While it's true the first five notes are identical, five notes don't necessarily a stolen theme make. One could also argue that the recurring ostinatto pattern that Rabin uses throughout the score - primarily on the piano and in the upper strings (during action cues) - is provacatively similar to a patter James Horner used a lot in the 80's (like in Project X, Commando, etc...).

But then, if you're going to go down that road, one could also argue that about 50% of Horner's output is directly derived from Prokofiev's "Alexander Nevsky". Particularly his four-note "danger" motif that he loves oh so much. I found it rather humorous and at the same time fascinating that he developed the hell out of it in "Troy" and used it as an actual foundation for much of the thematic material from that film - as opposed to just letting a muted trumpet blare it out , signifying something bad lurking about, like he usually does. And just about any time he does something quasi-Jazzy, it's usually in, let's just call it "homage", to Arvo Part...compare any of Part's "Fratres" to Horner's "Sneakers" for example.

It's not as if Williams hasn't done a significant amount of borrowing from past composers...for instance, his "Can You Read My Mind" theme from "Superman" bares a striking resemblence to a major piece of thematic material from Richard Strauss' "Death and Transfiguration". Hell, he stole his own theme for "The Lost World" from a cue in "Return of the Jedi"!!!Composers have been lifting ideas from their predecessors since note was first put to paper. Much of the Jawa and Sandcrawler music from "A New Hope" was derived from Stravinski's "Rite of Spring".

Listen to enough of Bruce Broughton's work, and you'll begin to notice that he's obviously a big fan of Maurice Ravel - he just orchestrates completely differently. Mike Kamen was reknowned as a Jean Sibelius expert and enthusiast and was never afraid to show it in his music. Hell, every composer in Hollywood owes a significant debt of gratitude to Gustav Holst for "The Planets", particularly "Mars".

I'm not defending Rabin, per se...in fact I personally think he's something of a hack - but usually a guilty pleasure, entertaining hack nevertheless. He's part of a still-growing trend in modern film-composing of rock stars wanting to be orchestral composers. Honestly, I think we can kind of blame Hans Zimmer for that, but that's another post altogether...

shehan23, April 10, 2008; 9:41 AM

@ Shehan

I'll agree with you on most of that, as far as composers regular stealing/copying/taking inspiration from other scores or classical music, and you also obviously have great deal more familiarity with other soundtracks in general. However, the theme for Luke and Leia has several phrases, and the theme from NT2 has only two, but they are identical to the 1st and 3rd phrases of the Williams theme. Same notes, same rhythm, same chord structure. So I'd say it goes beyond happening to have the same first few notes.

I know it's kind of lame responding this way, but I wasn't aware of the layout of this section when I posted my "question."

Piscis_ex_aqua, April 10, 2008; 5:49 PM