View source for Ride of the Valkyries

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{{quote|"Let it never be said that a [[Valkyries|Chooser of the Slain]] doesn't know how to make a good entrance."|'''[[The Dresden Files|Harry Dresden]]'''}}

The '''''Ride of the Valkyries''''' (German: ''Ritt der Walküren'', or ''Walkürenritt'', as the composer referred to it) is a fanfare-like orchestral music theme originating from [[Richard Wagner]]'s opera ''Die Walküre'' (''The [[Valkyries]]''), which is a part of the cycle ''[[The Ring of the Nibelung|Der Ring Des Nibelungen]]'' (''The Ring of the Nibelung'').

When Wagner wrote it, he actually intended it to evoke images of epic battles, but what really made that music the [[Standard Snippet]] for military [[Badass|badassery]] in Western pop culture was the iconic helicopter raid in ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'' ([[Popcultural Osmosis|even those who haven't seen the movie know that scene]], [[Pop Cultural Osmosis Failure|or at least used to]]). As a result, when the characters are charging on big machines, raining [[Death From Above]] on their enemies or just riding a helicopter, either the soundtrack will play "Ride of the Valkyries", or a reference to it will be made.

Ironically, [[Richard Wagner]] initially opposed the use and performance of the piece outside of the original opera, even going as far as to write letter of complaint to publishers who sold the sheet music as a separate work. Also ironically, the scene in ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'' that served as the [[Trope Codifier]] was meant to allude to [[Nazi Germany]] (Hitler was a huge fan of Wagner and often used his music to rally his troops), reflecting how the soldiers in that scene are intended to be viewed as war criminals - [[Misaimed Fandom|not that it worked.]]

Compare [[Also Sprach Zarathustra]]. Examples of this song in the media also qualify as [[Public Domain Soundtrack]].
{{examples|Uses of ''{{PAGENAME}}'' in other works:}}
== Advertising ==
* A [[NSFW]] commercial by Fleggaard features naked female skydivers to the ''Ride of the Valkyries'' to advertise a washing machine.
* A commercial for some Australian breath mint, in which two guys are at a football match. One guy is loud and crude, and keeps shouting at an apparently mediocre player named "Wilson". In the context of, "you're a joke Wilsoooon! come on Wilson!" The other guy gives him a really strong breath mint, the loud guy's face locks into "awed" position and "Ride of the Valkyries" starts playing to close out the commercial.
* Used in the trailer for ''The Informant!''
* Used in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DP89iMe0BY this] 1980s Maxell commercial, and in parodies of it by ''[[Family Guy]]'' and the film ''[[Stay Tuned]]''.
* Used in a Nissan Juke commercial.

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* In ''[[Ponyo On a Cliff By The Sea]]'', a film which already owes much to Wagner's ''Ring Cycle'', the eponymous hero bounds across a tsunami to a tune which borrows from the Ride of the Valkyries.
* ''[[UFO Princess Valkyrie]]'', unsurprisingly, employs a rather... [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnEIXJGvjEc unique take] on ''Ride of the Valkyries''.
* In episode 14 of Season Two of ''[[Suzumiya Haruhi]]'', Haruhi can be heard humming the song as she's leaving the rest of the characters for the day.
* ''[[Metal Armor Dragonar]]'' also makes use of this song in an indirect sort of way. [[Ace Pilot|Meiou Plato]] can be heard listening to it while [[A Glass of Chianti|sipping from his wine glass]] shortly after pounding an entire squad of Earth troops flat, cementing him in the audience's mind as a complete badass.
* In the Japanese version of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'', Zigfried plays his magic card, "Ride of the Valkyries" which happens to play this song itself in the background while the card's effect is being made.
* As a movie producer's ringtone in ''[[Hanasaku Iroha]]''

== [[Comic Books]] ==
* [[Lampshaded]] in the ''Midnighter'' comic book ''killing machine'' in which The Midnighter is unwillingly sent back in time to ''kill Hitler''. The ''[[Time Cops]]'' come to arrest him and he fights back (with his usual brutal efficiency). The chief Time Cop chases him down in her ''flying tank'' and plays Ride of the Valkyries over the speakers as she does so. The Midnighter hears the song and hums along "pom te te pom pom, pom te te pom pom"... and realizes that he is about to get blown to kingdom come.
** Aside from the undeniable style, this is notable for being the second time somebody takes the Midnighter down EVER. Even Batman takes more opening act beatings on his way to victory.
* In Marvel's ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' series, Cobra Commander is disappointed after returning from a successful raid against the Joes' headquarters that, as the helicopters come in to land, Ride of the Valkyries is not being played for him ''as he has made standing policy''.

== Educational Institutions ==
* At Caltech, it's traditional to play "The Ride" very loud during finals week at 7 AM with the largest, loudest speakers available [[Lame Excuse|in order to make sure no one oversleeps]]. WARNING: Playing it at any other time (even on the same day) will get you stuffed into a shower if you're lucky.

== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'' is, as mentioned above, one of the most famous uses in popular culture.
* Used in ''[[The Birth of a Nation]]'' when the heroic Ku Klux Klansmen ride to the rescue of the Cameron family.  As this was in a modern soundtrack, it may have been intentionally used for irony.
* ''[[The Blues Brothers]]'', when the Illinois Nazis go off the bridge and fall gracefully through the air during the climax to the epic [[Chase Scene]].
* ''[[Ghost Rider (film)|Ghost Rider]]'', when the helicopters land in the stadium before the big jump. Appears as a [[Standard Snippet]].
* ''[[Jarhead]]'', when the marines watch ''[[Apocalypse Now]]''. The narration remarks that, to marines, [[Do Not Do This Cool Thing|no film is an anti war film]].
* In ''[[Watchmen (film)|Watchmen]]'', it's played straight in the Vietnam flashback, with Dr. Manhattan playing the role of the Angel of Death.
** A non-standard usage also appears in the original print version of ''[[Watchmen]]''. In one of the documents written by the first Nite Owl, he tells the story in how the music factored into the suicide of his boss while he was learning to be a mechanic. As a result he considers it a rather sad piece of music.
* ''[[Super Troopers]]'', during the final [[Fight Scene]], when the Troopers leap out of the bushes and go on the offensive.
* In the underrated CGI [[World War II]] movie ''[[Valiant]]'', the main villain, is singing this as he is having a shower:
{{quote|'''[[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Von Talon]]:''' Pin on my medals...pin on my medals...pin on my MEDALS...on my ''cheeeeeeeeeeeeest''!}}
* This song is played by the Mole Clan in ''[[Rango]]'', with banjos and other such instruments. ''Flying on bats''.
* ''[[Valkyrie]]''. Where it's seen in the original pop culture association of the piece, [[Nazi Germany]].
* The music plays when Yuri Orlov visits the Berlin arms convention in ''[[Lord of War]]''.
* In the TV movie ''The Great American Traffic Jam'' (AKA ''Gridlock''), a squadron of helicopters is deployed during the titular city-wide traffic snarl. As ''Valkyries'' triumphantly plays, they drop off their payloads: portable toilets for all the stranded motorists to use.
* The Flying Monkeys sing the tune while flying on their motorcycles in ''[[The Muppets]] [[The Wizard of Oz (film)|Wizard of Oz]]'', much to the Witch's annoyance.
* A soldier in the opening scene of ''[[Monsters (2010 film)]]'' hums the tune while riding a Humvee and calls it his personal theme song.
* In ''[[Repo Man]]'', by Otto's former friends while fleeing the scene of one of their crimes.
* In ''[[Small Soldiers]]'' when Chip Hazzard rides a helicopter into the house.
* It's used as the protagonists arrive at a concentration camp in the Italian film ''Seven Beauties''. Note that this predates ''Apocalypse Now'' by a few years.

== [[Literature]] ==
* [[The Dresden Files]] novel ''Death Masks'' has Miss Gard, a tall blonde Nordic woman, piloting a helicopter carrying Marcone, Harry, and a Knight of the Cross into battle. Harry [[Invoked Trope|remarks that all they're missing is some Wagner]], and Gard obliges by playing this song on the radio.
** The short story "Heorot" (set after ''Death Masks'') confirmed that Gard is in fact an ''actual'' valkyrie.
** The page quote comes from a later book (''Small Favor''), when Gard arrives to the battle [[Gunship Rescue|piloting a helicopter]] [[Big Damn Heroes|with Hendricks wielding]] [[Gatling Good|the mounted minigun]], while [[Big Entrance|loudspeakers mounted on the bottom of the chopper blast the song]] (again).
* In [[Eric Flint]]'s ''[[1632]]'' "Ride of the Valkyries" is used to scare off an Imperial army.
** That's already in [[Crowning Music of Awesome]], along with every other piece of music in an extraordinary scene.
* Later in the ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' series, one of the Havenite captain/admirals fancies this before heading into battle.
* At the climax of ''[[The Laundry Series|The Fuller Memorandum]]'', [[Action Girl|Dominique "Mo" O'Brien]] plays ''die Walkurenritt'' on [[Instrument of Murder|her violin]], from atop a truck full of SAS soldiers, {{spoiler|to clear a path through a localized zombie apocalypse.}} The violin is an [[Artifact of Doom]], so it's no surprise that her interpretation of the piece involves magical resonances that human ears were emphatically ''not'' meant to hear and that serves as a very effectively deterrent {{spoiler|against the zombies in the cemetery.}}

== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* Reversed in an episode of ''[[Hogan's Heroes]]'', where the prisoners are playing it in the camp orchestra {{spoiler|(actually, it's a record player)}} to cover up their efforts to have another prisoner escape in a repaired fighter plane. Of course, they play it while the plane flies away.
* ''[[The Wire]]''. Rawls plays this on his car's stereo as he gives the order to commence the major raid on {{spoiler|Hamsterdam, in the season 3 finale}}.
* ''[[House of Cards (British series)]]''. Francis Urquhart hums this to himself when his political machinations are all working out exactly as he wanted.
* The ''[[Myth Busters]]'' played this during the episode in which they tested whether firing a gun would set off an avalanche, while riding in a helicopter. Definitely a [[Shout-Out]] there.
** They did a second time when seeing how much water would be needed to put out a grease fire.  {{spoiler|They brought in a firefighting helicopter with a 500-gallon bucket of water. It was more than enough.}}
** And a third time, when they tested the impact from falling on pavement compared to water.  {{spoiler|They dropped pig corpses sealed in body bags from, what else, a helicopter.}}
* An episode of ''[[Charmed]]'' that featured Valkyries had them steal motorcycles and ride off on them as a rock remix played in the background.
* In an episode of ''[[Eureka]]'', a botanist blasts this out of a set of massive speakers while strafing his fields with a pesticide-spraying helicopter.
{{quote|''[[Shout-Out|I love the smell of pesticide in the morning. Smells like...grant renewal.]]''}}
** Hey. Maybe that's how Odin chooses which insects get to go to Valhalla?
* ''[[Win Ben Stein's Money]]'' uses this song at the end of each episode.
* Episode three of ''James May's Man Lab'' features a remote-controlled helicopter [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|equipped with bottle rockets to blow up wasps]]. There is only one piece of music for such [[Crazy Awesome|glorious combat]].

== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==
* [[Bryan Danielson|Daniel Bryan]] started using this as his entrance music after winning the US title from [[The Miz]].
** Bryan's protege, [[SHIMMER|Sara Del Rey]], used the music at well - reportedly because Bryan suggested it. Apparently, he always thought it would be a great theme for a wrestler.

== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''Return Fire,'' a video game on the 3D0 and [[PlayStation]], played this when the player was flying a helicopter.
* In ''[[Starcraft]]'' the Siege Tank driver will hum a few bars of it if you click on the unit enough.
* [[Shout-Out|Unsurprisingly]], this is one of the songs that can be heard on the Classical station in ''Sim Copter''.
* And, of course, two of the ''[[Parodius]]'' games.
* In ''[[Nintendogs]]'', this plays when you use the toy helicopter.
* The old [[Game Mod]] "Firearms" for the original ''[[Half-Life]]'' featured a MEDEVAC helicopter, which a player with [[Combat Medic|advanced first-aid skills]] could call in to rescue [[Only Mostly Dead|incapacitated]] soldiers who were outdoors. About 5% of the time, the chopper would play this song, fading out as it left the map.
* ''[[Soldier of Fortune]] 2'' has this song play for a brief time during the helicopter scene in Columbia, until a shot aimed at the chopper manages to destroy the pilot's boombox.
* ''[[Hearts of Iron]]'' uses the piece as a theme tune for both I and III. (II uses a different score altogether)
* In ''[[Full Throttle]]'' a version of this plays whenever a box of bunnies is unleashed, a hilarious mashup of orchestral and cheap synth.
* While not quite a video game, version 3 of ''[[After Dark]]'' featured its iconic Flying Toasters screen saver (as usual). It also featured two songs that could be played with said toasters. One was a theme Berkeley Systems came up with, the other was "Ride of the Valkyries". Both songs could be subtitled if need be. The subtitles for "Ride of the Valkyries" read roughly the same as the page quote for this trope.
* In the [[Silliness Switch|What If? mode]] of the [[PS 1]] ''[[Spider-Man]]'' game, a helicopter pilot will start singing this in one of the stages while he's trying to shoot down Spidey.
* In ''[[Just Cause (video game)|Just Cause 2]]'', cause enough damage in a helicopter, and the character will start humming this.
* An arcade game from the early 1980s by Midway called ''Satan's Hollow'' used this as the game start jingle.
* In ''Where in the World is [[Carmen Sandiego]]?'' this is one of the songs that plays during flying scenes.
* In the [[Visual Novel]] ''[[G Senjou no Maou]]'', the main character's sister, who is a figure skater, uses this music as background to her freestyle performance. The theme is also used as background music while the main character is planning his undying vengeance over a classmate who [[Berserk Button|accidentally damaged one of his classical music CDs]] (appropriately, it was a performance of Wagner).
* In the video game ''Videogame/Fallout: New Vegas'', this play as you complete the quest ''Come Fly With Me''.
* Although it doesn't appear in the game itself, the [[All There in the Manual|official strategy guide]] for the original [[Command & Conquer]] [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|denies that GDI A-10 pilots listen to heavy metal and Ride of the Valkyries during combat.]]
* One of the songs you can play on the "radio" in ''[[Battlefield (series)|Battlefield: Vietnam]]''. Best used in a Huey for maximum effect.
* Part of the song is used as Von Kaiser's intro music in ''[[Punch-Out!!]] Wii''.

== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[All Manner of Bad]]'': When the heroes come to the rescue of their co-workers in a pimped-out SUV, that's the music they play.
* Referenced in ''[[Questionable Content]]'', as part of a general [[Apocalypse Now]] parody, involving Hannelore's super-advanced robotic cleaner.
* ''Metroid: Third Derivative'' has a flash comic depicting a horde of Zoomers storming the Space Pirate base to this music.

== [[Web Games]] ==
* Can be heard in a cutscene of the ''[[Bionicle|Mata Nui On-Line Game]]'', as the Le-Matoran prepare their Kewa bird for flight. As they take off, the tune goes all funky, and stays that way for the subsequent [[Mini Game]].

== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In ''[[The Simpsons]]'' when Mr. Burns comes to have Homer's mother (who's been on the run for years after destroying Burns' germ warfare lab) arrested he attempts to play a tape of "Ride of the Valkyries", however it turns out that Smithers had taped over it with "Waterloo" by ABBA.
** Another ''Simpsons'' reference, in the episode where Apu and Manjula have their children. When the babies are put on show, this tune is used for the one dressed as "The Baron".
** And in yet another Simpsons example, one [[Halloween Episode]] has an army of Homer clones being created from an evil hammock.<ref> If the previous sentence makes perfect sense to you, you may want to get yourself checked</ref> To get rid of them, several helicopters carrying giant doughnuts lure the clones into a giant canyon. The scene is a parody of ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'' so, needless to say, "Ride of the Valkyries" is playing.
* Honorable mention to ''[[What's Opera, Doc?]]'', although it doesn't quite fit in the above context. "Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit, Kill the wabbit..."
** On ''[[30 Rock]]'' Liz Lemon had this as her ring tone. [[Popcultural Osmosis|When asked if she liked Wagner, she replied that she was a fan of Elmer Fudd.]]
** On an episode of ''[[Hey Arnold!]]'' called "What's opera, Arnold?" they played an homage to the 1957 [[Looney Tunes]] cartoon and this song, complete with made up lyrics to describe [[Stalker with a Crush|Helga]]'s despite for Arnold's crush [[Romantic False Lead|Ruth]]
* In an episode of ''[[Duckman]]'', Duckman has installed a security system that goes berserk, attempting to kill the family with a laser defense system. The song begins playing as they all make a mad dash to the safety of the basement. Before they make it all the way to their goal, however, [[Sorry I Left the BGM On|the lasers obliterate a record player, ending the music]].
* In ''[[Making Fiends]]'', after an episode of trying to avoid the destructive affections of her [[Action Bomb|exploding baby pigeon fiends]], Vendetta decides to toss all of them off a cliff to explode on their own... [[Oh Crap|only to watch in horror as they return, having learned to fly by that time]]. Cue the music as they fly after her in a V-Formation.
* In ''[[The Superhero Squad Show]]'', [[The Mighty Thor|Thor]] sings this for karaoke. About the [[Marvel Comics]] character, The Valkryie.
* In the ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'' episode "[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2/E07 May the Best Pet Win|May The Best Pet Win!]]", the song plays during a race through Ghastly Gorge.

{{reflist}}
[[Category:Opera]]
[[Category:German Media]]
[[Category:Ride of the Valkyries]]
[[Category:Music]]