# Since when did John Williams sound like Danny Elfman? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 29, 2001, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-when-did-john-williams-sound-like-danny-elfman/90390 "2001-10-29T23:39:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pezwookiee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9d8465/32.png) [@pezwookiee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pezwookiee)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-when-did-john-williams-sound-like-danny-elfman/90390/1 "2001-10-29T23:39:28Z")
Anybody else think that the new score by John Williams for the Harry Potter movie sounds like something Danny Elfman would write? Just wondering. ---
**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-when-did-john-williams-sound-like-danny-elfman/90390/2 "2001-10-29T23:59:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pezwookiee \* > \*\*Anybody else think that the new score by John Williams for the Harry Potter movie sounds like something Danny Elfman would write? Just wondering. \*\* You make that sound like a bad thing Pez. I think Danny Elfman write great scores (and besided has a lot more range than people give him credit for) he just gets chosen to do a lot of darker somber films. If you listen to Pee Wee or Sommersby or Black Beauty they don’t sound the same as say Batman, Sleepy Hollow or Edward Scissorhands. ---
**Author:** ![TheeGrumpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@TheeGrumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheeGrumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-when-did-john-williams-sound-like-danny-elfman/90390/3 "2001-10-30T00:04:30Z")
I don’t know if they use Williams’ music in the TV commercials, but I’ll be danged if it doesn’t sound like a Scissorhand version of the Schindler’s List melody. In fairness to all movie composers, and the two named in this thread in particular, there are only so many motifs available (or, if you will, the limited spectrum of movies demand only so many motifs). I won’t begrudge one composer hewing closely to another, intentionally or unintentionally, if it fits the tone of the picture. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-when-did-john-williams-sound-like-danny-elfman/90390/4 "2001-10-30T01:42:16Z")
You’ve obviously never heard Williams’ Oscar-nominated work on _The Witches of Eastwick_, which he wrote when Elfman had barely started his career as film composer. He’s not my favorite composer, but Williams is much more prolific than the _Star Wars/Raiders/Superman_ anthemic stuff he’s most identified with. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-when-did-john-williams-sound-like-danny-elfman/90390/5 "2001-10-30T04:37:25Z")
I’m probably going to simply repeat what we’ve all read elswhere for years now, so here I am a font of received observation. Williams cribs everybody, but at least he cribs from the best. The “Jaws” theme steals from “the Rites of Spring” (which itself stole from "Afternoon of a Faun). “The Cowboys” owes much to Aaron Copeland, and Williams’ theme for the “Empire Strikes Back” nakedly recalls the all the tetering pomposity that Prokoviev used for his own film music to score scenes of depraved royalists. But, as stated, he doesn’t steal from anybody one wouldn’t heartily recommend raidng. And I don’t think Danny Elfman is any better: the first time I heard those menacing French horns in his “Darkman” theme, I knew he’d stolen it from Prokoviev’s charge of the Teutonic knights in “Alexander Nevsky.” Where Williams does go limp is in his “serious” symphonic pieces not for the movies, works IMHO as wholly uninteresting as anything by Leonard Berstein. But Williams cannot be all bad because his father played for years with Raymond Scott. And I’m glad that I’ve still not heard anything by Danny Elfman that didn’t contain at least a vestige of Oingo Boingo. ---
**Author:** ![pezwookiee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9d8465/32.png) [@pezwookiee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pezwookiee)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-when-did-john-williams-sound-like-danny-elfman/90390/6 "2001-10-30T06:32:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BurnMeUp \* > \*\*You make that sound like a bad thing Pez. I think Danny Elfman write great scores \*\* Whoah, whoah!! You got me all wrong!! I guess I wasn’t clear in my OP. I actually _like_ the Harry Potter music because it sounds more like something I’d expect from Elfman. I looove Danny Elfman. I think we can all agree that both Williams and Elfman are preferable to James Horner’s interchangable scores. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-when-did-john-williams-sound-like-danny-elfman/90390/7 "2001-10-30T11:39:36Z")
> [@](#): > > _Slithy Tove says:_ And I’m glad that I’ve still not heard anything by Danny Elfman that didn’t contain at least a vestige of Oingo Boingo. Don’t be–his music for _Good Will Hunting_ and _Black Beauty_ have no resemblance to his OB work, but they are among his better scores, particularly the latter, which is hauntingly lovely. ---
**Author:** ![TheeGrumpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@TheeGrumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheeGrumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-when-did-john-williams-sound-like-danny-elfman/90390/8 "2001-10-30T22:45:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ArchiveGuy \* > \*\*…Williams is much more prolific than the _Star Wars/Raiders/Superman_ anthemic stuff he’s most identified with. \*\* Let us not forget who did the incidental music for [Gilligan’s Island](http://us.imdb.com/Credits?0057751) and the theme to Lost In Space. Incidentally, Slithy Tove, I’d be surprised if Elfman consciously cribbed Prokofiev for _Darkman_. Not being classicly trained, he generally plays things by ear. It is possible the temp track borrowed from _Nevsky_, and he went from there. However, if you _really_ want some purloined _Nevsky_ check out Star Trek II’s Battle on the Ice, er, in the Nebula. There I go ragging on Horner again. To his credit, just last night I was listening to his most derivative (and overrated) score – _ALIENS_ – for the first time in ages, and it still works that scary magic. Guess what the trick-or-treaters will be hearing when they come to my house??