James Horner/Awesome Music

• He almost manages to top Goldsmith with the scores for Star Trek II and III. "Stealing the Enterprise" is AWESOME!
• Oh, and listen to "Enterprise Clears Moorings", too. What do you mean, turning on the lights and moving forward isn't awesome?
• How could there be mention of TWOK without "Battle in the Mutara Nebula"? Particularly at 0:55, 1:56, and 2:05.
  • And then the next track, "Genesis Countdown", whose motif at 0:49 was so awesome, it got recycled into "Stealing the Enterprise" in the next filme.
    • To say nothing of his little homage to Ligeti's "Atmospheres" at 4:32.
• From Willow: "Elora Danan" and "Willow's Theme"; "Hymn to the Sea" from Titanic, "Main Title" and "Sons of Scotland" from Braveheart, "Going After Newt" and"Bishop's Countdown" from theAliens soundtrack, the main theme from Apollo 13, and so on and so forth. Many of them are quite awesome tracks indeed.
• Horner's track "Resolution and Hyperspace" from Aliens is so awesome that it explodes out of the movie itself and reappears at the end of Die Hard instead.
  • Or start at 03:06 during the track Futile Escape from Aliens. It's a theme that constantly builds, getting more intense and really gets your adrenaline pumping. So awesome he used many cues from it for the themes of the Marines in Avatar.
• Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars, a cheezy rip-off of the Star Wars and The Seven Samurai, Horner gives out a terrific theme. Corman used it again for the trailer of his terrible Fantastic 4 movie. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQL 0 h 2 TNJG 0
  • Trailer? Corman reused the music in several entire movies (Space Raiders, Sorceress, Wizards Of The Lost Kingdom and so on).
• The soundtrack for Apollo 13 is consistently praised as one of Horner's most solid all-around efforts. To name just a few highlights: the aforementioned main theme with the patriotic trumpets, the famous launch scene, the edge-of-your-seat "Re-Entry and Splashdown", and last but definitely not least, Annie Lennox harmonizing with herself beautifully over the end credits.
  • The main theme from Apollo 13 is frequently used on "teaser trailers" for movies that don't yet have soundtrack music written for them, to give them the appropriate level of awesomeness.
• The main theme from The Rocketeer is just lovely; sweet and soaring and wistful. Then the melody repeats, picking up a bit of speed and another layer of orchestration each time through, until finally it's become an action theme so Badass that it's been repurposed as background music for pretty much every other action movie trailer released since then.
• A Kaleidoscope of Mathematics from "A Beautiful Mind".
• Regardless of the fact it's a "kid's movie," the score from The Land Before Time is haunting and affective and is nearly Pavlovian in getting you to cry. Just watch this without remembering that first traumatic viewing.
• Then there's the first appearance of the Statue of Liberty in An American Tail, along with a choral version of "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor".
  • "The Great Fire" off of the An American Tail soundtrack was incredibly dark, deep and emotional for having come from a children's movie.
• His work on Once Upon a Forest often goes overlooked. The soundtrack is worth tracking down for the beautiful orchestrations.
• Charging Fort Wagner, from the soundtrack of Glory.
• Horner's Ride of the Fire Mares, from Krull.
• The final scene of Braveheart, wherein Robert the Bruce at last rallies the Scotsmen to independence, the music starting slow and then building and building to a glorious crescendo, intermingling flawlessly the leitmotifs for heroism and for Scotland as Wallace's sword is thrown in the face of the English oppressor.
• For most of Avatar, the music is pretty good. It gets thrown into EPIC territory with the track 'War' It is better than sex.
  • And what about 'Jake's First Flight', at 2:15, where after two minutes of boys choir and native drumming it suddenly breaks into magnificent Christmas music? That'll sweep ya up right there.
  • Let's not forget 'Quaritch Down'. The Big Damn Heroes fanfare is simply epic.
• Clear and Present Danger has sweet moments, too.
• From Commando, the main theme.
• What about The Plaza of Execution from The Mask of Zorro?
• Three Words: Field. Of. Dreams.
• Windsong from the 1998 remake of Mighty Joe Young is tear-inducingly beautiful.