Reprise Medley

Why did our mothers start this war?
What the fuck are they fighting for?
When did this song become a marathon?

— South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, "La Resistance"

A song or musical scene in a work, usually towards its end if not the finale ultimo, containing a Medley made of a whole bunch of reprises of different songs from the work. Can be used to tie up different plot threads, or just as a way to mark the scene it accompanies as the conclusion.

May also be a Massive Multiplayer Ensemble Number.

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Examples:

Anime

• Macross Frontier is capped off with the Nyan-Nyan Service Medley, which reprises most of the songs from throughout the series and takes up pretty much the entire second half of the last episode (it's seven and a half minutes long). The soundtrack contains an extended version that clocks in at over eleven minutes long, which incorporates even more of the series songs.

Fan Works

• Once Upon a Studio: Version 2.0: The end of this short's rendition of "When You Wish Upon a Star" also involves Cinderella and Prince Charming gently singing the opening line to "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes"; their line addressed to the audience. This is followed by Rapunzel and Eugene passionately singing the start of the chorus to "I See The Light", and Aladdin and Jasmine doing the same for "A Whole New World", to truly cap it off.
• Turnabout Storm has "End of the Storm", a medley between My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic's main theme, Ace Attorney's "Turnabout Sisters", and the original theme "Memories", play during its final scene before the credits.

Film — Animation

• Encanto's last song, "All Of You", has lines from most of the movie's previous songs.
• Moana's climactic number, "I am Moana (Song of the Ancestors)", is a Triumphant Reprise medley of "Where You Are", "How Far I'll Go", and "We Know the Way".
• South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut has the Massive Multiplayer Ensemble Number "La Resistance", which reprises "Blame Canada", "Uncle Fucka", "Mountain Town", and "Up There" as part of its lyrics.
• The last two songs of Steven Universe: The Movie are both Triumphant Reprise medleys: "Let Us Adore You (Reprise)" combines its namesake with "Found", while "Finale" combines "Happily Ever After" with "Change" in addition to some new music.
• In Turning Red, the climax features a medley of the chanting from "Red Moon Ritual" and "Nobody Like U".
• UglyDolls has "The Big Finale", which consists of a Dark Reprise of "Today's The Day" followed by Triumphant Reprises of "Unbreakable" and "Couldn't Be Better".

Film — Live-Action

• King of Jazz, a filmed variety show consisting mostly of musical numbers, ends with a medley of all the numbers performed in the movie.
• In the film La La Land Mia happens to catch Sebastian playing at his new club with her husband. The song Sebastian plays, "Epilogue", turns into a Dream Sequence that imagines the life Mia and Sebastian would have had if they stayed together and reprises melodies from "Another Day of Sun", "Mia and Sebastian's Theme", "Someone in the Crowd", "City of Stars", "Planetarium", and "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)".
• Moulin Rouge! ends with a rather epic example: "Come What May", after Toulouse reveals the truth about Christian's life being in danger, morphs into a recapitulation and dueling medley of most of the movie's main themes, with "The Show Must Go On", "Your Song", "I'll Fly Away", "Children of the Revolution", and even a bit of "The Pitch" (the part about the "sitar player's secret song") all showing up.
• Non-musical example: Revenge of the Sith features a medley of the recurring "Force Theme", "Duel of the Fates" from The Phantom Menace, and "Clash of Lightsabers" from The Empire Strikes Back.
• The Producers has "Betrayed" where Max reprises every song up until he got arrested.
• Thank Your Lucky Stars might have set some kind of record in movie musicals by reprising eleven songs in a row in the finale.

Live-Action TV

• The first-act finale of the Scrubs Musical Episode, "When The Truth Comes Out", reprises "Welcome to Sacred Heart", "Everything Comes Down To Poo" and "We're Gonna Miss You, Carla". Word of God is it was inspired by "One Day More" in Les Mis.
• The finale of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend featured "Eleven O'Clock", which included the theme songs from all four series and five other songs from the show.

Music

• The stage version of Pink Floyd's The Wall has one of these called "The Last Few Bricks" right before "Goodbye Cruel World" to give the stage hands time to put the last few bricks of the wall in place.
• !HERO has the Dark Reprise Medley "Intentions/Hero/Lose My Life With You" near the end when the main character is put to death.
• The seventh and final movement of Sergei Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky cantata is framed by a Triumphant Reprise of "Song About Alexander Nevsky" with new lyrics. Its middle section incorporates an extended version of the "Sopeli" music heard during the battle sequence, gradually merging into the hymnlike second strain of "Arise, People of Russia."
• "The Feast" on Roger Glover's Concept Album The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast is a piano instrumental that incorporates most of the character songs, presumably as the respective character arrives at the Feast.
• Jesus Christ Superstar
  • Jesus getting arrested and brought to Caiaphas then sent to Pilate reprises "What's the Buzz?", "The Temple", "Strange Thing Mystifying" and "Hosanna".
  • Judas' death reprises "Damned For All Time", "I Don't Know How To Love Him/Blood Money" and "Heaven On Their Minds".
• Elton John's obscure debut album Empty Sky ends with a medley consisting of brief snippets of all the songs on the album in the order which they appeared.
• Billie Eilish's WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? ends with "goodbye", whose lyrics are lifted directly from previous songs in the album in reverse order.
• The last song of Bo Burnham: Inside is "Goodbye," which reuses melodies and lyrics from "Comedy," "All Eyes On Me," "Look Who's Inside Again" and "Welcome to the Internet" to create a truly haunting Sanity Slippage Song.
• Styx's Kilroy Was Here ends with a Triumphant Reprise medley of "Mr. Roboto" and "Don't Let It End".

Theatre

• The Ace Attorney musical has one at the end of act one consisting of "The Truth Reborn", "My Rule", and "I Love You", and another (consisting of "The Truth Reborn" and "I Believe In You") as the finale ultimo. (Those may not seem like they're using very many songs, but the show recycles so heavily that there are in fact only four distinct songs, total.)
• The "Finale Ultimo" of the stage musical of Aladdin includes reprises of "Somebody's Got Your Back", "A Whole New World", and "Arabian Nights", the last being the Final Reprise that was deleted from the original film but used in The King of Thieves. Before that, the first act ends with a medley of "Friend Like Me" and "Proud of Your Boy", another outtake from the film.
• Christopher Wheeldon's ballet adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has a dance version of this trope. For the trial of the Knave of Hearts, characters from previous scenes are called to give "testimony," which consists of a short musical reprise of their main motif, and some of the steps from their respective big numbers. This being Wonderland, it quickly descends into chaos, with motifs being played over each other and characters being dragged around into each others' dancing sections.
• The finale of Amaluna includes a reprise pastiche of "Elma Om Mi Lize" and "Run" followed by a Book Ends reprise of "All Come Together".
• In the stage musical Anastasia the song "Quartet at the Ballet" reprises melodies and lyrics from "In My Dreams", "The Neva Flows", "Once Upon a December", and "Close the Door".
• The 2011 revival of Anything Goes replaced the finale's Triumphant Reprise of "I Get a Kick Out of You" with a medley of "It's Delovely", "Be Like the Bluebird", and the title song.
• "Man Up" in The Book of Mormon samples sequences from almost all of the songs that have come before it, even a single line from "Turn it off."
• The penultimate scene of Brigadoon has reprises of "Come To Me, Bend To Me," "The Heather On The Hill," "I'll Go Home With Bonnie Jean," "From This Day on" and "Down On MacConnachy Square." These are listed collectively as "Reprises." The show goes on to end with a reprise of the title song.
• The finale of Cabaret has a Dark Reprise of "Willkommen" framing and coinciding with snippets of various other tunes, though only the title song received a vocal reprise in the show. The original cast recording eliminated the spoken dialogue and had Schultz and Schneider singing "Meeskite" and "So What" instead of talking over them.
• The Amateur Operatic Version of Calamity Jane has the triple-wedding finale begin with a choral reprise of "The Deadwood Stage." The chorus and Fryer continue with "A Woman's Touch" as Susan (who doesn't sing) enters in a wedding gown, and Fryer sings "Hive Full of Honey" with different lyrics from the Drag Queen version. Katie and Danny reprise their duet "Love You Dearly," Bill reprises "Higher Than A Hawk," and the chorus and Calamity reprise the end of "My Secret Love." For good measure, "The Deadwood Stage" is then reprised by the entire cast, who go on to reprise "The Black Hills of Dakota" at the Curtain Call.
• A Christmas Carol: The Musical has a Dark Reprise medley during the Christmas Future sequence, including "Jolly Good Time", "Link By Link", "You Mean More To Me", "Nothing to Do With Me," and a Triumphant Reprise of "God Bless Us Everyone." The finale has triumphant reprises of "Nothing to Do With Me," "A Place Called Home," "You Mean More to Me," and "Christmas Together".
• Elisabeth's finale, "Der Schleier fällt", reprises "Schwarzer Prinz"/"Kein Kommen ohne Gehn", "Elisabeth, mach auf mein Engel", and "Ich gehör nur mir".
• Finale has the finale, "Finally," which combines this with Dark Reprise. It reprises almost every major character's I Want song, including "Today is the Day," "Once in a Lifetime," "Perpetually Almost," "More Than This," "Leaving You/Me" "Break Free," and "Falling". All of these songs are given new meaning, however, by the fact that when they were sung in Act One, they were about hope, and when sung in the finale, they are about how the world is ending.
• In the musical adaption of Fun Home there's "Flying Away/Finale" which mashes up bits of "Welcome To Our House On Maple Avenue," "Telephone Wire," and "Maps" as well as having some of the BEST harmonizations in musical theatre.
• In The Golden Apple, the "Sewing Bee" sequence in the final scene includes reprises of "Lazy Afternoon," the River Song from the end of the first act and "A Good Girl," all with somewhat or vastly different lyrics.
• "Inevitable", the final song of The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals contains reprises of "What Do You Want, Paul?", "You Tied Up My Heart", "Show Me Your Hands", "Not Your Seed", and "Show Stoppin' Number".
• Practically every Hamilton song reprises or is reprised by at least one other, but the only song that really piles on a huge number of reprises is the Massive Multiplayer Ensemble Number Non-Stop, which reprises Satisfied, History Has Its Eyes On You, Wait For It, and That Would Be Enough, which is itself an altered reprise of a line from The Schuyler Sisters. Notably, there's a part where the characters have a short conversation entirely in borrowed lines and riffs: Hamilton borrows Eliza's line from The Schuyler Sisters, and she replies with the titular line from Helpless and then the line from That Would Be enough, and then Angelica voices her agreement with a line from Satisfied.
  • Hamilton's final thoughts before he is killed is also a reprise medley, but in acapella.
• The Finale Ultimo of Hello, Dolly! is a medley of the title song, "Dancing", "It Only Takes A Moment" and "Put on Your Sunday Clothes".
• The finale ultimo of H.M.S. Pinafore consists of five reprises: "Oh joy, oh rapture unforeseen," "I am the Captain of the Pinafore," "I'm called Little Buttercup," "I am the monarch of the sea" and "He is an Englishman." Most other Gilbert and Sullivan shows only have one or two reprises at the end; Utopia, Ltd has none.
  • Ditto for The Pirates of Penzance.
• In the Screen-to-Stage Adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, "Finale" reprises "Made of Stone", "Top Of The World", "Esmeralda", "Out There", "The Bells of Notre Dame", and "Someday" (which actually gets reprised twice). Bonus points for nearly all of them being Dark Reprises.
• "Finale" from In the Heights contains snippets from the title song, "Piragua", "When You're Home", and the song that Camilla plays on the record player at the dinner party in Act 1.
• The Finale of La Cage aux folles reprises "With You On My Arm," the title song and "Song On The Sand." This works more like a medley on the original cast recording, which cuts out Georges's "stars of the future" spiel that follows the first song and attaches the Curtain Call full-ensemble repeat of "The Best Of Times."
• Les Misérables
  • "One Day More" (the Act I finale), which reprises "Who Am I?", "I Dreamed A Dream", "Do You Hear The People Sing", "Fantine's Arrest" and "Master of the House" in counterpoint.
  • "Javert's Suicide" contains "The Confrontation", "Look Down", "Valjean's Soliloquy" and "Stars".
  • Cosette & Marius' courtship and wedding reprises "A Heart Full of Love", "Who Am I", "Waltz of Treachery" and "Master of the House". The movie musical throws in "Suddenly" as well.
  • The epilogue is a reprise of 'Bring Him Home' then music from the barricade 'my god, they've run away', 'Come To Me' and 'Do You Hear The People Sing?'. Parts of 'I Dreamed A Dream', 'At The End Of The Day' and 'Look Down' are also used. And it is awesome.
• The finale of the Screen-to-Stage Adaptation of The Little Mermaid has a short reprise of "If Only" followed by an extended Triumphant Reprise of "Part of Your World". The Broadway version also had an instrumental reprise of "Fathoms Below" as a bridge between the two. Earlier, "The Contest" combines the melodies of "Part of Your World" and "Daughters of Triton".
• A Little Night Music, towards the end, has short reprises of "Soon", "You Must Meet My Wife", "A Weekend in the Country" and "Every Day a Little Death" interspersed with dialogue, most of them sung by the Liebeslieders rather than the main cast. This is followed by Desiree and Fredrik's reprise of "Send in the Clowns" in a higher key with new lyrics.
• Don Quixote's death in Man of La Mancha is preceded by "Dulcinea," "The Impossible Dream" and "Man Of La Mancha" reprised in succession.
• Mary Poppins: The Musical concludes with the instrumental medley "A Shooting Star", which includes "A Spoonful of Sugar", "Being Mrs. Banks", "Let's Go Fly A Kite", and "Anything Can Happen".
  • The show's curtain call contains an instrumental medley of "Step in Time," "Let's Go Fly a Kite," and "Jolly Holiday" which leads to reprises of "Anything Can Happen" and "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious".
• In Matilda, the first verse of "Revolting Children" reprises the refrains of "Naughty" and "Miracle", while the second does likewise with "School Song" and "The Hammer". The Finale is a medley of "When I Grow Up" and "Naughty".
• Milk and Honey ends with a sequence of reprises: Mrs. Weiss and the widows singing "Chin Up, Ladies" as they exit, followed by "Let's Not Waste A Moment" (instrumental for the first half), whose final cadence merges into a melancholy reprise of "Shalom" sung by the widows, Ruth and Phil. The original cast recording takes only the second half of this "Shalom" reprise and follows it with full-chorus versions of "Shalom" and the title song.
• The final scene of The Most Happy Fella ends with reprises of the letter song, "My Heart Is So Full Of You" and the title song.
• The Phantom of the Opera finale reprises All I Ask of You, The Phantom theme, Don Juan Triumphant, Music of the Night, The Phantom's Notes, Point of No Return, Angel of Music and Masquerade.
• In Austen's Pride, the Finale begins with a Triumphant Reprise of "The Portrait Song", followed by reprises of "Choices", "Why", "When I Fall in Love", "Not Romantic"(as "I Am Romantic"), and "Isn't She Wonderful", in that order.
• The Prom's finale, "It's Time To Dance" starts with a Triumphant Reprise of "Dance With You", and uses the melody of the Overture for its chorus, as well as referencing "Unruly Heart".
• In The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, the finale begins with reprises of four old refrains: "Aber dieses ganze Mahagonny"; "Wir brauchen keinen Hurrikan"; "Denn wie man sich bettet, so liegt man"; and "Oh moon of Alabama."
• The Screen-to-Stage Adaptation of Singin' in the Rain has the entire cast singing "Broadway Rhythm" and "You Were Meant For Me," "Good Morning" and the title song at the curtain call.
• In the Six medley "Megasix", each of the queens' songs get reprised in order, ending with a reprise of opening number "Ex-Wives" and the finale number "Six".
• In The Student Prince, the Act III finale has a reprise of Karl's lament, "Farewell To Youth," that leads into a montage where his old Heidelberg friends reprise their songs "Golden Days," "Students' Marching Song" and "Deep In My Heart, Dear."
• The "Final Sequence" in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street goes through quite a few reprised snippets of previous songs (pretty much all of them Dark Reprises) as the play reaches its climax, including "Not While I'm Around", "Pretty Women", "My Friends", "Poor Thing", "A Little Priest", and "The Barber and His Wife".
• The original cast album of The Musical of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, ends with a medley of "I'll Buy You A Star," "Make The Man Love Me," "Love Is The Reason" (with Cissy and Harry singing new lyrics about their baby) and "Look Who's Dancing." It's not clear where this "Finale" came from; it's certainly not how the show actually ended. (Johnny gets to sing the reprises of his songs despite having died, though that didn't stop Billy Bigelow.)
• "Looking Good", the closing song of the Theatre Works Palo Alto and Second Stage Theatre versions of Vanities: A New Musical, ends with brief reprises of "Hey There Beautiful" and "Setting Your Sights"(only in the latter production). "Letting Go", the alternate finale ultimo (used in Pasadena Playhouse and ACT's productions so far), also does this somewhat.
• We Are the Tigers has "The Breakdown", the second-to-last song of the show, which lifts from, in order, "Defense", "Worst Team Ever", "Phoenix", "Captain of the Team", and "Wallflower".^note Funnily enough, "Before the Breakdown" is left out. It also doubles as a Dark Reprise, as "The Breakdown" is a Sanity Slippage Song that turns into a Villain Song and the killer's Motive Rant.
• "Finale" from Wicked reprises "Sentimental Man", "No One Mourns the Wicked", and "For Good", the latter two being in counterpoint.

Video Games

• Sonic the Hedgehog, 2, and Sonic & Knuckles use medleys of their stage themes during their credits.
• Mega Man 6 also does this for its credits music.
• Fire Emblem Gaiden and Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones both do this for their credits themes.
• Mother 3 has 16 Melodies, which is this for the entire Mother series.
• Final Fantasy VI reprises each character's Leitmotif in a medley during the "book" escape sequence.
• Final Fantasy XIV: The main theme for the Endwalker expansion reprises elements from "Torn from the Heavens" (a Boss Remix of the Prelude), "Heavensward", "Storm of Blood" and "Shadowbringers" (the main themes for the previous three expansions). Similarly, the final boss theme contains parts from each of the previous four final boss themes: "The Worm's Tail" from Stormblood, "Ultima" from A Realm Reborn, "Heroes" from Heavensward, and "Invincible" from Shadowbringers. Fittingly, the Endwalker expansion is the Grand Finale of the story arc that started with A Realm Reborn.
• Dissidia Final Fantasy does a variation — the ending theme is a medley of the ending themes of each character's original game, set to their Dissidia storyline cutscenes. This leads to certain oddities, such as Squall and Ultimecia's confrontation being set to a snippet of their game's love theme, and, because of the nature of Final Fantasy VI's ending theme, Terra's part of the credits is set to Gau's theme instead of her own.
• Halo: "Roll Call", the credits music for Halo 3, reprises the series' Title Theme Tune, "Farthest Outpost", the Arbiter's theme, Halo: Combat Evolved's "Under Cover of Night", and Halo 2's "In Amber Clad". "From the Vault", heard in Halo: Reach's Tribute Room, is a similar medley.
• The music for the final level of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault is a medley of the Fort Schmerzen and Nordhausen leitmotifs from the first game and a powered-up version of the Allied Assault Main Theme.
• "The Genesis," the final boss battle music for Persona 4, reprises both "Reach Out to the Truth" and "I'll Face Myself."
  • Persona 3 have final boss theme "The Battle for Everyone's Soul", ending song "Kimi no Kioku" and The Answer's ending song "Brand New days" as Reprise Medley. Listening to the last one is especially rewarding since it reprise the very first music player hear: the main screen music.
• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker has the Staff Credits track, which includes the title theme, Aryll's Theme, Zelda's Lullaby, The Great Sea, and the series' main theme (among other nods).
• Used in "No Fighting in the War Room", the penultimate level from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
• "Med-Ray", the Special Mode ending theme from the PSX version of RayCrisis is a Softer and Slower medley of various songs from throughout the series, namely "Penetration", "G", "Luminescence", "Vision", "Into Darkness", "Formless Living Bodies", "Lavande Bleu", "Muddling Through", "Geometric City", "Son Dessein", and "Quartz".
• In the final execution sequence from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, almost all the thematic elements from the previous five are remixed into the song accompanying it. It fits, given that said execution is all the others combined.
• Rakuen has the Mori no Kokoro which is the medley of all previous Mori parts: Lights, My Little Girl, Yours, The Lonely Tree and Walking Through The Night.
• In Celeste's Chapter 7, where All the Worlds Are a Stage, each section's BGM incorporates the leitmotif of the previous chapter it is based on. Similarly, "Farewell", the BGM for the final section of Chapter 9, combines the leitmotifs of Madeline, Badeline, and Granny, along with a few lesser motifs.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon of Puyo Puyo Chronicle includes portions of iconic BGM all the way from Madou Monogatari (such as the opening and first dungeon themes) to Puyo Puyo Fever (the Fever mode theme).
• Haven (2020)'s finale suite, "Until The End of Time", while chiefly a Triumphant Last Level Theme Reprise of "The Beginning of Something", also incorporates motifs from "Source", "Blooting Hornets", "Kusa Makura", and "Home".

Web Comics

• Homestuck has a few:
  • "Descend", the music accompanying the End of Act 4 animation, reprises just about every theme or leitmotif used in the comic to that point, and at the end previews one leitmotif yet to be used.
  • "Eternity's Shylock"/"Eternity Served Cold", the music that plays during the End of Act 6 Act 3, is a more minor example, but does manage to reprise the themes of "English", "Revelawesome", "Harlequin", "Ruins", "Doctor", and "Savior of the Waking World".
• Brawl in the Family: Appropriately One Final Song acts as a Grand Finale and compilation with many previous comic moments, including some music inserts from previous songs.

Western Animation

• Central Park: The season 1 finale ends with the song "Die Trying", which reprises "Own It", "Weirdos Make Great Superheroes", "Momma's Got This" and "Central to my Heart".
• Reprises of "RECYCLE" and "You Can't Fight City Hall" are the last songs in the Rocko's Modern Life Musical Episode "Zanzibar".

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