Recycled Trailer Music

"Listening to it now, I'm a bit surprised I got away with such nutty music for a coming attraction. Of course, those days are long gone... as all trailers now seem to be mandated by law to be beefed-up variations of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana..."

— Danny Elfman, on the music written for the trailer of Mars Attacks!

When releasing a film to the public, the film's score is usually the very last thing to be completed. This means that there will be enough finished scenes to make a trailer, but no soundtrack yet. What's a studio to do?

Slap in some music from another film, stock music, or even a pop song, that evokes the general mood they're going for, that's what.

The first film of a franchise is most likely to use this trope, whereas trailers for future films tend to reuse music from the previous ones. For example, most Star Wars trailers after A New Hope used portions of John Williams' score for that film, whereas the original trailer for A New Hope used stock music! Once the score is completed, the studio might release a new batch of trailers using the film's own music. Alternatively, if a new film is from the same creative team or production company behind a recent hit, the music might be excerpted from the hit's soundtrack, as when an instrumental version of "Belle" from Beauty and the Beast underscored TV ads for Pocahontas, for instance. By The New '10s, this trope became a Discredited Trope as more and more trailers began to use popular and/or licensed stock library music. Even franchises used new arrangements of their established themes instead of recycling the same tracks.

Licensed music made entirely for trailers by groups like Two Steps from Hell and used to advertise several unrelated products is not an example of this trope as that's just stock library music. Also not part of this trope are classical compositions or songs initially released as just... well, music, take those examples to Standard Snippet and/or Stock Trailer Music.

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Examples:

Advertising

• An advertisement for the Nickelodeon Cruise had the KaBlam! theme playing... though the show itself is not featured on the cruise, and has been forgotten by Nick.
• Universal Studios Florida used the Back to the Future theme in their advertisements in the early-to-mid 1990s. Justified since the ride based on the movies was one of their most popular attractions at the time.

Anime

• The teaser trailer for Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Reflection used the song "Eien no Kizuna" from the A's movie.

Films — Animation

• The "Flying" theme from the '03 Peter Pan is used in children's fantasy-adventure trailers almost as much as "What's This". That movie's trailer used The Crystal Chamber from Atlantis: The Lost Empire, which was also from James Newton Howard. It's especially odd to hear on the commercials for the Disney Theme Parks, considering Disney has its own version of Peter Pan.
• "Aquarela do Brazil" is slowly becoming one of these songs, especially in its incarnation as the Central Services theme song from Terry Gilliam's Brazil. It was used in a WALL•E ad. Which oddly brought the song full-circle, as "Aquarela do Brazil" (Portuguese for "Watercolor of Brazil") debuted in the Disney feature Saludos Amigos, where Donald Duck meets Brazilian parrot Jose Carioca. The reason for its use in the WALL•E teaser trailer: Michael Kamen, who did the music for Gilliam's Brazil, was originally going to score WALL•E. But then he died. And people were sad. And then Thomas Newman came to the rescue. And everyone was happy again. The end. The theatrical trailer used "With Great Power" by Immediate Music and "Super Strength" by Two Steps From Hell, two epic trailer music pieces.
• The trailer for The Incredibles uses the Propellerheads' epic "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", a awesome ten-minute dance-remix-amalgamation-hybrid-thing of about five different James Bond instrumental themes.
• Early trailers for the Pixar film Cars used a piece of music originally heard over the opening titles in A Bug's Life, also by Pixar.
• Several of Disney's trailers in the late '90's-early 2000's would use a symphony instrumental of the Cut Song "If I Never Knew You" from Pocahontas.
• An early trailer for the movie adaptation of James and the Giant Peach, directed by Henry Selick featured "What's This?" from a previous Selick movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas. The music in the trailer of this film's video release was reused in the preview of the canceled Dumbo II.
• An early trailer for Aladdin used Alan Silvestri's score to Father of the Bride (1991) along "Friend Like Me". The rest of the trailers just used "Friend Like Me".
• The trailer for Treasure Planet is set to the 'land race' piece from the soundtrack to Far and Away.
• The trailer for Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius sets the score from Chicken Run to the aliens abducting the kids' parents.
• The trailer for the 2006 Curious George movie briefly uses some of Randy Newman's score from A Bug's Life.
• The theatrical trailer for Monsters University used a stock music cue called "Fight! Fight! Fight!", better known as the instrumental version of "Now That We're Men" from The Spongebob Squarepants Movie. However, said song was replaced with a generic tune later on, for whatever reason.
• The trailer for The Wild Thornberrys Movie used "The Egg Travels" from Dinosaur.
• True to the name, some trailers for Corpse Bride used music from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Others used In the Hall of the Mountain King. The trailer also used the music from the 2004 version of The Stepford Wives.
• But just to show that nothing is immune, trailers for The Nightmare Before Christmas used a version of the Christmas song "Carol of the Bells" for its trailers.
• Disney pulls out "If I Never Knew You" and the hook from "Just Around The Riverbend" (both from Pocahontas) for some of their movies, especially the Direct to Video films.
• The trailer for Doug's 1st Movie had background music from the live-action 101 Dalmatians (1996). Most notably is when Skeeter says, "There's something bad behind me, isn't there?", an instrumental "Cruella de Vil" is heard, and then later was the music used during Pongo and Perdita's departure to find the puppies. The VHS commercial for Sleeping Beauty had the same.
• The main theme from The Great Mouse Detective is used in an advert for a 1996 VHS release of The Aristocats.
• The trailer for Mulan makes use of the theme "To the Stars" from Dragonheart.
• The 1993 reissue trailer for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs features a bit of music from the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" segment of Fantasia during the scary moments.
• The promo trailer sent to potential investors for The Transformers: The Movie use the "Bird of Prey Decloaks" and "Return to Vulcan" themes from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
• This trailer for Pooh's Heffalump Movie uses part of "Doom's A Toon!" from Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
• The trailer for Chicken Run uses music from two previous DreamWorks SKG productions, Antz and MouseHunt, as well as the main theme of The Great Escape.
• The teaser trailer for Toy Story used music from Iron Will.
  • The trailer for Toy Story 2 uses the main theme of Men in Black.
• The trailer for the 2000 The Emperor's New Groove movie briefly uses some of Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell's score from Antz.
• The two teaser trailers for Monsters, Inc. use "Dorfler's Theme" from Midnight Run.
• The first trailer for Shark Tale used "Stink" from Get Shorty.

Films — Live-Action

• Terms of Endearment is probably the Trope Codifier. Any trailer using the theme is practically screaming in your ear: "Quirky character study comedy that will have poignant moments at the end!"
• Love Story served that role for weepy romances.
• Sweet Liberty is a relatively minor comedy from 1985, but the score has been used in a ton of comedy trailers.

• Erotic thriller? Expect to hear "Telescope" by Pino Donaggio from Body Double.
• Buddy movie? Expect the theme to Midnight Run by Danny Elfman.
• The trailers for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy made excellent use of Danny Elfman's score from The Wolfman (2010).

• Randy Edelman may feel either aggrieved or blessed by this trope, depending; two of his movie themes, for ''Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story'' (around 1:35 in) and Dragonheart ("To The Stars"), have been peddled endlessly in trailers for other movies.
  • The Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story theme was used in the trailers for Forrest Gump, The Truman Show, and even in an early Harry Potter commercial. The latter is particularly jarring due to the piece sounding nothing like the now iconic Harry Potter leitmotifs.
  • A third piece, "Fire in a Brooklyn Theater" from Come See the Paradise, has been used often enough in trailers for courtroom dramas and political thrillers — including three adaptations of Tom Clancy novels — to warrant a subheading on the movie's Wikipedia page.
• One trailer for Apollo 13^note As seen before Major Payne, among others takes its music from the '90 Total Recall. Some may recognize the eerie fadeout as part of the score where Quaid and Melina stand on the mountaintop on the terraformed Mars and have their kiss.
• True to this trope's name, the first trailer for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010) contains "Up and Out" from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as well as "Brainwash 'n Go" from Wallace & Gromit.
• The score for the film The Rocketeer has probably been heard in trailers for other films by more moviegoers than ever saw The Rocketeer itself.
• The same goes for "First Flight" from Explorers. Many kid adventure movies used this piece for their trailers. Otherwise, SpaceCamp would usually be used instead.
• The trailer for the 2006 film Déjŕ Vu (2006) used the theme from Saw. So do some trailers for Valkyrie, and The Box.
  • This in itself might not be so bad, if not for the fact that the trailer ended up being played before Saw III.

• An overused score is the main theme from Requiem for a Dream, "Lux Aeterna" which is used for "serious" movies... and certain NASCAR commercials. Most ads don't use the original recording; instead they tend to use the big orchestral arrangement which was recorded for the trailer of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (often called "Requiem for a Tower").
  • The Requiem for a Dream version was used in a chrurch for a video montage of World Youth Day preparation.
  • Neatly mocked in this Telus commercial, featuring some fairly epic meerkats.
  • A LOT of YouTube videos use this piece.

• You HAVE heard this piece. And when you listen to it you will say "oh, the movie trailer song" at 1:38.
• It's frequently used on Britain's Got Talent. It seems like a typical usage until you realize that one of the storylines in Requiem For A Dream involves someone compromising their values and ultimately sacrificing their sanity for a chance to be on television.
• It is also used in the trailer for Cupcakes: The Movie.

• "Nara" is the track used most often, it seems—that's the Cold Case one and it was in the trailers of Unfaithful and Vanity Fair.

• A lot of trailers use music from the Stargate movie. Usually the piece called "Mastadge Drag". Examples include Jumanji, The Polar Express, and The Time Machine (2002).
• Incidentally, Stargate used music from Wojciech Kilar's Bram Stoker's Dracula which was used for numerous other trailer's itself: including 12 Monkeys, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Demolition Man, Underworld (2003) and What Lies Beneath.
• In the previews for the movie No Reservations (2007), part of the music used consisted of the ending credits music from A Series of Unfortunate Events. Its own trailers were using music from Paramount's The Addams Family films. And some trailers for A Series Of Unfortunate Events used the Edward Scissorhands theme! The first trailer for Burton's Alice in Wonderland used music from A Series of Unfortunate Events — the cycle is complete. Naturally Corpse Bride also used music from A Series of Unfortunate Events.
• "Bishop's Countdown" from Aliens pops up a lot in trailers involving action sequences building up to a crescendo.
• The choral bit called "O Verona" from Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet sounds a bit like Carmina Burana and gets used a lot. It was also used in the trailer for The X-Files: Fight the Future, certainly.
• Edward Scissorhands - Danny Elfman said, as part of a commentary track for the DVD, that every now and again his friends will call up and say "Edward's back!" when some trailer uses its music. The first one that did, specifically using the cue "The Grand Finale", was most likely 1993's The Secret Garden. The score is also frequently imitated in ads for other companies - indeed, if any ad's BGM involves an slightly spooky Cherubic Choir, it's probably an imitation of this score.
• Elfman's title music for Beetlejuice is also heard frequently in trailers for kid's movies.
• Some family films use the main theme from Liar Liar during their trailers.
• The trailer for Australia (the movie, not the country!) uses "The Ecstasy of Gold" from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and the heroic leitmotif from Pirates of the Caribbean. It also used the music that plays during the St. Crispian's speech in Kenneth Branagh's Henry V.
• Nicely averted by The Proposition which used its own soundtrack, probably because the soundtrack was one of the film's main selling points. This is also true of MirrorMask.
• The ecstatic, sweeping "Prime Minister's Love Theme" from Love Actually crops up in any number of trailers, particularly romantic comedies.

• The score to Donnie Darko, and a swathe of knockoffs thereof, seemed to be all over the place three months after it hit DVD. The spooky-but-lighthearted Middlesex Times (or is it Manipulated Living?) made it around the most.
• The initial trailer for Saving Private Ryan used music from The American President.
• The use "Journey to the Line" from The Thin Red Line makes the trailer for Pearl Harbor look so frickin' awesome and epic that it made a lot of people think it could be another Saving Private Ryan or at least a really cool movie. You know what they say....
• The theme from Pirates of the Caribbean was used in one of the trailers for Thunderbirds.
  • As well as the TV spots for Master & Commander, no doubt trying to forge a connection with the blockbuster The Curse of the Black Pearl, which came out a few months prior.
• James Bond movies avert this trope; the only music that a trailer for any Bond movie needs is a variant of the classic James Bond theme. Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace featured the Bond theme mixed with Ominous Latin Chanting.

• The "Word of Warning" teaser for Alien swiped some of the score from Logan's Run.
• The commercials for The Santa Clause 3 contained "What's This" from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

• The trailer for Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium used Danny Elfman's "Breakfast Machine" music from Pee-wee's Big Adventure.

• The theatrical trailer for Cinderella Man used the Atreides March from the SYFY miniseries Children of Dune, the first song on this sampler of the soundtrack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHOaaNT69qU&feature=related
  • Also, the trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull uses the track "The Revolution" from the same series before transitioning to the Raiders March.

• Alan Silvestri's theme from MouseHunt was used in the live action Cat In The Hat film trailer and for the A Christmas Carol (2009) trailer, as well as many others.
  • And then it was actually reused (in the film itself) in Fred Claus.
• The trailer for Creepshow 2 used the theme from Halloween.
• The original 1987 trailer to RoboCop (1987) uses the famous main score from The Terminator, which makes sense when you consider that Orion Pictures was involved with both films.
• The theme used during the trailer of Casper was "What's This?" from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

• Tomoyasu Hotei's "Battle Without Honor or Humanity" began cropping up all over the place after Kill Bill made it famous.
• Elfman's main theme to Rodney Dangerfield's Back to School has been trailer music for plenty of boisterous comedies.
• Hans Zimmer's piece You're So Cool from the movie True Romance, gets used in trailers quite often.
  • Which itself is almost a direct rip-off of Carl Orff's "Gassenhauer".
• Trailers for Constantine (2005) use "Pain and Retribution" from the score to The Crow.
• The teaser to Bedtime Stories (2008) had music playing from 102 Dalmatians.
• Aversion: the first trailer for The Phantom of the Opera (2004) used a churning, string-section-heavy part of the actual score (though that may have been a different recording than the one used in the film), followed by a small snippet of Gerard Butler singing "The Music of the Night". The trailers for the DVD version, oddly, still contained the score, but little to no singing (similar to the Sweeney Todd example above), except the narration still called it "Andrew Lloyd Webber's triumphant musical"!
• One of the first teasers of Ridley Scott's Gladiator used "Anvil of Crom" from Conan the Barbarian (1982) by Basil Poledouris. What better way to set the epic tone for the then upcoming movie? The film had music by Hans Zimmer, Klaus Badelt and Lisa Gerrard.
  • Speaking of Gladiator, "Now We Are Free" has been used in a number of trailers, most famously Man of Steel.

• Early trailers for the movie Seabiscuit used Michael Giacchino's main theme for Medal of Honor on the PlayStation.
• The trailer to the movie Miracle uses the end title from the 2000 film Dungeons & Dragons (2000) for its climax.
• Michael Kamen's main theme from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is used in promos for Disney DVD and Blu-ray releases. Ironic, since that film was not released by Disney or its affiliates, and in fact, Disney has its own version of Robin Hood.
• The main theme from Sunshine is getting really popular. It's especially worth noting that the version linked to is the official soundtrack version: "Sunshine (Adagio in D Minor)". However, in the film itself the piece is in a different key, ^note  specifically, a higher key, and since even the clip of Cassie's voice on the official version is a lower pitch than it is in the movie, one wonders if they didn't just take the track and digitally pitch it all down... for some reason... and that version seems to get used as often as the official one.
• The trailer for The Mighty Ducks 2 used the iconic Alan Silvestri theme from Back to the Future.
  • As did a couple of trailers for Bushwhacked.
  • One trailer for the Adam Sandler vehicle Bedtime Stories (2008) used the Western theme from Back to the Future Part III.
• If the music from the trailer for Super 8 sounds familiar, that's because it was from the movie Cocoon. It can be heard in this trailer for Cocoon: The Return.
• The trailers for Independence Day used Zimmer's "Roll Tide" fanfare from Crimson Tide.
• The trailer for Runaway Train made excellent use of Henry Mancini's dynamic theme for Lifeforce. Both were Cannon Group productions.
• This teaser for a school musical production of The Wizard of Oz uses the song "One Short Day" from Wicked.
• The trailer for the After Earth uses the main menu theme from Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
• The trailer music for the Disney film Angels in the Outfield notably featured the main overture from Rudy, as well the main theme from another baseball flick, The Natural.
• Both The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, with soundtracks by Howard Shore, invert this:
  • The Return of the King starts with shortened versions of the themes Breath of Life and The Last March of the Ents from The Two Towers, and then switches to music recorded especially for the trailer. This music ends in an epic version of the Gondor theme that sounds suspiciously similar to the scene where Gandalf rides through Minas Tirith.
  • As for An Unexpected Journey, it starts with a variation on the Shire theme (maybe used in the movie, but not present in the OST), before we're treated to the Dwarves' Misty Mountains song. But after that we hear the exact same score as in the scene where the party leaves Rivendell, though with a different instrumentation.
• "My Name Is Lincoln" from The Island (2005) shows up quite frequently in film trailers. Much of the trailer to Flyboys is set to it.
• "Escape", from the period film Plunkett & Macleane, is another prominently used chorale theme, showing up in trailers for films such as Quills and The Patriot (2000).
• X-Men: Days of Future Past:
  • The original trailer shown at Comic-Con used "Time" from Inception.
  • The first official trailer uses "Adagio in D Minor" from Sunshine and "Journey to the Line" from The Thin Red Line.
  • The final Trailer uses the song Kashmir by Led Zeppelin.
• The teaser for Man of Steel used "Khazad-Dûm", from Howard Shore's score for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
• The second trailer for Christopher Nolan's Interstellar brilliantly uses "Evey Reborn" from Dario Marianelli's score for V for Vendetta.
• One of the trailers for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow uses the theme from Stargate SG-1.
• All three sequels to Batman (1989) used music cues from that film, even though they appeared nowhere in the actual movies and Danny Elfman stopped scoring them after Batman Returns.
• The first actual trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron uses an INCREDIBLY creepy Dark Reprise of Got No Strings from Pinocchio.
• The trailer for Eight Below used music from Finding Nemo.
• The trailer for Aces: Iron Eagle III uses The Dream from Total Recall (1990).
• The trailer for Star Trek: The Motion Picture used excerpts from John Williams' soundtrack for the film adaptation of Black Sunday. Subsequent Original Series and Next Generation films would recycle music from previous films in the series (with the first two TNG films' trailers also using excerpts from the TNG main theme, itself a re-orchestration of the TOS and TMP themes).
  • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country avoided this by just using their own scores in their trailers, while Star Trek: Nemesis avoided using Star Trek music in its trailer at all, instead throwing a snippet from Planet of the Apes (2001) in with some Stock Trailer Music.
• An instrumental of Coldplay's "Clocks" will indicate Time Passes Montage: The Movie.
• Averted nicely by Mad Max: Fury Road, in which only music heard in the film is used.
• The teaser trailer for Resident Evil: Retribution uses the "Recognizer" track from TRON: Legacy.
• La Valse D'Amelie from Amélie. It's been in many ads and so-called reportages.
• The trailer for The Real Macaw is pretty much a showcase of some of the most common stock trailer music often heard in spots for family movies.
• The theatrical trailer for Nell used James Newton Howard's end theme from Wyatt Earp. This music gets used a lot for inspiring stories, especially depicting rural life. The TV promo used the love theme from Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story by Randy Edelman.
• The Dead Ringers trailer not only mentioned that it was from the director of The Fly (1986) but also used four of the earlier movie's score cues (in order: "Steak Montage", "Seth Goes Through", "The Armwrestle", and "The Phone Call"). Howard Shore scored both, so this was even more apt. Another cue ("Plasma Pool") was incorporated into both the teaser and trailer for The Fly II (which as a B-Team Sequel had a different composer), meaning this score was used three times in a twelve-month span.
• The first trailer for 2012 uses the same music that was used in the trailer for The Shining.
• The trailers for Jurassic Park and The Lost World: Jurassic Park both used a the track Burn it all from the soundtrack from Backdraft.
• The trailer for the Flintstones movie started with the main theme of Tom and Jerry: The Movie by Henry Mancini.
• The trailer for The Manhattan Project used some of the endless overuse of the instrumental version of "Twist of Fate" that Executive Meddling mandated serve as the score of Two of a Kind (1983)
• Notably averted by Hoffa - where the director's Associated Composer David Newman got to score the trailer as well as the film.
• Also by freaking John Williams on Nixon (it's called " The 1960's: The Turbulent Years" on the soundtrack album.
• See also Jerry Goldsmith when was attached to Judge Dredd - [[https://www.youtube.com/watch? It was included v=OOX Qc Pt Bjl Y]] on Intrada's 2-CD expanded release of Alan Silvestri's music for the finished product.

Live-Action TV

• The 2006 Discworld Convention included an exclusive trailer for the TV adaptation of Hogfather which was still in post-production. The director apologised beforehand for having to use the music from The Lord of the Rings.
• The trailers for the History Channel's Band of Brothers used theLegends of the Fall Theme Tune (by James Horner).
• TNT used music from Mass Effect 2 (Suicide Mission, to be exact) for a promo of The Borgias.
• Commercials for the Italian edition of Saturday Night Live (which aired at Fridays) used the Pinna Park theme from Super Mario Sunshine.
• PBS Kids:
  • A station ident for the 24/7 PBS Kids channel WETA Kids uses "Trashin' The Camp" from Tarzan.
  • This PBS Kids Go! promo for Arthur uses the That's So Raven Image Song "Let's Stick Together". Another promo from the same era used "We're All In This Together" from High School Musical.
  • Perhaps most surprisingly of all, WGBH Kids' promos use "Tank!", the opening theme to Cowboy Bebop.
  • They have used an instrumental of "That Thing You Do" from the movie of the same name in a promo for WordWorld.
• The BBC nature documentary series Planet Earth had an original score by George Fenton, but the trailers used "Hoppípolla" by Sigur Rós which became a hit single as a result, and was so strongly associated with the show that over a decade later, a remix was used in the trailers for Planet Earth II.

Video Games

• Every single trailer of 007 Legends and GoldenEye 007: Reloaded used the music composed for Casino Royale (2006) trailer.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • In what appears to be a sort of mini-tradition, the series used "Riddle Of Steel/Riders of Doom" by Basil Poledouris from Conan the Barbarian (1982) in the trailers for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and it was so popular, Nintendo reused it in the first trailers for Wind Waker and Twilight Princess!
  • A trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass used an orchestral version of the Dark World music from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. The music doesn't appear in the finished product.
• One trailer for Far Cry 2 used a fast-paced, techno "battle" piece over a series of explosions and battle scenes. The melody, however, was not from the first or second Far Cry games, but was, in fact, the mini boss battle theme "Fear the Reaper" from Beyond Good & Evil.
• A trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) uses music from the Spider-Man trilogy and Pirates of the Caribbean.
• The first trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV used "Pruitt-Igoe" from Koyaanisqatsi.

• One of Halo: Reach's trailers used "Pursuit of Truth" from Halo 2, which itself is a remix of "Leela" from the series' spiritual predecessor Marathon.

Western Animation

• The pre-series trailer for The Lion Guard had the entrance theme of the late WWE superstar Umaga playing during it at one point.

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