The Island theme, WTH?

[lotrfan]

Okay, so I was watching TV just now and I just had to get this off my chest. I saw a trailer for "Seven Pounds" a new movie starring Will Smith, and it was going like any other boring trailer out there when BAM! cue The Island theme and the sea of amazing awesomeness that it brings along with it.

But then I thought about it, and I realized that I've been hearing The Island theme quite often actually, and usually from sources that are not from The Island, such as the Olympics and On-Demand movie trailers.

So my question is why? I don't mean why it made sense for them to use the song - after all, this is the song that could make even a low-budget zombie flick into a cinematic masterpiece - but rather, why didn't they just use their own music from the movie? After all, Howard Shore wrote some incredible scores in Lord of the Rings, but I don't hear them in movie trailers twice a month.

For those of you who haven't seen The Island, it's one of my favorite movies, and one of the most critically underrated films of 2005. And it has beautiful, beautiful music. I highly recommend you watch it and then cry yourself to sleep knowing you just witnessed something so utterly amazing that you want to clone yourself and travel to the future. And in case you have no idea what I'm talking about, watch (or listen, rather) to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_jFY...eature=related

[1]

Maybe the trailer was released before the score was finalized?

[lotrfan]

Maybe, but this is like the 10th movie trailer I've seen as well as the intro for the Olympics that used this theme.

[1]

It maybe cheap to license?

Could be many reasons...

[lotrfan]

Grr...you're defeating the point, Mal

[1]

Yeah, sorry, I don't get the point.

Watch ads on the telly; they keep regurgitating music too.

Someone buys the rights to a song, and they use it to the maximum of the license....nothing odd about it.

It's probably safer many times to use song "X" at a calculable cost and almost guaranteed success, than to commission a new song at probably higher cost, and undetermined outcome.

Seems all logical to me....but do tell, what is the point?

[lotrfan]

Okay, you got me, there was no point. I just wanted to rant. And then someone would see this and say something like "I concur. The Island theme should only be used in The Island. Anyone else who uses it is a chump with no life."

[CWildenradt]

I remember some years ago, hearing music from the original Jurassic Park score in a completely different film trailer. It seemed awfully strange to me at the time.

[1]

Aha!!

By the way, I remember when I watched The Island (totally by accident, without knowing anything about it, or ever hearing about it) that I enjoyed it immensely.

It was somewhat later that I was shocked -and at the same time disgusted- to find that I actually liked a M. Bay movie!!

[lotrfan]

Oh come on, Michael Bay just gets a bad rap. If he keeps on making movies like The Island, he'll be my second favorite director. Wait, actually now that I think of it, he kind of is. Is that bad?

[1]

Who's the first...let me guess? PJ?

He made one good movie: Forgotten Silver, all the rest are pfffff...

[lotrfan]

Actually, it's McG

[Ian-T]

The Island is a great flick....and so is that song.

[Ian-T]

It was somewhat later that I was shocked -and at the same time disgusted- to find that I actually liked a M. Bay movie!!

LOL...oh the irony...