Temp Score Extravaganza Part 1/4

By Luke Goljan

Before I rush headlong into what could be viewed as a very insulting piece, I want to make it perfectly clear what my goals are here. I'm not trying to expose composers for ripping off other composers, nor am I saying I know for a fact that any temp-tracking indeed took place at all. It could be the composer's own fault, or the fault of a director or producer who fell in love with the temp music and wouldn't let the poor composer deviate from its confines. There are plenty of reasons for one thing to end up sounding sort of like another, or in many cases exactly like another. And by no means is this list all-inclusive, since it is based mostly on my own collection. Though extensive, it cannot be a completely accurate representation of every sound-alike out there. Also, I want to mention that I don't intend on covering repeated motifs used by the same composer. If I were to do that, the entire article would be all about Danny Elfman, Alan Silvestri, David Newman and Hans Zimmer, who manage to find little ways of working favorite snippets and trademarks into almost everything they do. And for those still with me, let's see if we can't find some cool "covers" of our favorite cuesÖ

First in my collection resides the composer who got me into film music in the first place, Danny Elfman. In examining his music, believe it or not, the very quirky and original Elfman does indeed reference several other artists here and there. The main theme for Batman has a charming origin (thought up on a plane ride and hummed into a tape recorder in the bathroom!) but when listening to Elfman's champion Bernard Herrmann's score to Journey to the Center of the Earth, it becomes immediately apparent where else he drew inspiration. The main titles in Batman borrow heavily from the "Mountain Top and Sunrise" cue. The tinkling chimes, the horns, the heavy organ for the appearance of the word "Batman" upon the screenÖit's all there.

In an instance of genuine puzzlement, the mambo piece in Flubber bears a marked similarity to the "Diva Dance" cue in Eric Serra's The Fifth Element. Given that they both center around the idea of sampling the female voice to augment it to unattainable extremes, it could be a total coincidence, but the similarities cannot be ignored. You decide for yourself.

The dreamy slow-motion overexposed flashback music of The Frighteners utilizes similar orchestration as the dreamy slow-motion overexposed flashback music of Paul Buckmaster's Twelve Monkeys, but it's probably a coincidence, since the themes sound nothing alike. Or perhaps Elfman was merely able to compose with the same emotion present in the Twelve Monkeys piece and not copy it exactly the way many composers have done when presented with temp tracks.

Floating around out there is a bootleg CD of his demo recordings to Jimmy Calicutt and Little Demons, the former of which has a delightful song about the fast-paced world of corporate business set intentionally, I would imagine, to the main title motif from Psycho. As they sing about advancement up the corporate ladder, the intentional reference is much better utilized than Richard Band's lambasted attempt to do so with his Re-Animator scores (but I'll get to that later). It also helps that Elfman does several variations on the motif, not relying totally upon it.

The highly praised original-sounding score to Pee-Wee's Big Adventure is obviously inspired by Nino Rota's 8 1/2 score, which Elfman has admitted to. Although I really do admire and respect Elfman, the inspiration is fairly heavy-handed. Perhaps the very reason that Elfman was not raked across the coals for this the way Richard Band was for the previously-mentioned "inspiration" is because at large the public is very ignorant of earlier artists in any field (and I do not attempt to exclude myself from this category). Only those composers whose work has been practically rammed down our throats are remembered. Of course, it doesn't help that Band has kept being "inspired" while Elfman went on to higher-profile work.

Finally, I discovered two incredibly odd sound-alikes, in the cases of Planet of the Apes and the recent Spider-Man. The former manages to have a theme almost identical to one found in James Horner's Jumanji score (Apes track 8, 1:13 in is a good example), the latter containing a theme strikingly similar to Miles Goodman's theme for Blankman! While both of these instances do have reasons to suspect temp-tracking, it's fairly ludicrous to assume that anyone would insist that Elfman copy the theme for a movie that treats crime-fighting as a joke especially since it isn't even officially released on CD. To hear the best example of the theme in question, go in 2:07 on Spider-Man track 14 or listen to the music when Blankman first shows off his crime-fighting outfit. And while it's true, Apes and Jumanji both have a jungle element to them, but their sounding alike is probably more accident than not, unless the influence was subconscious or part of an elaborate in-joke. More than likely, it's a very odd coincidence, but worth hearing.

I'll bet the extraordinarily talented Marco Beltrami wishes he could get out of the Dimension horror movie circuit and flex his creative muscles since much of his material has started to sound alike (or maybe he relishes this the way Christopher Young does?). Still, sounding like a cross between Danny Elfman and Christopher Young, his stuff consistently impresses the hell out of me. His score to the god-awful Dracula 2000 was the best part of the movie. The main title was obviously temp-tracked with Hans Zimmer's Gladiator music, a popular score at the time, resulting in a sound-alike from Beltrami. To his credit, most of the rest of the music avoids sounding anything like it.

Beltrami's promo for the music to the short-lived TV series Land's End contains a few tracks of interest. One, "Distorted Reality," a earlier version of the much regurgitated "Trouble in Woodsboro" theme associated with the Scream films (as well as several other films which hoped to create such box-office success and called upon Beltrami to ape his own music, like Night Watch). Another track, "Solitude/The Search" is almost an exact copy of James Newton Howard's Waterworld track "Swimming." On a not-so-negative note, the CD is a great place to hear many ideas Beltrami later put into use on his "major" scores.

Oddly enough, The Minus Man has a theme similar to the love theme in Big Top Pee-Wee. It can't possibly be a temp-track ? who could have possibly thought to use music from Pee-Wee for a serious film? It is a nifty sound-alike, though. As I mentioned before, much of Beltrami's music seems to draw inspiration from Danny Elfman (even though he studied under Jerry Goldsmith), so I wouldn't be surprised if at some level the influence was subconscious.

One of the most obvious instances of temp-tracking is a case that even the casual listener can point out -- that of Broken Arrow. Wes Craven decided to ditch Beltrami's sound-alike Deputy Dewey music for Scream 2 and just go with the Broken Arrow music he had already been using as a temp track. Anyone who bought the CD will hear Beltrami's brave attempt at not completely ripping off Zimmer (and to be fair, Duane Eddy, since much of the Travolta character's music was inspired by his style -- and performed by him as well!). In the movie, however, you'll just hear the Broken Arrow music. Amusingly enough, Graeme Revell's score to Bride of Chucky manages to take the same idea and run with it, creating a love theme for Chucky and his plastic gal-pal Tiffany that nicely apes Broken Arrow, and makes it into the movie as well. Also worth mentioning is that Bride of Chucky director Ronny Yu and Broken Arrow director John Woo have previously worked together overseas, so perhaps the temp-tracking has deliberate origins. As a side note, in Scream, Beltrami intentionally utilizes part of the theme to John Carpenter's Halloween during the sequence in which Drew Barrymore's character is quizzed on that subject -- the theme is there, but it's on purpose.

Jerry Goldsmith escapes this entire article unscathed, unless you count the number of times his Omen and Basic Instinct music have been ripped off by other composers. Or the times he's intentionally done knock-offs of his Patton theme. It is worth mentioning that director Joe Dante ditched Goldsmith's sound-alike Morricone music for Tom Hank's character in The 'burbs and just went with the original temp-track, whose origins I'm embarrassed to say I can't remember. Worthy of mention as well is how similar in feeling Totall Recall is to Poledouris' RoboCop, both directed by Paul Verhoeven, who more likely than not temped RoboCop and Conan beneath Recall when showing his first cut.

Christopher Young mostly escapes this article as well, with the exception of two instances that could be completely accidental. His score to Swordfish contains a bit during the exciting chase sequence (track 7 on the promo cd) that sounds identical to Shirley Walker's exciting (and unofficially released) chase music to the teen thriller Final Destination. Young's score to Urban Legend utilizes the same slicing strings during "Sexual Axe" as Danny Elfman used for the Dee Wallace Stone character in his score to The Frighteners. Incidentally, the track in question was released on the wretched commercial soundtrack as "Sex Advice with an Axe," blended with some other tracks to pad it out into a 10 minute "suite," so you don't have to track down the now expensive promo. In both instances the music accompanies a harrowing chase scene and on both CDs sounds almost exactly the same. I find it amusing that the man who basically invented the "modern horror movie sound" of "music concrete" ends up sounding like other horror movie music.

Alan Silvestri's music to Fandango ends up sounding very similar to the climactic music from Poltergeist, the swells and dips matching up all too well. In other places, its James Horner's Aliens. Both cues are instantly recognizably borrowed, since they've appeared in so many other incarnations in so many other composer's scores. You can find this as a limited CD calling itself a "promo" (which it isn't, I'm fairly certain) that's packaged along with Blown Away. Or you can just watch the movie and suffer through Kevin Costner.

Some super-genius must have looked at Mousehunt in the editing room and said "Well, here is a movie about a nasty little rodent repelling people from his home set around Christmas timeÖlet's use the Home Alone music for those test audiences." And Silvestri's end result carries the same playful mood and instrumentation, albeit never straying into thematic copycating. In other spots in the film, the music starts to develop a definite Hook vibe, though the moment action kicks in, it quickly switches back to the frenetic orgasms of sound Silvestri is noted for. As fun and exciting as the score can be in places, the fact that Silvestri was required to work around Williams temp tracks is a hard argument to deny. Indeed, Mousehunt sounds so much like John Williams that the Harry Potter And the Sorcerer's Stone video and DVD trailers sandwiched portions of Silvestri's music in between Williams' music actually from Harry Potter and it all flows perfectly enough that only rabid film score nuts notice the difference.

In an instance of just plain thievery involving John Williams, Silvestri pretty much borrows the theme from John Williams Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to serve for Siegfried & Roy's The Magic Box, a show no doubt about some white tiger on a spinning platform. Everything about the theme is exactly the same except for the last three notes. Other portions of the score come criminally close to WaterWorld. In Silvestri's defense, this was probably the result of the Magicians of the Century having already worked out their routine to certain pieces and then having him come in and retool them to be something "original.'" Silvestri, in my humble opinion, is one of the better and more original composers working today, with a unique and versatile voice. Of course, when someone will only pay him if his stuff ends up sounding like something that came before it, he seems to be as human as the next man.

Super Mario Bros. seems a good example of Silvestri bowing to studio wishes. For some reason, the Italian plumbers have an incredibly Danny Elfman sounding oompa-oompa theme with a Pee-Wee solo line. Sparesly used throughout the film, Silvestri mostly busies the soundscape with his usual exciting string orchestration and action music, adding a level of seriousness strangely present only in the music and production design. Furthering confusion, the familiar Mario Bros theme from the video game appears only briefly at the start of the movie and then never again -- why ditch one outright bouncy (highly recognizable) theme for another (more derivative) one? Why this was done is anyone's guess, but the end result in the movie is yet another Pee-Wee/Elfman soundalike.

For anyone who didn't get it, the "homage" What Lies Beneath was going for was Bernard Herrmann's Psycho. That being said, it's still pretty heavy-handed. Of course, it's not as heavy-handed as Jonathan Miller's score to the direct-to-video cash-in-on-current-hot-movie's-success teen thriller Ripper: Letter from Hell, which hoped everyone would confuse it with the Hughes Brothers movie featuring Johnny Depp. Amusingly, when Miller's score isn't creeping around as brooding low-register synths, it's completely ripping off Silvestri's What Lies Beneath right down to tempo and orchestration. Funny to think that by doing this, Ripper ends up being a knock-off of a knock-off. Daniel Licht also later stole Silvestri's four note descending theme for use in the teen thriller Soul Survivors, then built a Christopher Young sounding score around it. To his credit, I think it sounds fantastic.

Daniel Licht also did a Christopher Young sound-alike of Hellraiser for Children of the Night, directed not suprisingly by Tony Randel, of Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 infamy. More than likely it was Randel's insistence to make the music sound so much like the Christopher Young music he had temped in that led to the Hellraiser rip, which by the way, is nothing less than totally obvious. It seems that Licht is viewed as a Christopher Young replacement sometimes, since the director of Soul Survivors, Steve Carpenter, had previously worked with Young and had more than likely temped in his music. To bring this all full circle, Licht was at one point 'allowed' to rip off Christopher Young to his heart's content when he was hand-picked by Clive Barker to score Hellraiser: Bloodlines. Perhaps Barker had heard Licht's score to Children of the Night.

David Newman seems to have been inspired by Silvestri's score to The Abyss, since almost everything he writes for choir ends up sounding similar to it. Check out Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey and listen to the music when they arrive in heaven, or pick up his Galaxy Quest promo and listen to track 4, where Tim Allen stares into space. Of course, he's had other influences. His music for the dream sequence in Anastasia shares structural similarities with music from Jerry Goldsmith's Legend score, dancing back and forth from spritely choir-filled fantasy to harsh brass reality at strikingly similar intervals.

Then there's his Bernard Herrmann music for Coneheads, with a theme very similar to The Day the Earth Stood Still and climactic ships-attack-earth music that sounds just like Beetlejuice. Matilda also gets a Beetlejuice-inspired action cue for her telekinetically powered flying toys (it kicks up again over the credits as well), while The Sandlot follows The 'burbs for a cue where the boys build a robot to retrieve their lost baseball. The similarity here might have been subtler if Newman hadn't utilized the 'Shave and a Haircut' sound effect present in Goldsmith's storytelling music. Tommy Boy was, predictably, temped with Elfman's Back to School, and it shows big time.

Michael Kamen's insistence on including snippets from Peter and the Wolf or "Winter Wonderland" in his scores won't get mentioned further here, but it's evident that somebody involved in making Frequency liked James Newton Howard's score to Outbreak a lot. Kamen's music for the opening firefighter rescue is almost identical to Outbreak's track 11. It's also one of the only pieces of score in Frequency that sounds like it was performed on synths. And while on the subject of Kamen, I'd just like to point out that everyone who owns Adventures in Babysitting should take out their copy and check out when they first meet truck driving Mr. John Pruitt. That's the theme to the movie he's whistling as he walks up to them. Kamen's a nut for this sort of in-jokey stuff and personally, I always find it fun to spot.

I used to love John Debney's music until I expanded my soundtrack collection. It seemed I kept finding music that was written before his that sounded much too similar. Of course, his music still stands on it's own, but its suspect roots now show, tarnishing my enjoyment of his work. End of Days has a main solo choral theme that can be found in Harald Kloser's The Thirteenth Floor during a quiet moment in track 10. The "Agnus Dei" repeatedly chanted throughout the score has earlier origins as well, it's a classical piece I've heard in too many places to count (it even popped up on a cd by Norwegian goth-metal rockers Tristania!).

I Know What You Did Last Summer is Basic Instinct, no contest, it has the same pacing and mood. Even the chases are handled in similar fashion, with staccato under-rhythms carrying a sweeping brass theme. Not that this makes it a bad score. I have quite the soft spot for it. Thankfully, you can find this one as a limited promo for much cheaper than the $400 it once commanded. It also has shades of Christopher Young and Alan Silvestri, but then again, much of Debney's work does. Most bizarre is the inclusion of a six-note motif that appears in no fewer than three other scores. Mark Snow's The X-Files: Fight The Future, John Frizzell's Alien Resurrection and John Ottman's The Usual Suspects all contain this exact same theme, always played in exactly the same way. As to its origins, I'm baffled, though a friend of mine contests heavily it sounds like something Jerry Goldsmith might have done. To hear this strange piece, go to track 7 on Usual Suspects -- which I'm assuming is the CD of that quartet that most people own -- and wait six seconds.

Debney's score to My Favorite Martian sounds very much like if Danny Elfman did a cover of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Vacillating between using the main theme Elfman composed and what had to have been Silvestri temp-tracks, the score ends up creating an interesting soundscape. The influences, however, are all too present in the form of trilling strings and plucking pizzicato and the prerequisite orchestral sneezes of sound that last all of two seconds where the music just goes nuts.

Many have noted similarities between The Relic and Aliens, which is somewhat justified. I'm sure the Horner music was used as a paradigm, though the end product does end up being strikingly original. More annoying is the case of Sudden Death, where Debney re-used cues from Shirley Walker's Turbulence for the action scenes, the music matching up almost note for note in places. Good luck finding Turbulence on anything other than CDR for comparison, but it's worth it to hear how blatant it is. Of course, that's not the only instance. Debney also makes use of an equally obvious take of James Newton Howard's The Fugitive for a chase in track 4. And to top it all off, the other day I swore I heard the exact same theme Debney used as a main theme playing in the background of some other movie made years before. I can only hope that this was a total coincidence.

The Scorpion Kingsounds very James Newton Howard (Waterworld, mostly) in spots, but pretty much avoids sounding overtly like anything else with the exception of track 3, which borrows some heavy orchestral clashes from Goldsmith's Mummy score. Given the nature of the production, there's pretty much no doubt that music from the Mummy films was used in temp-tracking. To Debney's credit, however, the expansive score avoids the Kull The Conqueror problem of mixing guitars and orchestra and relegates it to only a few tracks. And speaking of Kull, did anyone not notice how similar these two movies seemed? Right down to the flaming sword battle.

I managed to snag some music from James Cameron's Dark Angel TV show composed by Joel McNeely and of course, the first track sounded excruciatingly similar to The Matrix. Being that The Matrix's visual FX have been ripped off, it's not surprising to find people insisting on someone copying the music. But that's something Joel McNeely is really no stranger to. His score to Iron Will makes use of elements from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade that are so similar they almost sound like samples. McNeely's Radioland Murders music completely steals the theme from Vertigo, perhaps since McNeely was working on a re-recording of the Herrmann music at about that time (The theme is so blatantly Vertigo that I once used it in a short film about Alfred Hitchcock and no one noticed the difference). McNeely seems to have a fetish for Vertigo, though, since he used another theme that sounds incredibly similar for Terminal Velocity. Another friend of mine claims to hear the Die Hard main theme married to it as well, but I'm fairly certain that's more a coincidence than McNeely's repeated use of the Vertigo theme.

Return to Neverland, which I am embarrassed to say that I own, sounds very much like The Rocketeer in spots. This is amusing since the movie is about kids discovering they can fly, a la Billy Campbell in the unfortunately bombed (also Disney) movie. Someone put a lot of thought into that one.

And let's not forget Soldier. While I'm not sure I can spot any temp-tracking, I'll be damned if the music doesn't sound exactly like Jerry Goldsmith. McNeely also worked on additional music for Air Force One at about this time, so it's quite possible he just retained the vibe he was in on that session. His music for Air Force One, only available as a bootleg along with Randy Newman's (thankfully) rejected score is almost indistinguishable from Goldsmith's.

To Be Continued...

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