Triumphant Reprise

Students: Hail to the bus driver, bus driver, bus driver...
Seymour Skinner: ...yes. Hail to the bus driver. Bus driver man.

— The Simpsons, "The Otto Show"^note after Otto earns his license to re-earn his bus driver job

Sibling to the Dark Reprise, only it's the Good Twin of the pair. While a Dark Reprise is a dark, ominous version of a previous song, the Triumphant Reprise is just the opposite — an earlier song, especially one with either a neutral or downright dark tone, redone in an uplifting, dramatic, and victorious form. Frequently used as a Theme Music Power-Up and/or a Bravado Song. This also tends to happen to an "I Want" Song — it turns from that to an "I've Earned What I Wanted Song."

Is quite prone to being both awesome and heartwarming, and frequently used for Climactic Music and for Earn Your Happy Ending stories. It can even be a Big Finale Crowd Song if there's a crowd of people singing the reprise and it's near the end.

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Sub-pages

• Animated Films
  • Disney Animated Canon
• Video Games
• Western Animation
  • My Little Pony

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Examples:

Anime

• While the ending theme of CLANNAD and Nagisa's leitmotif Dango Daikazoku (Big Dango Family) is already fairly happy, though for some reason has a tint of Tear Jerker, the Triumphant Reprise Chiisana Te no Hira (The Palm of a Tiny Hand) that plays at the climax of the series ramps the heartwarming up.
• The music in the final episode of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, "Love Conservative" (spoilers), since it's played during Simon and Nia's wedding, reprises both Nia's and Simon's themes.
• In the Jack and the Beanstalk anime Princess Margret's song "No one's happier than I" is given a reprise after the villains are defeated.
• In the final episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion, we hear two separate triumphant reprises of the opening theme, titled "The Heady Feeling of Freedom" and "Good, Or Don't Be" respectively. Though these aren't typical of the Triumphant Reprise - they're much more mellow and calming arrangements of what is normally a passionate and driving theme song.
• The final battle of Macross Frontier is capped off by the Nyan Nyan Service Medley, which is practically every song from the series strung together.
• The song that plays over the credits of the final episode of Revolutionary Girl Utena is "Rose and Release," a catchy, upbeat version of the show's main theme.
• Gundam Build Fighters combines this with Last Episode Theme Reprise during the final epic battle between Sei and Reiji's Build Strike Gundam and Meijin Kawaguchi's Amazing Gundam Exia, the first theme plays in all of its glory!
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion has a lighter flute reprise of Sayaka's theme Decretum mixed into the music of the climatic last battle as seen here. It plays when she summons Oktavia von Seckendorff showing hows she's managed to accept and overcome her despair.
  • Earlier on, it also features another one of the anime's darker songs remastered heroically for Homura's segment of the Holy Quintet transformation sequence.
• Attack on Titan:
  • The slightly melancholy chorus of the Insert Song 'The Reluctant Heroes' returns as a stirring Leitmotif in several other pieces on the soundtrack, including 'Ri-body-ki-motion' and 'counter*attack-mankind'.
  • The slightly sad and calm melody of 'eye-water' comes back as a victorious (but equally melancholic) theme in 'Call Your Name' a few times during the anime.
• The melody of the Voltes V theme has a triumphant version played on violins when Voltes V begins fighting back against the Beast Fighter, and before drawing the Laser Sword.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: "Sono Chi no Sadame", the theme song for Phantom Blood, plays in the final episode of Battle Tendency as Joseph manages to defeat the seemingly invincible Kars by launching him into space.
• The ending theme of Excel♡Saga is remixed when Menchi and some other dogs she meets get ready to find her original owner.
• In Evangelion:3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, the end credits are comprised of two vocal songs: the newly composed "One Last Kiss" and a "Da Capo Version" reprise of "Beautiful World" from the first two films. What makes this much more poignant is that this is the film where Shinji finally earns his happy ending, and that "Beautiful World" never played at any point in the previous film's Downer Ending.

Fanfiction

• Turnabout Storm: One of the original themes, "Memories", is a slow and melancholic track that plays during a couple of the series' most emotional moments. Towards the ending, this theme is used in the Reprise Medley "End of the Storm", where it takes a significantly more uplifting, if still slightly melancholic, tone. ^note It appears around the 1:15 mark.
• An interesting example occurs in Chapter 2 of In Brightest Day. Right after gaining the Green Lantern Ring, Applejack is confronted by Ruby, Mitta, and a recently corrupted Granny Smith. During the fight the trio proceeds to sing their Villain Song "With Me" to further hammer in how hopeless her situation is and how she should just surrender. However at certain points of the song Applejack sings her own lyrics during the fight, and eventually takes over the entire song near the end, having it pertain to the fact that she won't surrender as she successfully defeats the trio.
• In Undertale, the genocide route (in which the player character chooses to kill everyone and everything in their path including themself) contains a very infamous and difficult battle with one of the main characters named Sans. "Megalovania" is the song that plays during the fight and is the character's theme song. "Altruistralia" is the much happier, fan-made, major key version of "Megalovania" and basically Sans' theme in the pacifist route (in which the player character chooses to befriend all the characters and frees everyone from being trapped underground forever).
• BlackGryph0n, a Fandom VIP of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, produced a song dedicated to the Cutie Mark Crusaders about their quest to find their cutie marks (a special mark that signifies your true calling), called "Crusader (Are We There Yet)"; it was a hopeful but somewhat bittersweet tune about how hard the little trio was fighting to finally find their marks and how their determination, though admirable, is also aimless and shows a desire to grow up too fast, prompting the singer (implied to represent their elder sisters) to grow concerned for them. The sequel/reprise, "Here We Are", is a powerful and triumphant song that celebrates the day that the Crusaders finally found their purpose and gained their cutie marks (which occurred in the episode "Crusaders of the Lost Mark", which inspired the song), while simultaneously marveling at the realization that their true talents were right in front of them the whole time and they never knew it until that day.

Films — Live-Action

• A Walk to Remember
  • A variation of "Only Hope" (sang by Switchfoot) plays when Landon proposes to Jaime.
  • Jaime and Landon's Leitmotif plays in epic fashion after they get married and Landon explains that Jaime died.
• At the end of The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland after Elmo defeats Huxley, retrieves his blanket, and reconciles with Zoe, the whole Sesame Street gang celebrates with a triumphant finale rendition of Elmo's opening song "Together Forever".
• Anger Management has the scene where Jack Nicholson gets Adam Sandler to sing "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge as part of his therapy. The movie ends with him and his other patients singing it again when he graduates.
• While the main theme of The Avengers (2012) is already a rousing leitmotif that is revisited a few times, nothing tops when it plays again right at the climax when the titular group of heroes have finally come together to fight the Chitauri army in arguably the most iconic shot of the film
• Tim Burton's Batman (1989) has a complex example at the end. Danny Elfman's "Batman Theme" has been heard (in full) at the beginning and (in snippets) throughout the entire film, always sounding somehow negative (angry, despairing, mysterious, etc.). When the Bat-Signal is turned on just before the end, the theme is heard once more - and this time proceeds through a variety of different emotional connotations, from stately to bittersweet to hopeful to determined to (finally) triumphant, with a climax straight out of Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathrustra" and three glorious tolls of a church bell. But then, just before the screen fades out, the "dark" version of the theme returns, although this time it definitely implies an And the Adventure Continues mood.
• Dorina sings the titular "Bituing Walang Ningning" when she is first unveiled as a major singer. She sings it again in the end after announcing her withdrawal from public life. She then lets Lavinia finish while she embraces Nico.
• Blade Runner 2049: The ending features a version of Tears in Rain that is more heroic in tone than Blade Runner's, with the volume swelling and almost entering major key, whereas the original was silent and minor throughout.
• The opening, title song of Bye Bye Birdie (added for the movie) becomes this at the end. Kim's tone goes from "What am I going to do now? I miss Conrad so much!" in the opening to a mocking "To hell with you, Conrad! I'm a grown woman now!" at the end. Definitely less sentimental than most other examples on this page, but it still fits.
• "Impossible" from the TV special Cinderella (Rodgers and Hammerstein) has a cynical, pessimistic half, and a part containing a glimmer of hope for Cinderella's wishes. After the Fairy Godmother grants Cinderella's wish to attend the ball, the two of them sing, "It's Possible", which puts a more optimistic spin on the song.
• Con Air, of all things, has two.
  • "How Do I Live?" is first heard when Poe comes home from the army to find his wife Tricia and their unborn daughter Casey. It is heard again in the end when he finally meets Casey in person.
  • "Sweet Home Alabama" is heard first when the cons escape the boneyard, then again in the end when we see Garland Greene is still at large.
• Crush has one of the most heartwarming, gut-wrenching versions of this because the side-plot ends well. There is then another reprise, itself a Dark Reprise of the first, darker main theme which begot the light variation, as the end of the main plot comes along.
• Das Boot: The tracks "Rückzug" and "Heimkehr" reprise the film's main theme ("Titel") in triumphant fashion as the U-96 crew manages to cheat death right under the Royal Navy's nose in Gibraltar (by repairing the submarine's engine and having it go back to the surface against all odds) and come back at the base.
• DC Extended Universe
  • Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice introduces Diana with distinctive, haunting musical cues, which evolves into an intense drumbeat at different parts of the film. At the climax when she arrives as Wonder Woman alongside Batman and Superman, her full theme is revealed as pulse pounding battle music.
  • Justice League zigzags this trope. When Clark is resurrected, a Dark Reprise version of the Superman: The Movie theme plays, which steps down instead of up on the fifth note, to indicate that he Came Back Wrong. Then, at the very end of the film, everything's going wrong. Steppenwolf has just beaten the rest of the Justice League easily, and torn Cyborg in half. Clark arrives to save the day, with the 1978 John Williams theme playing fully.
  • For Superman's return in action in the climax of Zack Snyder's Justice League, Junkie XL did away with the 1978 throwback and instead gave the first notes of "What Are You Going to Do When You Are Not Saving the World?" from Man of Steel a triumphant brass reprise just as Superman body-blocks a strike from Steppenwolf's electro-axe, followed by an equally triumphant reprise of "Flight" for the rest of the scene as he effortlessly pummels the New God.
• In the movie Dreamgirls, the Dreamgirls song is reprised as "Dreamgirls (Finale)" at the end.
• Enchanted, being an Affectionate Parody of an Animated Disney Princess Film, has Carrie Underwood's closing song "Ever Ever After" end with the melody and the words of "I've been dreaming of a true love's kiss".
• The First Wives Club ends with them singing "You Don't Own Me" by Leslie Gore, which Annie was too shy to sing at first.
• The Five-Year Engagement ends with Alex and Suzie singing the Spanish song he sang at their wedding for Tom and Violet as they drive away to their honeymoon.
• Howard Hawks' adaptation of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, starring Marilyn Monroe, begins with Lorelei and Dorothy singing, "Two Little Girls From Little Rock". The song details how much trouble a young woman with a simple background can have finding a decent man. They sing it again at their double wedding, but proclaim that they succeeded in finding the men of their dreams.
• Gigi ends with a choral reprise of "Thank Heaven for Little Girls".
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): Godzilla's signature theme music from the original 1954 movie plays when he charges into Boston accompanied by the military to do battle against King Ghidorah, except it's a more uplifting and heroic rescore of the original leitmotif. Reflecting how Godzilla is an ally instead of a threat in this movie, is at his most heroic in the MonsterVerse against the omnicidal threat of Ghidorah, and reflecting the movie's themes of humanity finding it in themselves to make peace with and coexist with the monster who originally represented the atomic bomb.
• The very last musical cue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II - as the Trio's children leave for Hogwarts - is a major-key rendition of Hedwig's Theme which, while not dark per se, is normally in minor.
• The film version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! ends with a chorus singing a happy version of "Where Are You, Christmas?"
• Ikiru:
  • Watanabe gets an idea while he is at a restaurant. People sing "Happy Birthday" to him as he leaves. When he tells his department that they need to turn the cesspool into a playground, "Happy Birthday" can be heard as a Leitmotif.
  • Watanabe sings "Gondola no Uta" early in the film and he is so sad that it unnerves everyone in the club listening to him. In his last scene alive, he is singing it again while playing on the swing of the playground that he had built.
• Independence Day has this twice in the film, one where the City Destroyer attacking Area 51 blows up and another where a montage shows humanity celebrating their survival.
• In Jerry Maguire, Rod Tidwell's Reebok commercial plays at the end credits. He says that he would never want to be a singer. A song that just goes 'Shapow! Shapow!" plays. It plays again at the end when Reebok apologizes for not making him a spokesperson earlier.
• The 1994 version of Little Women has a track called "Orchard House" playing over the opening credits. When Jo accepts Fritz's proposal at the end, a more triumphant sounding version of the track is played.
• In The Lone Ranger (2013), the iconic William Tell overture first plays when the Ranger and Tonto seem to rob a bank. The song plays again in its entirety in during the train battle set piece.
• The Lord of the Rings:
  • The Return of the King has the Mordor theme (played in a minor key) change to a major key when it shows the destruction of Barad-dûr.
  • A twofer example: The "nature" theme associated with the Ents in The Two Towers is generally mysterious and ethereal. It later becomes a Bootstrapped Leitmotif by the Rohirrim, and the version played in the buildup to the Charge in The Return of the King is instead bold and heroic as Théoden psychs up his Riders for their attack on the Orcs besieging Minas Tirith. Then it segues into a bombastic reprise of the main Rohan theme, which is most often played with a rustic melancholy that sets it apart from the solemn dignity of the Gondor themes.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail: The first version of "Pie Iesu Domine" is sung in a monotone by a parody of flagellant monks, the second time is has more variation, being sung just before use of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
• Examples from The Muppets' film series:
  • Life's like a movie./ Write your own ending./ Keep believing./ Keep pretending./ We've done just what we've set out to do/ thanks to the lovers,/ the dreamers,/ and you...
  • We had comedy./ We had mystery./Had a real good time and solved the crime real easily./Hey a movie!/Starring ev'rybody and me!
  • The love we found,/ The love we found, /We carry with us so we're never quite alone. (However, the theatrical version cut out the song reprised in this number.)
  • We've got everything that we need!/ We can be whatever we want to be!/ Nothing we can't do,/ The skies are blue when it's me and you and you and you./ Life's a happy song,/ when there's someone by your side to sing./ Life's a happy song,/ when there's someone by your side to sing.^note Translated from Beaker's language./ Life's a happy song/ when there's someone.../ by your side.../ to sing along!
  • One that jumps between films: "Together Again" from The Muppets Take Manhattan got one of these at the end of Muppets Most Wanted.
• My Best Friend's Wedding's most famous scene is George getting an entire restaurant to sing along to "Say A Little Prayer". The movie ends with him and Jules dancing to the same song.
• Newsies has TWO of these: "Seize the Day" in the first half, and then "The World Will Know" sung by the hundreds of child strikers at the very end. extra points for the latter because it starts as a Dark Reprise, until 6 lines in.
• In the television movie Once Upon a Brothers Grimm, "Life is Not a Fairy Tale", sung by Jakob Grimm during his Flat-Earth Atheist phase early on in the presentation, is later sung by Jakob as "Life Can Be a Fairy Tale" as the Brothers Grimm's speech to the king.
• The song "Hoist the Colours" in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is fairly dark, first appearing during the beginning execution scene. Then later, it gets reprised as "What Shall We Die For?"
  • "The Medallion Calls" from The Curse of the Black Pearl also gets reprised as part of "One Day".
• In The Replacements (2000), Clifford gets the team to sing and dance "I Will Survive" to cheer them up while they sit in a jail cell for bar fighting. In the end, they do this again after winning the big game.
• "Time Warp" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show gets an even more outrageous reprise after Frank N. Furter dies.
• Scrooge (1970), the 1970 film musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol:
  • The first version of "Thank You Very Much" is a grave-dancing tune in all but one aspect (someone's dancing on Scrooge's coffin before they bury it!) but the reprise is one of genuine gratitude towards the man.
  • Also "No Better Life" and its light reprise "A Better Life".
  • The first performance of "Father Christmas" mocks Scrooge's lack of Christmas Spirit, while the second celebrates his discovery of it.
• In The Shawshank Redemption combines this with Dark Reprise in that the melody that is first played when Andy is led into the prison is later darkly reprised when Norton is threatening to make Andy's life a living hell, but after that, toward the end of the movie it is triumphantly reprised when Norton shoots himself and Red finds out that Andy managed to get past the border.
• The film version of The Sound of Music:
  • The children sadly sing a Dark Reprise of "My Favourite Things" from earlier in the film. However it turns triumphant when Maria returns mid-song and finishes it with them.
  • The nuns sing "Maria" as they debate about whether Maria is fit for the abbey. During her wedding to Captain von Trapp, a triumphant reprise of it can be heard as she walks up the aisle. Specifically the lines "how do you make her stay, and listen to all you say" are being answered by her marriage to the captain.
  • "Eidelweiss" begins as a Dark Reprise too, as Captain von Trapp is essentially saying goodbye to the Austria he knew. He's too overcome with emotion to finish the song - but then Maria and the children join in. And it turns really triumphant when the entire auditorium sings along, including a Nazi officer.
• In Speed, when Jack and Annie escape from the bus, a major-key version of the film's Theme Tune plays.
• The Emperor's Theme from Star Wars, a very eerie and menacing theme, appears in a major key as happy parade music at the end of The Phantom Menace. This is chronologically earlier than the theme's first appearance, but the minor key version appears earlier in the film.
  • Binary Sunset, a soft and somber piece (and possibly the most famous track in the franchise) reflecting Luke’s seemingly impossible desire to go out and find his destiny, gets two triumphant reprises. The first being at the end of A New Hope, when it becomes part of The Throne Room, a bombastic celebration theme that plays during the award ceremony after the heroes destroy the Death Star. The second is in The Phantom Menace, when it appears during The Tide Turns as Anakin destroys the Trade Federation’s flagship (which was used again in Revenge of the Sith during the heroes’ crash landing).
  • Music meant to emphasize the harrowing capture and escape of the Millennium Falcon from the first Death Star are reprised in a later movie as the rebel fleet presses the attack after the second Death star is made vulnerable. Another music piece from the first death star battle, "X Wings Draw Fire", is reprised when the Super Star Destroyer Executor is destroyed.
  • More "Gentle Reprise" than "triumphant", but during Anakin's death scene a soft, optimistic version of the Imperial March plays.
  • Solo: A Star Wars Story shows Han looking for a way to leave his home planet, and comes across an advertisement to join The Empire's army. The ad uses the Imperial March but in a major key. It's more to show them as a Villain with Good Publicity.
• Top Gun: Maverick has a more triumphant and rousing version of the "Top Gun Anthem" playing at the start of the end credits.
• The first Transformers film featured the Autobots making planetfall with a track called, appropriately, "Arrival To Earth." The music is already heroic, but an even more triumphal version is heard when Optimus skydives into Shanghai in Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, relating it thematically as well.
• The end credit music to TRON: Legacy is the same as "The Grid", only the mournful orchestra is superimposed over a house beat, courtesy of Daft Punk.
• Yentl: "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" alone in the forest reprises to "A Piece of Sky" aboard a ship to America with heroine ready to fly into the new world.

Literature

• In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when Ron becomes the Gryffindor Quidditch team's new Keeper, the Slytherins mess with his head by singing a song called "Weasley Is Our King", mockingly praising him for how he "always lets the Quaffle in". When Gryffindor wins the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup, the first thing Harry and Hermione hear upon arriving is a Gryffindor remix of the tune that genuinely praises him.
• The Stars My Destination opens with Gully Foyle, subhuman sociopath, about to die by his lonesome in the depths of space, delirious, singing "Gully Foyle is my name and Terra is my nation. Deep space is my resting place and death my destination...". It ends with Gully Foyle, transcendent spirit, no longer bound by time or space, joyfully reaching out into the cosmos, singing "Gully Foyle is my name and Terra is my nation. Deep space is my resting place, the stars my destination".

Live-Action TV

• Babylon 5 used a different theme song for each season. The second season's theme was basically the first season's theme song exchanged some of the mysterious tone of the first season's theme for a more ominous militaristic style (in keeping with the show's changing mood). The third season was instead a combination of the music for two of the show's most one-sided fights, presenting a rather desperate tone. The fourth season was the theme from the first two seasons, played as a victorious march.
  • And the 5th season was an amalgamation of the preceding 4, with signature lines from each season spliced through.
• The last song of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Musical Episode is a glorious reprise of Buffy's "Walk Through The Fire" and Spike's "Rest In Peace" which culminates in them kissing.
• The Cobra Kai season 4 finale begins with Paul Anka's "My Way" playing when Kreese is shanked in prison. The song plays again at the end when Kreese escapes from prison.
• A weird version in Cold Case: The song played during the Ending Montage of the Season 3 episode "Detention" is the Smashing Pumpkins' cover of "Landslide". In the following season's "Fireflies", where the victim turns out to still be alive, the song played during the Ending Montage is the original version by Fleetwood Mac.
• A Community season 1 episode was about Troy and Abed's biology project about conditioning a lab rat to respond to a song command. Theirs is "Somewhere Out There". Troy is scared of rats but he finally joins in in the climax. Their performance syncs with Chang and his wife salsa dancing to a Gaelic concert at the cafeteria.
• Doctor Who: In "Voyage of the Damned", when the Doctor successfully stops the space Titanic from crashing, an instrumental version of "The Stowaway", sung earlier during the party, plays.
• The Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest traditionally ends with a reprise of the winning song. As the artists are usually emotional (or drunk) by this point in the evening the performance may not be as polished as when they were competing earlier in the show but the sheer joy of winning usually makes up for it. Sometimes the winner takes the opportunity to change it up: 1982's winner Nicole sang "Ein bißchen Frieden" in four languages through the course of the song, and 2021's Måneskin, who sang a censored version of "Zitti e buoni" for the contest, sang it uncensored for the reprisal.
• In the second season finale of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, "Second Chance" is a reflective song representing the season's Bitter Sweet Ending, including Ricky being single and Gina trying a reltionship with E.J. It gets a more hopeful instrumental reprise in the season four episode "Admissions" as Ricky and Gina reaffirm their love for each other and kiss in a rainstorm.
• Game of Thrones:
  • The main theme gets this treatment on a couple of occasions, firstly when Robb rides back from battle safe and sound, with Jaime Lannister as his prisoner, and secondly when the show pulls off a triumphant reprise of its main theme over the final scene of season 1 and the ending credits. It's so effective it's hard not to leap into the air pumping your fist and cheering as soon as it cuts to black. DRAGONS, dude!
  • In the third season episode "The Bear and the Maiden Fair", House Lannister's foreboding Villain Song, "The Rains of Castamere", is remixed into the heroic "A Lannister Always Pays His Debts" when Jaime rescues Brienne from the bear pit.
  • In the sixth season finale, "The Winds of Winter", the Stark Theme gets a triumphant reprise in the form of "The Tower's" crescendo, played during the reveal that Jon Snow is actually the son of Lyanna Stark.
  • While the "The Throne Is Mine" during Joffrey's purge of Robert's bastards is the Dark Reprise of the Baratheon theme, it segues into a triumphant rendition of "Black of Hair" when Gendry escapes to safety. Robert Baratheon's theme also gets a triumphant reprise when Gendry learns his true parentage in "The Bear and the Maiden Fair".
  • "The King in the North" is reprised, not for Robb, who died in the previous episode, but for Bran as he goes to the Wall in "Mhysa".
• Barney's video resume song ("Barney Stinson is Awesome") from the How I Met Your Mother season four episode The Possimpible is reprised five seasons later in Unpause when Barney completes his plan to get revenge on the guy who stole his girlfriend Shannon and watches him being arrested by the FBI.
• Kamen Rider Decade has a triumphant instrumental remix of the Title Theme Tune "Journey Through the Decade" that plays at the climax of the later story arcs. Of course, the original song wasn't exactly dark or depressing, but still.
• Lost: In the Grand Finale, one of the main, somber themes (From as early as the pilot) is reprised in a moment of triumph, right as Jack manages to save the island. This becomes this.
• The Price Is Right: Played with depending on whether the contestant wins or loses. If a contestant wins, then the theme song for the show becomes a Triumphant Reprise.
• Rome features a reprise of the main theme song, when Vorenus and Pullo rescue Vorenus' children from slavery.
• The main theme of Sherlock gets a rather upbeat reprise in the first half of #SherlockLives.
• The main theme of Star Trek: Picard is a fairly melancholy piece that largely hinges on a lonesome flute. The end credits of the first season finale features a far more upbeat rendition for a full orchestra, reflecting the victory that Picard and his friends have won.
• The Temptations:
  • When "Get Ready" is first performed, David arrives late. They perform it again at their reunion tour without a hitch.
  • "My Girl" is first shown when the group finally makes it big and they perform it on television. They perform it again as the final performance

Music

• What A Catch, Donnie is sort of an interesting case, as it isn't a very uplifting song. However, the music certainly has a victorious feeling to it, and at the time it came out, it was talk of it being the band's last video and last single, making it something of a Grand Finale. It features reprises of several of their previous songs, performed by several singers with whom they had worked over the years.
  • Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet, sung by Elvis Costello.
  • Grand Theft Autum/Where Is Your Boy, sung by Gabe Saporta.
  • Sugar, We're Goin Down, sung by Travis Mccoy.
  • Dance, Dance, sung by Brendon Urie.
  • This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race, sung by Doug Neumann.
  • Thnks fr th Mmrs, sung by Alex Deleon.
  • Growing Up, sung by William Beckett.
• "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)"
  • Carry That Weight from Abbey Road reprises the opening of the earlier Abbey Road track, "You Never Give Me Your Money", with a full orchestra.
• Classical music is full of examples. Just to name a few:
  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky opens his Symphony No.5 in E minor with a slow, solemn theme played by two unison clarinets. Although the first few phrases of the introduction appear at two climactic moments in the second movement and just before the end of the third movement, it is in the finale that it takes on an air of triumph, being stated in full and in E major in the movement's introduction and the first part of the coda.
  • Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No.9 ("From the New World") features a melodic motif based around a rising arpeggio at key moments in all four movements, and both it and the main theme from the finale are initially presented in moments that are tense, dramatic, and in the symphony's home key of E minor. In the coda of the finale, the two themes are stated together as the orchestra swells triumphantly in E major.
  • In Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor, the first theme of the first movement is glorified in the cadenza of the first movement. Also, the slow, lyrical theme played by the solo flute from the final movement is recapitulated in a victorious version, played by the whole orchestra near the very end of the entire concerto.
  • Edward Elgar used this trope in several long-form works.
    • His Symphony No. 1 in A-flat major starts with a quiet solemn theme. This melody in the first movement makes a majestic and powerful (not to mention loud) return at the very end of final movement.
    • His violin concerto opens with a harsh theme in B minor. In the last measures of the finale, the brass instruments play a slow, majestic rendition of the first four notes of the theme, now transposed into B major, over virtuosic runs in the solo violin.
  • In Olivier Messiaen's "Vingt Regards de l'Enfant Jésus", a two-hour-long twenty-movement suite of piano works inspired by the Nativity, the first movement introduces a leitmotif called the "Thème de Dieu" ("Theme of God"), which recurs a number of times throughout the suite. In the twentieth and final movement, it final statement is very slow and emphatic, being described by the composer as the "Glorification du thème de Dieu" ("Glorification of the Theme of God").
  • The coda of Louis Vierne's Second Organ Symphony is an exaltant restatement of the more brooding theme that begins the work.
• Dream Theater:
  • "About To Crash", from the 42-minute "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence", is about a girl with Bipolar Disorder. Musically, it starts off quietly cheerful, then becomes more and more eerie as it describes how her illness destroyed her life. The reprise start's off triumphantly describing how she pulled herself out of a bout of depression, and manages to end hopefully.
  • "The Shattered Fortress" is the fifth part of the Twelve-Step Suite, and reprises musical and lyrical cues from preceding parts of the suite; it thus reprises many sections of the suite, strung together to form a 13-minute triumphant reprise for the 44 minutes of metal that preceded it.
    • And then there's "The Spirit Carries On" from their Concept Album Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory: Nicholas has learned the source of the strange dreams he's been having, and the girl within—Her name is Victoria, and she was brutally murdered; and he is her reincarnation. After tormenting himself with her sad story, he comes to terms with this knowledge and finally moves on. It ends with a reprise of "Regression", the first track (the choir helps bring it out, too)
• From Trans-Siberian Orchestra's The Christmas Attic, "Music Box Blues" is this to "The Music Box", but mostly in the backstory. The latter is about a woman who misses her old boyfriend/husband, who was implied to have been killed in a war. The former is sung by the husband as the two reunite after so many years.
• The self-titled final song off of Everything Else's self-titled album is a medley of every previous song on the album.
• Funker Vogt's "Arising Hero (Forgiven)" is a triumphal orchestra reprise of Blutzoll's opening track.
• Sort of a Bittersweet Reprise, but, large chunks of the instrumentals to "The Return" by The Waybacks are reprised from the song it's a sequel to, "The Witch of the Westmereland", where now the knight is dying of old age but is reunited with his long-dead animal companions and the eponymous witch to ride with them in his last moments.
• On Armin Van Buuren's Intense album, the track "Who's Afraid of 138?!" is followed by a rock power ballad reprise of said song titled... "Reprise".
• Emilie Autumn's "Start Another Story", as a reprise to "What Will I Remember?" is triumphant in the context of the story, although bittersweet in tone.
• Trance producer RAM's "Someone Like You" is a triumphant follow-up to "RAMelia", detailing moving on past tragedy while still keeping the person who passed away close to your heart. Fittingly enough, it's set to a very peppy and energetic uplifting trance beat.
• The album version of the Pet Shop Boys' cover of "Always on My Mind" has this after the "In My House" interlude.
• Mono Inc.'s Together Till The End album Bookends "The Banks of Eden" with an orchestral reprise In the Style of "He's A Pirate" from the Pirates of the Caribbean film series.
• VNV Nation's Empires, also combining this trope with Bookends, reprises the intro track "Firstlight" in the finale "Arclight". Likewise, Transnational closes with "Teleconnect II", a triumphant reprise of "Teleconnect I", and Electric Sun instrumentally reprises "Run" as "Under Sky".
• When Afroman wrote the original version of "Because I Got High" in 2001, it highlighted the many ways marijuana could ruin someone's life. But as marijuana began to be legalized in several American states, he wrote a different version in 2014 that highlighted the things marijuana could help with.
• The Newsboys have a subtle take on this on their iconic album Take Me to Your Leader. "Breathe", one of the heaviest tracks on what is possibly their heaviest album, is a rage-filled log of someone struggling through the week, dominated by Peter Furler's raspy, heavily-accented vocals at their most caustic, and punctuated by the chorus "Breathe on me, breathe oh breath of God / Breathe on me 'til my heart is new." The album closes with "Breathe (Benediction)", a soft, pensive acoustic guitar-driven track that features Phil Joel's sweet, lilting tenor vocals and uses the same chorus, ending with "Breathe on me ‘til I’m resting in You" — implying that the peace and restoration prayed for in the former song has been granted.
• Played with in Sabaton's album The War to End All Wars. The closing track "Versailles", describing the end of World War I, reprises the opening track "Sarajevo", which describes its beginning. "Versailles" begins hopeful that the treaty will bring lasting peace, but about 2/3 of the way through, the chorus is replaced with that of "Sarajevo", before finally asking if a war can end all war and if this war will only bring another. Spoiler alert: It did.

Podcasts

• The Adventure Zone: Balance: Lucretia's theme gets a reprise during the finale, when she saves the world.

Pro Wrestling

• Alberto Del Rio's theme was sped up after he and Ricardo Rodriguez sided with WWE's Spanish announcers against 3MB but was then slowed back down after he tried to aggravate Dolph Ziggler's head injury. After leaving WWE, the theme has been remixed by AAA and others, most likely for legal reasons but El Patron Alberto's been a face primarily since leaving so...
• While not quite the original intent of the pieces, La Rosa Negra commonly used La Batidora by Yaga and Makie, a tune that got boos as soon as it played after her infamous title win over Missy Sampson in BLOW. FOW switched her theme to the 2007 La reunion remix of the song though when it was clear the crowd still liked her there. (besides a more relaxed beat and less ominous keys, the latter replaces the dramatic gun cocking and fire with a soothing whistle)

Puppet Shows

• The 1970 Muppet Special "The Great Santa Claus Switch has a reprise of "We'll Make a Mint at Christmas Time" in the form of "A Merry Christmas Time to You".
• In the Fraggle Rock episode "The Trash Heap Doesn't Live Here Any More", Wembly is writing a song called "What An Awful Day". When he sings the completed song at the end of the episode, it's become "Today Has been A Perfect Day".

Tabletop Games

• Sentinels of the Multiverse:
  • Legacy and Omnitron-X's themes from the Heroes of the Multiverse soundtrack are triumphant reprises of their villain counterparts (Iron Legacy and Omnitron respectively).
  • Zig-Zagged with Tachyon's theme. While the theme is mostly original, the beginning sounds a lot like the beginning of her not-nemesis Friction's theme.
  • There are two heroic reprises of Infinitor's theme: Captain Cosmic's theme and the theme of his Heroic Variant.

Theatre

• In Disney's on-stage adaptation of Aladdin the song "Proud of Your Boy" (originally cut from the movie) is reprised when Genie grants Aladdin's wish to become Prince Ali; giving him a chance to change his life around. "A Whole New World" is also reprised during the show's finale, with Genie singing about being free.
• Cirque du Soleil has this in the finale of Amaluna, with a full-vocal reprise of "Elma Om Mi Lize" combined with the guitar riff from "Run", followed by a reprise of "Come Together", book-ending the opening act.
• "Anastasia: Near the beginning of the show, there is an untitled number that doesn't appear on the soundtrack about Gleb and the KGB tracking any rumors of sedition in Russia, particularly for Gleb involving rumors that the Romanov family might still be alive. Near the end of the show, there is a partial reprise of the number following various journalists asking about the rumor that Anastasia Romanov is still alive ahead of a major announcement by her grandmother, the Dowager Empress.
• Avenue Q has "For Now", which is a (sort of) triumphant reprise of "Sucks To Be Me".
• The Broadway version of Beauty and the Beast follows the Beast's transformation back into a human with him and Belle performing a modified version of, "If I Can't Love Her", in which they both proclaim, "I! Love! You!" to each other. Just like the movie that inspired it, it also ends with a choral reprise of the title song.
• The closing number of the Beetlejuice musical is partially a more upbeat version of "Dead Mom". While the original song was about Lydia lamenting her difficulty in moving on from her mother's death, the reprise is about Lydia finally being able to move on and enjoy life while still missing her deceased mother.
• In Cesare - Il Creatore che ha distrutto, when Cesare first meets Angelo, he sings that it's interesting that his name is "angel", and that leads him to think about the kind of holy and angelic place Italy should be, in contrast to the rotting pool of corruption that it is. Wistfully, he sings "This should be the kingdom of God. It should be, but..." ("Kami no oukoku no hazu da/ hazu nanoni..."). In the end, after Angelo takes a dagger for him, he sings the same part about Angelo's name, and about what Italy should be, but this time, not only does he stop on "hazu da!", he sings it with a lot more confidence, and possibly in a different key/mode, as he has made a decision to be the one to make the change he wishes to see.
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ends with a reprise of "It Must Be Believed to Be Seen" that happily marks Willy Wonka, having found an heir for his factory, setting off alone on a new adventure in creativity.
• In City of Angels, the first act ends with Stone at odds with his writer, Stine, and they raise their voices in the Quarreling Song "You're Nothing Without Me." At the end of the second act, Stone metafictionally joins forces with Stine, and the finale they sing together (with Gabby joining in), "I'm Nothing Without You," is the same song with different lyrics.
• The last reprise of "One Alone" at the end of The Desert Song.
• The Drowsy Chaperone:
  • The reprise of Fancy Dress at the end of Act I is a Dark Reprise for all except Feldzieg, who has, by all accounts, won: Janet has called off the marriage and is presumably going to return to the stage, Kitty isn't as much of a talentless airhead as she appears, and the gangsters didn't kill Feldzieg. For him, the day's going great, and so while all else are sad over the wedding being called off, he is triumphantly singing the same words.
  • The reprise of As We Stumble Along starts off melancholy as the Man In the Chair reflects on his life and his musicals. However, when the characters of ''The Drowsy Chaperone'' join him onstage, it goes from bittersweet to triumphant as he's joined by the last (and only) friends he seems to have.
• Elf: The Musical's finale reprises "A Christmas Song" and "Sparkle Jolly Twinkle Jingly" in this manner.
• The stage adaptation of Footloose begins with Rusty, Wendy Jo, and Urleen singing the titular song Footloose about how they're constantly being worked and watched and can't let loose in any way. The show ends with the cast reprising Footloose as a song celebrating that they're finally able to dance in Beaumont, modifying the lyrics from "I've got this feeling/That time is holding me down" to "I've got this feeling/That time's no longer holding me down".
• Fun Home: The Musical's "Flying Away (Finale)" is an epic reprise of the opening number, "It All Comes Back", as a Counterpoint Trio between present-day Alison and her past selves.
• Into the Woods ends with the reassuring "Children Will Listen", a contrast to The Witch's earlier scathing "Children Don't Listen".
• Kiss Me, Kate and Guys and Dolls both do this with their title songs for the finale.
• In Legally Blonde: The Musical, the title song is very slow and somber as Elle prepares to leave Harvard, but the reprise, when she decides to stay, is very upbeat and energetic.
• Les Misérables.
  • "I Dreamed A Dream" and "Who Am I?" get a triumphant boost on "One Day More".
  • Subverted with "Beggars at the Feast". It's a victorious reprise of "Master of the House"... but that itself was a Villain Song (albeit a rather cheerful one), so the triumph in it isn't really a good thing.
  • The final reprise of "Do You Hear The People Sing" which closes out the show.
• Li'l Abner ends with a reprise of “Jubilation T. Cornpone,” in which Marryin’ Sam initially leads the town into singing the praises of their General Failure town founder. The finale has them do so when they discover Cornpone’s Statue is a National Shrine, thus saving their town from becoming an A-Bomb test site.
• The Broadway version of The Lion King has two:
  • "He Lives In You" - Rafiki's reprisal of Mufasa's song, "They Live In You," showing Simba that Mufasa is not truly dead as long as he is remembered by those who love him, and ends with Simba realizing that his father is always with him, if only in spirit, and thus gaining the courage to return home and reclaim what is rightfully his. The song starts out soft and low-key, with the chorus and Rafiki singing in hushed voices, gradually building up until - BANG - it shifts suddenly in intensity to coincide with the return of Simba's confidence.
  • "King Of Pride Rock/Circle Of Life (Reprise)" - the reprisal of the opening "Circle Of Life," after Simba defeats Scar and claims his rightful place as King of the Pridelands. Starts off soft and tentatively hopeful, then quickly and smoothly transitions to a bright and cheerful upbeat chorus that builds to an uplifting crescendo and climax.
• Mamma Mia! ends with a reprise of "Dancing Queen" but with the men included.
• Matilda:
  • The last part of "My House" includes a major-key counterpoint reprise of Magnus Honey's posthumous song "I'm Here".
  • The "School Song", where the older students warned the newcomers of the school's horrors with a series of alphabetical puns, gets a triumphant reprise in the verses of "Revolting Children", where the students celebrate the overthrow of the Trunchbull, and which also reprise lines from "Miracle", "Naughty", and "The Hammer".
  • When Mafiya head Sergei realizes Matilda's extraordinary knowledge after confronting Mr. Wormwood over his faulty used car scam, he sings a reprise of Miss Honey's "This Little Girl", which is a remnant of the cut song "Perhaps a Child".
  • The finale triumphantly reprises "When I Grow Up" followed by "Naughty".
• In Next to Normal, Diana's part of "Make Up Your Mind/Catch Me I'm Falling (Reprise)." The words are changed to "Watch me I'm flying" as Gabrepeatedly tells her to "make up [her] mind to be free". Subverted in that Gabe is an imaginary mental manifestation of Diana's mental illness, so the song is essentially her relapsing into delusion while rejecting treatment. Dr. Madden spends the entire song unsuccessfully trying to convince her to continue treatment.
• Oklahoma! has Curly and Laurey start out singing "People Will Say We're In Love". When they finally figure out and confess their feelings, it's reprised as "Let People Say We're In Love".
• On the Town ends with another trio of sailors on shore leave singing "New York, New York!"
• The "Angel of Music" melodic triumphant reprise when Christine gives The Phantom of the Opera The Big Damn Kiss.
  • Subverted when Phantom reprises "All I Ask of You" and Christine cuts him off by removing his mask.
  • The last bit of song is The Phantom's sad reprise of "Music of the Night".
• "Hilf mir durch die Nacht" ("Help Me Through The Night") from the Austrian musical version of Rebecca is later happily reprised as "Jenseits der Nacht" ("After Tonight"). In the first one, the de Winters appear to be questioning their marriage; in the reprise they're pledging to stay together through thick and thin.
• A weird version in Reefer Madness. At the end Jesus shows up at Jimmy's execution to mock him for not listening to him.
  • Also May reprises The Stuff while murdering Jack.
• "Finale B" from RENT is this to "Another Day", and also echoes "Will I" and "Without You".
• The Scarlet Pimpernel's "The Creation of Man" is initially a ridiculously over-the-top homage to male dandyism and shallow obsession with appearance: "Someone has to strike a pose and bear the weight of well-tailored clothes, And that is why the Lord created men!" During the climax it gets reprised with a more noble and dashing reason why the Lord created men.
• "Big Bright Beautiful World," from Shrek: The Musical. The first version is a sarcastic opening number about how it's awesome being anything but an ogre. The reprise is a tender song about how Shrek's life has become worthwhile.
• The SpongeBob Musical has a reprise of "(Just a) Simple Sponge" as SpongeBob climbs to the top of Mt. Humongous to drop Sandy's Eruptor Interrupter into the mouth of it. The song's tone changes from SpongeBob wanting to prove he's not a simple sponge, to finally proving it by climbing to the top and saving Bikini Bottom.
• In Starship, "Status Quo" ends with a triumphant reprise of "I Wanna Be" about how Bug finally is a starship ranger.
• Sweeney Todd has two twisted ones: "Epiphany" briefly reprises the end of "The Barber of his Wife;" the latter had Sweeney denounce London as a Wretched Hive while the former has Sweeney embark to do something about it. The finale reprises "Pretty Women" when Sweeney finally kills Turpin.
• Turnabout Musical has "Justice for All (Reprise)" which is a Dark Reprise of "Anything to Win" but it's also an amazing duet between Phoenix and Mia (from beyond the grave) about how the ideals of justice have been served.
• The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee:
  • Leaf got into the Bee by default, after every other competitor from his district had a scheduling conflict, and nobody expects him to do well; this is underlined by his "I Am" Song, "I'm Not That Smart". In the event he comes fifth out of ten, a good enough result to be prompting a triumphant reprise in which he concludes that now he knows he is smart.
  • In the first act, the spellers sing "Pandemonium", lamenting that even a skilled speller's fate may be sealed by bad luck. In the second act, the melody is reprised when Marcy deliberately spells a word wrong because she's sick of the pressure that comes with being best at everything, and sings happily that by losing the contest she has won control over her own destiny.
• In A Very Potter Musical, the first time Quirrell and Voldy sing "Different As Can Be" it's about how annoyed they are with each other, the reprise is about how they're BFFs and ends with them joyously singing about their plans to murder Harry Potter.
• The final Reprise Medley of Wicked is partly this, partly Dark Reprise. Bittersweet reprise?
  • The short reprise of "The Wizard and I" Elphaba sings when Madame Morrible gives her the tickets to the Emerald City and the invitation to see the Wizard is a better example. It's only about half a minute at most and isn't on the soundtrack, so most people forget it.
• In The Wiz, Dorothy precedes her journey down the Yellow Brick Road with the song, "Soon As I Get Home", in which she calls Oz an unfamiliar place full of strangers, and wonders if she can find her way home. For the last number, she re-purposes part of the melody for "Home", in which she declares that now she knows how to go home, and also that she'll fondly remember the Oz-ian friends with whom she now shares a platonic love.
• A number of stage adaptations of The Wizard of Oz have the Winkies perform a triumphant reprise of "Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead". This scene was in fact recorded during the making of the film, but the footage was deleted and lost. Some versions also reprise "Somewhere, Over the Rainbow" in the finale.

Webcomics

• Homestuck's Bootstrapped Theme, "Doctor" gets a particularly epic remix as "Savior of the Dreaming Dead", used in the end of Act 5, Cascade. The song provides fitting accompaniment to Jade's triumphant, cathartic ascension to godhood.

Web Original

• Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog plays this trope straight and subverts it at the same time. There is a reprise of "Brand New Day" and "Dr. Horrible's Theme" worked into the finale instrumental sequence of "Everything You Ever". It's triumphant because Horrible is now a world-class supervillain and has been welcomed to the Evil League of Evil just as he'd been planning, but it's also dark because he killed both Penny and what little remained of his hopeful idealism to accomplish it.
• The Nostalgia Critic's "I'm a Motherfucking T. Rex!" song comes back in full force in his review of Jurassic World when Rexy is unleashed to fight the Indominus Rex.
• During pokecapn and company's LP of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), they spend two hours bogged down in "End of the World," and a physically and mentally exhausted Kung-Fu Jesus starts performing William Shatner-esque, spoken-word renditions of various songs. But as he moves on to "Down Under", the goons finally beat the level, and it goes from one broken man speaking to himself to the entire team joyously singing together.
• Welcome to Night Vale: The show's theme song itself becomes this in Episode 48, when it's played to signify Cecil's return.
• Alucard returning from being put on a ship in Hellsing Ultimate Abridged is capped by him cleaning house to the opening theme "Party Party Party", which had not been played since episode 4.

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