Last summer, we were flooded by so many releases, from the live-action How to Train Your Dragon to the newest release in the Jurassic Park franchise, Jurassic World: Rebirth. Some people would criticize that these movies are merely a scheme from the studio to mine gold, digging cash even more for their benefits from a reboot, remake, prequel, or decades after scenarios. However, whatever the reason was behind those meticulous plans from the studio, you had fallen for this trap to donate the gold back to them.
One of the reasons why you came back to your local theater to watch it was solely nostalgia. Not just any regular nostalgia, but a reminiscence to look back at your childhood archives. Once the strings and brass from Test Drive by John Powell fly throughout the theater when Toothless and Hiccup fly for the first time, or when Titanosaurus starts to appear while John Williams’ instrumental roars in the Dolby Atmos theater, eventually leading to triggering your hippocampus lobe and bringing tears to your eyes. Only tears? No, it began to tickle your memory, down to the point where you were the first time you watched the film, who were you with the first time you listened to this original soundtrack, and even pondering to the point of what your emotional state was when you were first experiencing it, were you happy, sad, scared?
This enchanting experience is called autobiographical memory, a common experience where the human mind wanders to people, places, and even activities from the past. Hence, all the soundtracks that you love and have heard from the past, from Fairytale by Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell, in which you will picture Fiona and Shrek finally living in their swamp, to Alan Silvestri’s turn our memory, Back to the Future, of an imaginative hoverboard in 2015 that Marty McFly used. All of those are triggering your brain to a specific memory during that theatrical experience.
Previous research on Involuntary Autobiographical Memories by Dorthe Berntsen, based on the article ‘Why does music bring back memories? What the science says, in Durham University by Dr. Kelly Jakubowski, is that such memories are likely to come back during activities where we activate our mind to set free and wander about our past. This supports the idea of audiences inside the theater, for example, in an immersive experience in a 4DX screen or IMAX, where we tend to give our empathy and set our creativity at the highest level according to the scenery and sequences in front of our eyes on the big screen. And once the soundtrack blasts, the instrument triggers our memory easily.
Additionally, from this study, music does evoke consistent positive memories more than any other sounds and words. Even surprisingly, sad instruments in grieving scenarios are even showing a result of happy memories, for instance, in The Real Hero by Alan Silvestri that plays in the background during Tony Stark’s funeral, or that iconic line from Peter Parker with “Mr. Stark, we won.”
Well, everybody will leave the theater with tears in their eyes, especially from late Millenials and Gen-Z who are growing up with Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the joy of fulfillment of how The Avengers finally beat Thanos after 10 years of character development, as well as you share those feelings with a bunch of the same hype wave inside of the theater and social media, definitely that funeral scene created a sense of belongings from the same geek community and eventually, exultation.
And that is how I love to collect so many soundtracks from the films that I watched in the past. Collecting it into a playlist, which, if at any sudden moment, I just want to recall memories of the past, because it is good for your brain to reminisce about old times and value the people who have joined you from the experience of watching the film in a theater.
Although not every individual loves to do it, they would think that this activity is just some sort of mere escapism from the world. A little flashback to my high school year when I voluntarily showed my playlist to my friend on the school bus (In Indonesia, we don’t have a school bus, it is more like private transportation facilitated by schools to transport students who live in the adjacent area of a neighborhood), he looked at all my Alan Silvestri, John William, even Hans Zimmer collections inside of the playlist. Expectedly, he looked at me with an ambiguous expression, probably thinking that I was weird. But that was fine, to be honest. Looking on the bright side, he probably did not value the memory as much as I did.
Still, in my high school year, I remember when I talked about ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ by Starship with my friend in school recess before the pandemic hit the world in 2020, I said that the song was the main soundtrack of romance comedy classic in 1987, Mannequin, starring Andrew McCarthy, one of the Brat Pack, and Kim Cattrall, then years after, the same song was used by Marvel as Thunderbolts* soundtrack in their trailer and credit roll.
Believe it or not, I watched Thunderbolts* last April with that friend who I talked with, she might not remember the conversation, but as soon as Marvel used it in their credit roll to entertain people before their famous post-credit scene ritual, the instrument evoked memories from six years ago where I spent my recess time with the same person beside me inside of the theater. The cacophony of the school’s hallway during recess hours came back to my mind at that exact moment. I thought I was crazy or just geekily weird, but turns out what I did is also one of the activities to help away Alzheimer’s and Dementia, it is what Dr. Kelly Jakubowski from Durham’s Department of Music said in her article.
If this article is too subjective because of personal experience, afraid not, I tested my sister with a blind reaction while she was scooping a tiny spoon of porridge to her baby daughter. While multitasking, I played a soundtrack from a film that she used to rent the DVD in the mid-2000s when she was only a teenager. With no surprise, she shouted “Narnia!!”. Then, I showed her the title on my phone, The Battle by Harry Gregson-Williams.
The next minute, she told her baby about Narnia with a jaunty expression. Although my niece would never really know what she just fed, a mouthful of porridge and wild information of a talking lion and a wardrobe lead to an imaginary world, it managed to prove a point that one instrument from a film that you love does evoke one’s childhood memories, as my sister began to fumble all her memory bank of renting a bunch of DVD during the challenging event of scooping her baby daughter a meal in a wooden baby seat.
The next thing I remember as I logged this information in my journal, we began to talk about Harry Potter. Oh, don’t even start with Harry Potter, without even listening to the soundtrack, you already know what it sounds like, and how it replays all your childhood memories from your hippocampus. We discuss our creative perspective from the base of our interest in Harry Potter, to simplify, we share our activity as one of Hogwarts students with excess unsewn fabric in our mom’s closet as Hogwarts’ robe and a pencil as a wand. Those impromptu wild activities eventually came back again to mind when I visited Universal Studios Osaka in Japan, where they blasted the main soundtrack by John Williams as soon as you stepped into Hogsmeade. The differences are that unsewn fabric has now been changed into an official robe from Warner Bros, and all those kitchens, living rooms, and dining rooms have turned into a kind of real Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade, and Hogwarts.
Aaron Copland, in his lecture series from 1951 and 1952, based on the article ‘The Role of Imagination in Listening to Music’ by Shahram Heshmat, Ph.D., stated that the individual’s imagination when listening to a specific instrument is required to make the music meaningful. And this is why, those people who are sitting in silence or simply, my high school friend from that school bus, are some examples of why they do not share the same experience as individuals who set their mind freely immersed in the plot and the scenes of the movie that evokes their imagination. Because, in doing this, the listener has to achieve a level of concentration on the music’s emotional overtones. But another theory is perhaps right, these individuals probably have too many things, from pressure to responsibility, hence they are unable to immerse fully and allow the instrument to enchant them.
In this case, Hollywood’s current obsession with rebooting and remaking for their benefit might as well ensure all these individuals who are unable to evoke and value their childhood memories to awaken and trap them in the memory lane effectively. Take Ghostbusters: Afterlife, for example, all these Gen X parents in Parent Reviews from Common Sense Media personally share their experience of the soundtracks and the numerous references of callback to the original. Thus, perhaps, Greta Gerwig’s new Narnia and new HBO Original’s Harry Potter could aid and alleviate these problems from people who are unable to immerse themselves or become more busy with their daily responsibilities by not getting rid of the original soundtrack, just like how John Powell did with ‘Test Drive’ in the live-action How to Train Your Dragon and the new installment in Jurassic Park franchises with John Williams’.
Bibliography :
- Kelly Jakubowski (2023, March 10, Durham University). Why does music bring back memories? What thescience says. https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/current/thought-leadership/2023/03/why-does-music-bring-back-memories-what-the-science-says/
- Kelly Jakubowski. (2023, February 16, Durham University). The Power of Music for Reconnecting Us with Our Past. https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/current/thought-leadership/2023/03/why-does-music-bring-back-memories-what-the-science-says/
- Shahram Heshmat. (2025, February 2020, Psychology Today). The Role of Imagination in Listening to Music. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-of-choice/202502/music-and-imagination
Yundira is an Indonesian writer crafting fiction and film articles in both Indonesian and English. Her fiction works have been published in Kaytell Ink, Livina Press, and Porch LitMag. She shares her thoughts on film and fangirling on TikTok @Starkackerman and Instagram @yundiraks. While she is currently preparing for her MA in Creative Writing, she always loves to show her fangirling side on social media —Punkrock!
