Why does everyone hate Horner so much?

[twbaucom 0]

I am as big a Williams fan as the next guy, but it seemes Horner always gets a bad rap. I will concede that he has a few ideas that seem to pop up in every score and that a lot of his themes come very close to the works you can tell he is copying. However, I respect Horner very much. While he is in no way as creative as JW, he does a very good job at writing music for films. Glory, Braveheart and the Beautiful Mind were all great scores by an obviously talented guy. I am not saying he is the best that ever lived or that he is even in my top 3 but I see no need for the constant bashing of him. Just my two cents

-Thomas

Lieutenant Kije by Prokofiev

[scissorhands 16]

And don't forget Aliens and Willow (and many other).

I like Horner. He is not the most original composer, but his works are good and very listeneable.

My favorite Horner soundtrack: Enemy at the Gates.

[Marian Schedenig 8,240]

Oh, I do like quite some stuff by him. Sneakers is probably one of my favourite scores not just by Horner, and there are other fine ones, like Willow (except where he quotes Schumann), Aliens and Casper.

But respect? When he regularely does ripoffs that sometimes even distract me from the movie? I like his good scores, but I stopped respecting him a long time ago.

[Ray Barnsbury 8]

I don't know why anyone would hate Horner. Like people have said, he's not extremely original, but he writes very enjoyable music. I love The Land Before Time and the Rocketeer, and Titanic is very good also.

Ray Barnsbury

[AHerrera83 0]

I, too, really love Horner's music. Legends of the Fall, Rocketeer, Deep Impact and the two Star Treks are also highlights.

And, yes, Titanic is also an outstanding score! <Pause for all the cynic remarks> :roll:

For me the problem lies in my disappointment after unwrapping a new disc only to find the same motifs over and over and over... If he could just get past that, and find new solutions for similar situations, he'd get a lot more respect.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Hey, anyone who can write a score like Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan, STIII, Rocketeer, Aliens, Deep Impact, Field of Dreams, Titanic, and some others, has got alot of my money.

I don't spend my money on people I don't like.

[RomanticStrings 10]

I like Horner. He is my third favorite composer, behind John Williams (1st) and Jerry Goldsmith (2nd). Sure, many of his scores sound like other scores, but, as long as the score of his I'm listening to at any moment I have heard before and know the music, I can tell it apart from the rest. I wouldn't mistake Apollo 13 for Braveheart or Star Trek III. Also, his style has changed over the years. Iris is very different than The Wrath of Khan. Even in the past years it has changed. Apollo 13 is very different than A Beautiful Mind. In the context of the films, his music works well and improves the scene emotionally. That is what filmscore is intended for. It is only a bonus that it is good by itself.

~Conor

[UCFKevin 0]

I don't hate him, either. He HAS done some truly excellent stuff.

[Guest]

Horner is up there in my top or 6 composers!!

I love the fact that certain themes and motives reoccur from time to time,

Here's a guy getting paid shit loads of money to write film scores, and he keeps going back to ideas he had years ago - Frankly I admire that!!

As a University student I was always looking at ways to rewrite my previous essays and hand them in as completely diff works, James I love you!!!

and the term "self-plagerism" Look up the word plagerism in a dictionary and then please try and explain to me exactly what "self-plagerism" is??

Stealing from yourself??? What a load of shit!!!!

I feel sooo much better now!!!

[King Mark 3,631]

I like some of them,but listen to a few and they all sound the same.Can you tell a track from deep impact and not confuse it with Perfect Storm,or Titanic...

K.M.

[Miguel Andrade 1,267]

I enjoy Horner, some of his scores are even among some of hte ones I love the most. But Horner is just a good film composer -- he writes well for movies, he get the right feeling for a scene, even if he copies for the thousanth time Kahacaturian's adagio from Gayane.

Being a concert hall composer, an abstract composer, were the muisc has to exist solelly by itself, well, I think he's not. He repits himself too much for that (worst, he repeates what others have written before).

Williams his a composer, he can do whatever he wants. Horner his a film composer, he writes very well for film. This are diferent thing, and I really don't mind that a film composer as to quote is prior compositions, or even compositions by others, since they are credited. Korngold qouted some of his concert music on his film works, and even vice-versa, and knowone seems to care. So why care so much about that with Horner (O.K. maybe Horner over quotes....)

[Lurker 5]

I've lost all respect for Whore-Ner. Listening to his earlier film scores, there seems to have been some real excitment in his work, despite the Goldsmith and Prokofiev rips. But now, that's all I seem to hear in his modern stuff, and I can't stand it.

I still listen to his music from the early 80's but that's about it.

Neil

[Morn 8]

Horner? He's very talented, but lazy.

[twbaucom 0]

When people say he rips off Schumann or Kahacaturian, do you mean he steals everything? I have noticed some things that sound like other classical works but I think if you look hard enough you can find that anything anybody has written sounds like another piece. I, myself, see a man who was inspired by these previous pieces. Of course, there are people on this board who are so much more knowledgable about the pieces that Horner borrows from. Can anyone give me an example so I try to better understand what he is doing?

-Thomas (who rips off Copland like nobody's business)

[Figo 2]

Uh, Neil -- I hate to nitpick, but I think you misspelled his name! LOL

Figo, who will reserve comment, lest the entire thread shift focus and become a personal attack on him.

[Figo 2]

Thomas, if you are ripping off Copland, you have excellent taste in music. Also, you will be well aware that Horner does the same in Field of Dreams. (Give another listen to Our Town.)

As far as exact cribs go -- and I mean exact -- I may be mistaken, he could changed one note in the harmony somewhere or something -- but it sounds as if he spliced entire sections of Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky and Rachmaninoff's 1st Symphony into Willow. And that's just the beginning of a long list of "borrowings" in that highly derivative score.

Figo, going back on his word.

[ZAMBELIS 0]

Horner is not so bad although all his scores are NOT original. All film composers steal from others and from themselves but he simply overdoes it. There are about 5 or 6 good scores but that doesn't make him a great film composer. I hate when people say its their favourite after Williams, Goldsmith and Zimmer (HA, HA). I can think of at least 20 film composers that are far superior than Horner.

Alfred Newman, Waxman, Korngold, Friedhofer, Steiner, Morricone, John Scott, Henry Mancini, John Barry, Michel Legrand, MAurice Jarre, MArio Nascimbene, Rozsa, Morross, Malcolm Arnold, . Even Poledouris, Doyle, Goldenthal,Shaiman, Robbins. And nto forget GOldsmith and WILLIAMS

[Marian Schedenig 8,240]

When people say he rips off Schumann or Kahacaturian, do you mean he steals everything?

Not everything. But too much. Everyone borrows occasionally. Nobody would complain about Horner if he wouldn't do it so much that it has become his trademark - or in such a poor way. For one thing, I sometimes get distracted from the movie because I'm wondering why I heard that before. Plus he often modifies the stolen themes so slightly that they sound 1) worse and 2) like if he was trying to say "but look, it's not identical".

There's another type of copying. Two others, in fact. For one thing, there's what Williams does in Star Wars, which is using the exact same style as another composer in another work, clear enough that you can hear where it comes from. I don't have a problem with that as long as it's not too long, or doesn't quote a whole theme. The other type is what Rosenman did in the song in his LOTR score, which contains a 1:1 copy of a passage from Holst's Jupiter - but in the song, it sounds so different that it took me years to notice it. It's the same melody, but it sounds totally different.

I, myself, see a man who was inspired by these previous pieces.

Inspiration is music that has a similar style like something else, not an identical theme. At least that's my definition. Many people say it's just Horner's style, which IMHO is a confusion of what style actually is.

I don't mind the 4-note-motif, it's a funny trademark. I don't mind Beethoven's 9th or Glassworks in Sneakers, they don't jump at you and shout "ripoff". The Gayaneh (I've read this is a misspelling, but my Decca CD spells it that way, too?) in Aliens is ok, at least in the score on CD, where it does get it's share of variations by Horner, so he actually *used* it instead of merely copying it.

But Schumann in Willow took me straight out of the movie (even though I watched only 10 minutes of it - I was thinking 20 more minutes before I figured out where that theme came from). Khan at the climax of Aliens took me out of the movie. Even the Death Star explosion music in Aliens keeps confusing me; Williams used an ostinato similar to Holst's in Mars, but Horner takes the Williams bit nearly 1:1, and then he exaggerates by adding more and more at the end. It's a ripoff, AND it's over the top.

For some reason, I still fail to be too annoyed by the Prokofiev bits.

Can anyone give me an example so I try to better understand what he is doing?

Listen to Escape from the Tavern from Willow, and tehn put on the first movement of Schhumann's 3rd symphony.

[Figo 2]

Yes, listen to Escape from the Tavern, and then listen to, in quick succession:

The Death of Tybalt from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet

The Battle on the Ice from Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky

The first movement of Schumann's Symphony No. 3 "Rhenish"

Oh, wait a minute, you already have.

Marian's beef is an excellent one. Knowing a thing or two about music, I am constantly distracted at the movies, when composers or studio execs think they are putting one over on the audience. When I hear a quotation, chances are I'm going to recognize it, but in order to recognize it I'm going to have to disengage myself from the action onscreen and sort through my memory bank. That's annoying in itself, but it becomes even moreso when I finally figure out what it is.

Herbert von Karajan, renowned among other things for his Wagner interpretations, claims not to have recognized Ride of the Valkyries in Apocalypse Now, so powerful were the images onscreen. Personally, I find that hard to believe. But for a film with the balls of Apocalypse Now, I am willing to forgive a lot. Unfortunately, Horner's projects, most of them, hardly shake my world.

As for the spelling of Gayaneh [sic], I wouldn't worry about it, as it's a totally different alphabet -- hence "Rachmaninoff/Rachmaninov," "Tchaikowsky/Tchaikovsky," "Prokofiev/Prokofieff." There are commonly accepted spellings, of course, but I have seen Gayneh written both ways.

[Justin 2]

Da da da daaa!

Justin -Who has nothing more to say and rest his case.

[King Mark 3,631]

I think there are 2,7 pages replies posts concerning Horner ripping music from others on this board already,lets not start another one. :roll:

K.M.

[PetePan 163]

I think there are 2,7 pages replies posts concerning Horner ripping music from others on this board already,lets not start another one. :roll:  

K.M.

yes before this board gets to much Hornerish

[Figo 2]

I think there are 2,7 pages replies posts concerning Horner ripping music from others on this board already,lets not start another one. :roll:  

K.M.

Merely borrowing from ourselves, old bean. A fitting homage, don't you think? 8O

[Beowulf 4]

I used to love Horner...before he turned all sappy and celtic.

Give me scores like those from his "old days" -> Star Trek II and III, Cocoon, Krull, Rocketeer, et al.

bawling

Why Horner?! Why did you have to change!

[Kradia 1]

I used to love Horner...before he turned all sappy and celtic.  

Why Horner?! Why did you have to change

yup.. i agree...

I found his scores boring.....didn't take my places....

Rocketerr, American Tale,Titanic, Willow.......I didn't feel anything when listening to them.

[Figo 2]

Is Cocoon that good? I passed it up the other day, for plenty cheap. The film itself was entertaining, but like most of Ron Howard, hardly earthshattering. I vaguely remember the score, but not well enough to cut into my beer money without proper motivation.

[Ricard 2,245]

Horner is definitely one of my Top 5 favorite composers, despite some really unbearable works like Aliens and Braveheart (which I know most people love, but I absolutely despise -Sorry!).

And since I didn't contribute to the 'Horner Top 5' thread, here is my 'Top 6' :

1) Star Trek III (1984)

2) Star Trek II (1982)

3) Krull (1993)

4) Brainstorm (1983)

5) Cocoon (1985)

6) The Rocketeer (1991)

[Ricard 2,245]

I used to love Horner...before he turned all sappy and celtic.

Give me scores like those from his "old days" -> Star Trek II and III, Cocoon, Krull, Rocketeer, et al.

bawling  

Why Horner?!  Why did you have to change!

I couldn't agree more!

[Figo 2]

Of which I have ST2. Everyone is always raving about Krull. I remember not being so impressed while watching the movie, but maybe it was just the movie! Brainstorm has been recommended to me here before. I have had (and passed up) opportunities to buy second-hand Braveheart, Field of Dreams and Cocoon. I always thought I liked the music to Field of Dreams, but since I watched it again recently, I'm not so sure. Perhaps the Our Town cribs just ruin it for me.

Figo, who likes ST2 and The Mask of Zorro.

[Figo 2]

Ulp! Cocoon is on your list! I guess I can sacrifice $5.00 out of my beer money.

[Beowulf 4]

...everyone is always raving about Krull...Cocoon.

I always liked these two Figo, as they represented all that was Horner before he became tainted! I'd recommend them to you, heck, even more so if they are as cheap as you mentioned.

Richard, you have a very good taste in "Horner" music...mostly because I agree with you.

[King Mark 3,631]

Ulp!  Cocoon is on your list!  I guess I can sacrifice $5.00 out of my beer money.  

You sure can,it's one of the rare Horner scores I wore out the tape and waited years for the Pendulum c.d.It's probably # 1 on my list of Horner scores I like,which aren't that many.

K.M.

[Figo 2]

I don't know -- I really love my beer.

If it's still there tomorrow I will buy it. If it's really good, I may even become a rabid Hornerite, as I was back in the early '80s.

Naaaaaaaa!

[Morn 8]

1) Star Trek III (1984)

[King Mark 3,631]

Whether you like it or not,both ST movies he scored are among his best scores,though unlike Ric,I prefer ST2.

K.M.

[Ricard 2,245]

0) Morn (1983)

[Morn 8]

Well, what is good about the score? The Klingon theme is so corny it makes me laugh and the best music is from Trek 2, the rest is pretty crap. The worst Trek score I think.

[RomanticStrings 10]

I don't know Horner's ST scores very well, but if you're talking about the Klingon theme that Goldsmith wrote, Morn, then Horner didn't write it. I only know that Klingon theme that Goldsmith created for ST: TMP and uses in the latest movies for Worf.

~Conor

[Marian Schedenig 8,240]

Horner wrote his own Klingon theme. It sounds quite a bit like the music for that car thing in Aliens.

[RomanticStrings 10]

Right over my head.

~Conor

[Figo 2]

Is it just me, or is Ricard developing a very wicked sense of humor, of late?

Figo, always appreciative of wicked humor. :evil:

...especially when it's at Morn's expense.

Headin' out to buy Cocoon, boys. If it's still there.

[Figo 2]

Gone. No shortage of Star Trek soundtracks, though, except the only one I'd be interested in (i.e., III). I guess I'll just have to remain an unrepentant Horner basher. :evil:

Figo, who will drown his sorrows now by making a few online purchases.

Still waiting on the Varese Fury.

[KittBash 283]

When it comes to Horner I'm with Beowulf and Ricard's way of thinking! (Love his top 6 and can't stand Braveheart! Wish I could grow to like it but just can't) In fact one of these days I want to get Rocketeer! I even liked Apollo 13 and Mask of Zorro to an extent but I know the man has Talent I just can't make myself Like most of the 90's to Present stuff!

Brian99_1 - Who doesn't hate Horner's stuff but Wishes for a revival of the ST:2 style!

[Beowulf 4]

Brian99_1 - Who doesn't hate Horner's stuff but Wishes for a revival of the ST:2 style!

Can I get an Amen on that!

[Rogue_Leader 2]

I didn't always hate Horner. I don't "hate" him now either. I just hate his near total lack of creativity in the last decade. The man has plagiarized other composers and ripped off his own melodies (assuming they were his in the first place) so often over the years its just ridiculous.

-Rogue Leader who still remember the creative Horner who put out great works like Krull.

[Morn 8]

Some classical fans say the same about Williams...

[Jurassosaurus 0]

Well, I don`t hate him either.

But I do agree with most film music fans today that he is very unoriginal.

In fact, James Horner was more enjoyable in his early days - I mean, in the 80`s, he wrote four totally unforgettable scores : Willow, Aliens, The Land Before Time and Glory.

But I don`t see much wrong with "The Perfect Storm" either.

[Ricard 2,245]

he wrote four totally unforgettable scores : Willow, Aliens, The Land Before Time and Glory.

Precisely, if he wrote a forgettable score in the 80s, that one has to be Aliens

IMO his true gems from that decade are the two Star Trek scores, Krull, Brainstorm, Cocoon and, perhaps, Gorky Park and An American Tail.

[BigKenagain 0]

I just have to chime in here and say that "hate" is probably to strong a word. I agree with what others have said, I have lost respect for the guy in the last few years, but every now and then I still find myself going back to the wonderful stuff that he created through the 80's.

Brainstorm, IMO, is a masterpeice. This is what I find so annoying about the guy... He obviously has some skills, some talent... but he abuses it (and other composers before him) with his damned pentiant for plagerism.

Again, IMO, James Horner's biggest problem is his inconsistency. He either Nails a score right on the mark like... Brainstorm, Sneakers, Gorky Park, Cocoon, ST: II even Battle Beyond The Stars is fun... Krull, An American Tail (the oscar he deserved) All excellent scores... anywhere from 3.5 to 5 out of five

Then came Braveheart (sorry, I just don't hear what the fuss is about) Patriot Games, The Pelican Brief, and of course Titanic... all

The plagerism is in all his scores, if you're going to listen to Horner, you might as well accept it... But he has enough talent to do more original stuff... I think the man has a couple of excellent scores left in him... It's time to piss or get off the pot, Jamie... Consider the gauntlet thrown...

Big Ken: who loves to quote his Grandmother's colloquial sayings

[Lurker 5]

Did anyone here know that Horner was supposed to have scored Never Say Never Again? Imagine a Horner action score from 1983! Oh it would have been great, I bet.

Of course he wound up with a dreaded scheduling conflict, and director Irvin Kershner had to look elsewhere for a composer. Barbara Streisand ( ) recommeded his replacement: Michel Legrand.

Neil