Nicholas Kmet | The Danger Theme: Self-Plagiarism in Film Music (Part 1) @nicholaskmet2059 | Uploaded September 2016 | Updated October 2024, 2 hours ago.
If you've heard it, you'll recognize it almost immediately. James Horner's danger theme is ubiquitous to film music, and helped earn Horner a reputation for reusing music between scores. Of course, Horner is not the only film composer to have reused music between scores.

This is part one of a video essay analyzing and contextualizing this phenomenon in film music. This part defines self-plagiarism, and provides examples to both support that definition and display its universality among film composers.

For educational purposes only.

Part 2: youtu.be/tO1IzC99FxQ

Music Examples from the Essay:
The Danger Theme: youtu.be/V8KxvE6PLKs
James Horner's Self-Plagiarisms: youtu.be/YAIIdW62Cjk
Hollywood Self-Plagiarisms: youtu.be/paxfFVlXFoQ
The Curse of the Black Pearl and Remote Control Productions: youtu.be/0N5w8iSfqrs

Other Links:
J. Bryan Lowder's article "Is Hans Zimmer, Movie Composer Extraordinaire, Repeating Himself?" on Slate:
slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/11/05/hans_zimmer_scores_the_same_does_movie_composer_repeat_himself_audio.html