berry? although queen does take it to another level, with the amount of crud she’s been in lately. if you take away the oscar bit, there are tons of actors who squander thanks to addictions and plain bad choices.
bowfinger may be great, but not enough people watched it (for an unknown reason) for it to be remembered.
total sidenote, but do you know how transformers fits in with beast wars /beast machines series. did nyone actually see them? i thought they were great cg cartoons.
Hey ZiggyStarchild.
Bang on the money. You are correct sir. Thanks for the correction dude!
~John
Titan AE = Don Bluth/Fox and not Disney.
It’s a pet peeve of mine when people call every 2d movie a Disney film, when
other studios made bad 2d features not just Disney.
cheers
I think the music for LOTR TTT trailer is a slightly modfied Requiem for a Dream score.
I believe that the new Jash Lucas sports drama Glory Road had the same music from Remeber The Titans.
But there are at least 20 or so sports films that have come out over the years that copied music from another sports film.
I can’t place what movies but a lot of films copied that one theme from WaterWorld.
You mention originality – Goon – got it right on the music you mention was ripped of by LOTR from a chap called Clint Mansell (aka Clint Poppie), composer to the soundtrack for Requiem for a Dream… the frontman of the now reformed british group POP WILL EAT ITSELF (or PWEI)
just wanted to get the facts right on this one – PWEI & Requiem for a Dream rule
Hey Goon,
You’re 100% correct on both counts. That, however, doesn’t change my point. Just because it’s Lord Of The Rings doen’t make it any better of a practice.
Good job pointing that out. I should have said that myself.
Zathura did NOT rip off LOTR:TTT’s music.
that music came from Requiem for a Dream, LOTR ripped it off first, and that music never happens during that movie.