why does SF use the songs he does for intros

[Wargriffin]

I miss the old Doctor who intro

[Formless One]

Lets see, going by the tvtropes entry for "theme song," here's my educated guesses:

1. TOS: Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds is not only sung by Shatner, but also is a cover of a Beatles song, which makes it roughly contemporaneous with the show. This of course fits the pattern for his Trek reviews.
2. TNG: 99 Luftballoons is contemporaneous, anti-war, has dark lyrics put to an almost inappropriately light melody, and an example of how difficult it is to translate lyrics from one language to another; just as TNG episodes don't always age well. And yet, both the song and the show are classics of their era. So it fits pretty well.
3. DS9: The Mystics Dream is appropriate to a show that takes on religion as a regular topic, and I can't help but feel like the minor key that gives it a "dark" feeling relative to the other trek series of its era.
4. Voyager: Harleys and Indians (Riders in the Sky) is a repetitive tune all about glorifying coolness itself, with little substance besides that. Its not a bad song, but all in all, I'd say its thematically appropriate for Voyager
5. Enterprise: The choice of "Kryptonite" has already been explained, but as I recall he further mentioned waaaaaaay back in the day when he was on Youtube (and I don't know if this is still mentioned in any video he currently has up) that it was in part because the actual theme to Enterprise was so generic that literally anything would fit just as well or better. Indeed, I can't help but think of Kryptonite every time I think of the show because of it.
6. Trek Movies: They are by nature a mixed bag, because they are generational rather than a fixed cast. So warning the audience through the song itself (Its A Jungle Out There). Also, for Nemesis he switched it for a speech given by Patrick Stewart in another movie which would have been appropriate as a way to start the film... had it not sucked balls.
7. TAS: I... honestly don't know. Its just a musical riff, no lyrics. So it was probably picked because of the time period. Its harder to analyze music when it is presented in its own language and no other. But there are exceptions to that.
8. Dr. Who: not enough of a fan of the show to really analyze the connection.
9. Night of the Comet: I've never seen it, and my memory of the review is similarly lackluster, so I can't say anything about it.
10. Sunshine: No doubt "I can See Clearly Now" is in reference to the ending scene of the movie.
11. The Dark Knight: All Along The Watchtower is a pretty ambiguous song to begin with, and the movie ends on an ambiguous note. But the actual melody of the song fits the film's narrative tone well.
12. Farscape: its all about the melody and alien environment that the show takes place in. So the song fits on tonal qualities alone.
13. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: "People Ain't No Good" is a direct criticism of the way the film portrays Gollum's treatment at the hands of the so-called heroes.
14. Mass Effect: "Don't Fear The Reaper" and the game's villains are called "reapers." That is all the connection it needs, I suppose.
15. I don't know enough about Twin Peaks to comment.
16. Don't get me started on MLP.
17. Firefly: Ride the Wind is all about the freedom the characters have and fight to keep, as far as I can tell.
18. Blade Runner: I'm uncertain. I know the film very well, but it has been a while since I watched the review, and I don't know much about AC/DC's music to analyze it.
19. Threshold: again, I don't know, the show was cancelled so who really cares.
20. The Man From Earth: to be honest, I almost forgot that he used "Who Wants to Live Forever" as the theme. I very closely associate the review with Baba Yetu and with the speech by Death of Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic, but if you've seen either the review or the film its obvious why he chose the song he did.
21. Alien: Really, this one confuses me. But then, I'm not really a fan of this kind of horror film, so I pretty much forgot the details of the review anyway.
22. Repo hte-- forget it. This film is unworthy of discussion.
23. Howard the Duck: Loser. Yeah, fitting.
24. Rebuild of Evangelion: Eve of Destruction. Just yes. I don't like the Rebuild films, but you could not find a better song for the Evangelion franchise in general. Its apocalyptic, the song fits the situation the characters are in perfectly, well done.
25. The Day After: don't know, don't care.
26. Hogfather: apparently it has two different songs, but as I recall night two didn't have an intro song. It is also associated with Baba Yetu, though, which I do remember. Its pretty much Chuck's go-to song for occasions where things are very profound.
27. Stargate: thematically, Somewhere Over the Rainbow works for any kind of portal fantasy, which technically is what Stargate is, except filtered through a science fiction lens.
28. skipping WALL-E because I'm not interested enough to comment on Pixar films
29. Never saw the Wonder Woman review. Didn't think it would be fair to comment on an un-aired pilot anyway.
30. Don't really recall the tone of the song he used for All Star Superman
31. Ditto for Torchwood
32. Dark City: This one was actually explained in detail in the review, so just watch the review. The short of it is that the song's official music video was directed by the same guy, and touches on similar themes as the film.
33. MObile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket: Mr Roboto is obviously a joke about this being a giant robot show, no more explanation needed.
34. Godzilla: Big in Japan really needs no explanation.
35. Don't know enough about transformers (the show was slightly before my time)
36. the next two on the list I don't really know enough about, though in one case its the film I don't know anything about and the second case its the song I don't know anything about.
37. Star Wars just uses Star Wars music, which seems to be his default when he doesn't feel like finding a new song himself. That said, this does seem to be a conscious choice sometimes, such as in the Madoka reviews where he went with the theme from the end credits, and even interprets the imagery of those credits when he gets to one of the later episodes. So its obviously a deliberate choice in that case.

So there is my interpretation of why certain songs were picked for certain works by Chuck, except those things I skipped deliberately.

[rickgriffin]

It usually makes sense for me
Shatner's Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds for TOS because, let's face it, TOS could get really bizarre with its imagery. It WAS the 60s after all.
99 Red Balloons for TNG is a blatant counterpoint to TNG's (early) insistence it is NOT militaristic. Also possibly because of the "Everyone's a Captain Kirk" line in the song (even though it's not part of the clip) just to ride on how TNG was trying to make itself in the image of TOS.

[TGLS]

Who made Whom makes reference to how it's difficult to tell the difference between a replicant and a human in Blade Runner, and the unresolved nature of whether Decker is a human or replicant.
The Day After has Johnny Cash's The Man Comes Around makes reference to the biblical apocalypse, and it's use draws comparison with it and the nuclear apocalypse.

[J!!]

Who made Whom makes reference to how it's difficult to tell the difference between a replicant and a human in Blade Runner, and the unresolved nature of whether Decker is a human or replicant.

It's also the title track of the Maximum Overdrive soundtrack; a movie about machines rising up to kill the humans that made them.

[Arkle]

BTW, if anyone is interested, I made a Spotify playlist of most of the songs featured on SF Debris so far (never will put Thank Heaven For Little Girls on there, though. Fuck you, Chevalier!). https://play.spotify.com/user/122344246 ... IwmlI0e0oB

I think it's up to date, but let me know if there are any I missed (keeping in mind that some songs may not be on Spotify; the Clone Wars theme was when I first made the list but as you can see it's not anymore.

[TGLS]

Fuck you, Chevalier!

What do you have against Maurice Chevalier?

[Arkle]

Fuck you, Chevalier!

What do you have against Maurice Chevalier?

I just really hate that song.

[Xaios]

Personally I think the intro to Enterprise review videos should be Yakety Sax.

[Admiral X]

If you've ever seen the music video for 3 Doors Down's "Kryptonite," I think you'd agree it fits quite well with Archer and thus ENT.


youtu.be/xPU8OAjjS4k