Talk:James Horner

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[edit] Jewish?

Why is he listed as a Jewish composer at the bottom of the page? I was under the impression he was of English and possibly Austrian heritage on his fathers side. No where can I find a source that says he's Jewish. Correct me if I'm wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.179.150.126 (talk) 04:54, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] From ViP

[edit] James Horner article

The James Horner article (about the film composer) seems to have been removed, history and all. Moreover, its talk page not only has an obscenity on it, but has been protected, though it is not on the list of protected pages. I don't see any discussion of this in the usual places (unless there's a usual place I'm just unaware of). What's going on here? -mhr 18:58, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The talk page is not actually protected, it just had the protected msg. As for the article, it may never have existed. --No-One Jones 19:03, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I'm sure the article existed. I've read it before (which is why the change to the talk page was showing up in my Watchlist today), and there was even a debate on the talk page about including some content from an external Web site (possibly here, but I'm not certain), which the author of said site wanted to include. It's a bit disturbing that it seems to have up-and-vanished... -mhr 20:52, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)
It did indeed exist. Snoyes deleted it in December as it was apparently a copyvio. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:38, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I'll write up a new page. Taco 02:44, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] no particular order

The soundtracks are neither alphabetized nor in date order. What gives? MPS 20:43, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

-Also, The awards/nominations for the movie 'braveheart' on the James Horner page do not match up with those on the braveheart page..? can someone correct please.-

[edit] Skating around a rather central issue

Don't get me wrong, I own many Horner scores, but even I admit that large segments of his music is interchangable. To soften the articles about him by saying people "feel" he reuses is servicing no one fairly. Horner makes very appropriate movie music, that has a tendency to reuse entire compositional sections with no change in orchestration. That's fine.

That's the sort of composer he is and there's no shame in saying that he's a very commercial, uhhh....efficient, composer. He's found what works and sticks to it. There's no shame in it and no shame in saying it.
The article doesn't even deal with the fact that his music is annoyingly repetitive. To use his Braveheart score as an example, Horner wrote a probably 32-bar long theme for Braveheart with a certain orchestration (solo instrument plays the melody, then full orchestra repeats it, I believe) and then uses that same exact segment of music over and over and over again for every dramatic scene in the movie. John Williams, in contrast, swaps around motives between different instruments and sections and will change the shape and form of themes to create an appropriate mood, Horner just plays the same stuff over and over again, ad infinitum.
there is nothing wrong with James Horner's film scores. Just because he has sections in his music that sound like they could be from another movie that he wrote for, doesn't make him a bad composer. If you still don't understand, maybe the shere number of movies he's been hired to score for says something about how well his music is appreciated. So just leave him alone.
I would like to point out that one of the reasons that Braveheart was so popular was because of its brilliant soundtrack. It really makes the movie more than what it actually is.
This seriously needs to stop. Yes, Horner reuses motifs and sometimes even subthemes all the time, but people are making a mountain out of a molehill. He's an artist, and that's his style. James Horner's music is familiar, he has certain signatures that tell the listener that it is his music. Without waxing too philosophical, it's as if he, or rather, his music, is another actor in the film. I'm a composer (not professional, or of the level of Horner), and I reuse elements of other pieces in new compositions all the time. Horner's music is very emotional, and he uses specific phrases to evoke or emphasize certain emotions. I am sick of James Horner being known as "that guy who recycles his music." Take Jerry Goldsmith, for instance. He did an amazing score for The Secret of NIMH. An eleborate passage during a scene of that movie was reused almost in its entirety in the airplane chase scene of The Mummy. It's far more common than most people acknowledge.
I've heard the "he has certain signatures that tell the listener that it is his music" line before, in a slightly different form. In fact, I heard "we have a signature style" from Nickelback's lead singer when it was pointed out that two of their songs sounded exactly the same when played simultaneously. Having "a signature style" is no excuse to use the same section over and over and over and over and over again in a score. John Willams' scores are very melodic with distinct themes for each character but his themes are rarely (if ever) played in exactly the same manner each time they're heard in a score.
I'm not sure it needs to stop... the central problem in my view isn't Horner's reuse of his own themes. It is his reuse of other composer's themes. My awareness of this problem came with Horner's first big hit, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, where he clearly reused Prokofiev's "Battle on the Ice" from Alexander Nevsky. Though I've watched few of the movies he has scored (Am I the only person who never bothered to see Titanic?) some fairly cursory research turned up a number of examples where he has recycled famous bits of "classical" music (well, mostly 20th Century era). I'm no musician, but I am an academic. If I reuse someone's ideas, I have to provide a citation. For me, Horner's reuse of other's themes rankles a bit. If they provide citations at the end of the movie, even in a folksy style (If you liked this score, you'll LOVE Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky!!!) I'd think it was OK, but without citations, it is a bit dishonest. When he quotes himself, it is no big deal... they were his ideas anyway. What I have heard of his music is fine and it enhances the films it is a part of, but people should be made aware that he often stands on the shoulders of giants. I'm going to go back and look at the credits of ST2:TWOK and see if Prokofiev is credited.
In Star Trek II, only a small portion of the Battle on Ice section sounds remotely similar to Horner's score (Kirk's first encounter with Khan on the Reliant, for everyone's reference), and it is by no means plagiarism. It is hardly a significant enough resemblance or long enough to warrant a citation in my opinion.--71.197.114.207 03:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC) Markarian
I added a famously contentious soundtrack of his, and someone (with no user name) promptly deleted it. What is the point of that? Does someone want to revert it? I don't know what the guidelines are about that. Amazinrick 16:58, 4 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Plagerism

Some needs to note that he has frequently been accused of plagerrizing his scores. This is pretty important.

He's not "plagerrizing". It's called quoting and is done by _all_ composers.
P-L-A-G-I-A-R-I-Z-E & P-L-A-G-I-A-R-I-S-M. And I don't think anybody's accusing him of plagiarism, just monotonous non-variation.
Whether he does plagiarize/recycle is debatable, but I think the fact that there is a debate (and a pretty big one, at that, from what I've seen) is probably worthy of mention. Do people agree? Any sources (forum discussions, reviews, etc.) which could be used to back this up? Nyvhek 17:45, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
A quick Google search did turn up this interesting discussion on film scoring. http://korngold-society.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=148&sid=cf1e83061572750554b8a199362d6a00

[edit] =Let me help you

Listen to Battle Beyond the Stars and tell me entire segments from Patten and Star Trek the Motion Picture weren't plagairzed. There, that good enough for you?


[edit] Criticism

What happened to the "Criticism" section? Why was it removed?

There the section goes again. It's not freakin' vandalism; it's an honest discussion of his style, whatever it may be.

[edit] Fanboy vandalism

I'm watching The Howling for the first time, and the big wolf attack is Khan's attack on the Enterprise/The Rocketeer/ Battle Beyond the Stars unless you're deliberately, willfully blind, deaf or a lawyer. The fanboys repeatedly strike Horner's theft and plagiarism from the article.

Keep in mind that those three movies you mentioned were scored by Horner. You can't plagiarize or "steal" from yourself. Battle Beyond the Stars came out a year before "The Howling" so Horner couldn't have plagiarized the score for this movie for Battle Beyond the Stars, or any of the other films you mention.
I'm not a fanboy, I'm a musician and an avid film score enthisiast who is attempting to defend his favorite composer from accusations of plagiarism and outright theft. I don't know if some of you grasp how grave, damning, and serious an allegation of plagiarism is, whether in art or academia, but as per Wikipedia's Biography policy, and common decency, you'd better have your facts straight before you level those kind of charges against someone. --71.197.114.207 03:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC)Markarian
Copying bars of instrumentation from one's own scores is common practice. If you copy a whole theme from one movie to another, it might make sense if you describe the same thing. (Like copying the French Horn flurries or even the entire theme from Star Trek II's main title to Star Trek III, since it's the continuation of the same story) Sticking to Star Trek, Jerry Goldsmith also reused his signature theme for all of his Star trek scores. Because, of course, it IS always Star Trek.
It is not acceptable (or at least it is notable) if Horner uses a theme for the Klingons in Star Trek III and later uses the very same theme, including orchestration, as the Xenomorph theme in "Aliens". You may not call it plagiarism, but you may call it lack of imagination or of musical instinct, cut-corner attitude, lazyness or disregard for the listeners' intelligence. -- megA 10:22, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Pagemaster

Didn't Horner also score the children's film The Pagemaster? Why hasn't that score been mentioned in the article? I'm kousekouse - I'm going to research this, and mod this article and The Pagemaster article if it turns out that he did do that score. Unless of course someone wants to beat me to it.....

[edit] Colaborations

You should add Horner's works with Mel Gibson and Joe Johnston, among others. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.76.103.97 (talk) 05:07, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Forgot to sign --Kousekouse 11:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Middle name

Where can proof of Horner's middle name be found? There is no definitive proof provided that his middle name is "Roy". iMDB is NOT proof, especially considering the biographies on that site can be written by "Anonymous" authors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nl197 (talk • contribs) 07:27, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

His full name is listed in the California Birth Index - [1], which of course comes from the State of California's records. I'm putting that back now. - DoubleCross (talk) 22:45, 15 April 2008 (UTC)