Intrada Soundtrack Forum

I absolutely loved The Avengers and in my mind, it lived up to all of the hype and is very worthy of praise. Such a great film and I really enjoyed Alan Silvestri's score as well.... I only have a minor, negative comment (or rather it's more of an observation) but I'm hoping that smarter people can help clarify the matter for me.

Silvestri did a great job reworking his Captain America theme into his score for The Avengers but why wern't the themes for Thor, Iron Man and the Hulk somehow used as well? Perhaps it's just me but those melodies are so immediately recognizable and they speak to the excitement and presence of each individual superhero. Was this a creative decision on Silvestri's part or is it more of a legal, rights issue with the different composers and publishers? I thought that since Marvel is essentially the studio that holds influence over all things creative with regard to all of the films, there would be leeway in reusing the compositions of Patrick Doyle, John Debney, etc.

Silvestri addressed this in an interview, where he stated that incorporating a theme for each Avenger would have been too "intrusive."

Cool! Thanks for the link. Interesting interview.

Alan Silvestri doesn't usually like using themes from others : Tomb Raider 2, The Mummy Returns and the famous Tarzan (that he apparently left because reprising Phil Collins themes wasn't creative enough for his motivation).
Also there's a second point, present in this interview : Alan Silvestri usually likes using a general theme for a group of heroes, rather than mixing many themes for each characters. That was the case in Back to the Future of course, but also on The Mummy Returns, where the heroic theme wasn't used only for Rick (the character played by Brendan Fraser).
The Captain America theme is more like winks at his fans. Since he wrote the theme, it would have been awkward not to quote this theme a little bit. Good choice in my opinion.