Star Wars
At a time when electronic sound stood for the future, this music told a tale from the most distant of galaxies in the idiom of 19th-century Romantic orchestration and the swashbucklers of old Hollywood.
At a glance 🔭💭
Some coordinates adapted from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · Pleiades (CC BY 3.0)
The makers ⏳🌊
- ComposerJohn Williams
Brought on at Spielberg's recommendation, he wrote the entire score and conducted the London Symphony Orchestra himself.
- DirectorGeorge Lucas
He wrote and directed the film, and settled with Williams on the direction of an orchestral score.
- ProducerGary Kurtz
Ran the production as producer, from Elstree Studios in England to the location shoot in Tunisia.
- Lead roleMark Hamill
Played Luke Skywalker, a desert farm boy who becomes a pilot.
- Lead roleCarrie Fisher
Played Princess Leia, who cuts her own escape route rather than waiting to be rescued.
- Lead roleHarrison Ford
Played Han Solo, captain of the Millennium Falcon.
I. An orchestra bound for the galaxy
(Recommendation) In 1976, as George Lucas was preparing the space adventure “Star Wars,” it was Steven Spielberg who introduced a composer. Spielberg recommended John Williams, with whom he had worked on “Jaws.” Williams was born in New York State in 1932. Having built a career as a jazz pianist and as an arranger in Hollywood studios, he had already won Academy Awards for his arrangement of the film version of “Fiddler on the Roof” and for “Jaws.” (Direction) During editing, Lucas laid existing orchestral works over the cut as temporary music (a temp track). The reasoning was that the more a film teemed with strange planets and creatures, the more its music had to speak a language of feeling familiar to the audience, and Williams agreed. Science-fiction film was leaning toward electronic sound at the time, but Williams chose the idiom of late nineteenth-century Romantic orchestral writing and of Hollywood adventure films from the 1930s–40s. It was the exact opposite of the choice made by “Blade Runner,” covered earlier in this series, which painted its future city with synthesizers. (Recording) The score was recorded in March 1977 at Anvil Studios in Denham, England, with the London Symphony Orchestra, over eight sessions. Williams conducted himself, while Herbert Spencer, Alexander Courage, Angela Morley and others helped with the orchestral arranging (orchestration). The finished music was ample enough to fill most of the film. (Design) Williams built the score from leitmotifs (leading motifs), short melodies attached to each character and force. The hero’s theme, the princess’s theme and the theme of the unseen Force return throughout the story, changing shape as they go.
II. The first chord
(Silence) When the studio fanfare ends, the words “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” rise soundlessly on a black screen. That brief silence makes the next moment land all the harder. (Explosion) The brass bursts out in a single full-ensemble chord as the title recedes into the depth of the screen. The trumpets sound a short call, the main melody leaps upward in a wide arc, and yellow text scrolls upward, explaining a civil war across the galaxy. Within the first minute, the audience in the theater knows exactly what genre this film is promising. (Pursuit) When the crawl ends, the music subsides and the camera tilts down toward a planet. As a small rebel ship is chased by an enormous Imperial warship, rapid figures in the strings and sharp chords in the brass come storming in. On the 1977 album this passage was gathered into a track called “Imperial Attack.” (The Empire) Darth Vader, in black armor, strides onto the ship. “The Imperial March,” which symbolizes him today, first appeared in the 1980 sequel; in this film the Empire is marked only by a short, dark brass motif. (Sound) The other star of this scene is not music but sound. Sound designer Ben Burtt made Vader’s breathing from the sound of a scuba regulator, and created the hum of the lightsaber by mixing the drone of a projector motor with television static. The work earned Burtt a Special Achievement Academy Award. Williams’s music also knew how to step aside so as not to bury these sounds.
The music of the opening scene, where a brass chord bursts out of silence and the text crawl rolls away. This piece sets the tone for the entire film.
- Right after the first chord, the trumpets sound a call in a rhythm that splits one beat into three (triplets). Like a military bugle, it announces departure.
- The main melody leaps high from its very first notes. It becomes the theme (leitmotif) that points to the hero, Luke, and returns throughout the series.
- The tune is often compared to 1940s Hollywood adventure scores such as Korngold’s “Kings Row.” Williams is seen as having deliberately borrowed the voice of older films.
- The piece won the Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition, and as a single it reached No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.
- Near the end, the music suddenly subsides and shifts into uneasy harmony. It is the moment the camera tilts down toward the planet and the chase begins.
III. Two suns
(Desert) The two droids land on the desert planet Tatooine. When the Jawas appear, a small race who scavenge and sell junk, the music shifts its weight to the woodwinds. The melody that bassoon and oboe toss back and forth playfully (“The Little People Work” on the 1977 album) sounds less like a threat than like the bustle of shady traders. (Hologram) Tinkering with a droid, the farm boy Luke stumbles on the princess’s hologram message. Here Princess Leia’s theme passes by for the first time. The half-cut-off message and the melody behind it draw Luke toward the world beyond his home. (Longing) Told by his uncle that he cannot leave, Luke walks outside and gazes at a horizon where two suns are setting. There is no dialogue; the horn sings a long, slow melody while the strings support it from below. Beginning in the colors of a minor key and opening toward the major as it closes, the melody holds resignation and hope in a single breath. (The Force) At first this melody was tied to the old knight Ben Kenobi, but as the story unfolds it becomes the theme for the unseen power called the Force as a whole. Throughout the rest of the series, whenever someone makes a decisive choice or stands before their fate, this melody almost invariably returns. The long journey of this theme across nine films began in this sunset scene.
The melody that first passes through the princess’s hologram message. On the album it was polished into a standalone piece over four minutes long.
- After an introduction opened by the flute alone, the horn takes up the main melody. The clear woodwind and the warm brass seem to sketch her two faces in turn.
- In the film it appears only in brief fragments, but on the 1977 album it unfolds at length as a concert piece. The film and the album are worth hearing side by side.
- The melody is lyrical, yet the character it belongs to is anything but passive. The distance between a romantic melody and a resolute character is the charm of this piece.
- The melody is quoted again in the final scene of the 2016 spin-off “Rogue One,” leaving a deep impression on longtime fans.
The scene in which Luke, unable to leave, gazes at a horizon where two suns are setting. The Force theme sounds in full for the first time.
- The horn sings a long melody alone while the strings support it from below. The horn sounds like a voice calling from afar, which suits a longing directed beyond the horizon.
- A melody that begins in a dark, minor-key mood opens toward a bright major as it ends. Resignation and hope sit together in a single sentence.
- At first this melody was tied to Ben Kenobi, then widened into a theme for the Force as a whole. It became the most frequently recurring leitmotif in the series.
- It is often singled out as a scene that conveys a character’s inner heart through music alone, without a single line of dialogue.
IV. The band in the spaceport town
(Mentor) Luke meets the desert hermit Ben Kenobi, receives his father’s lightsaber and hears about the Force. As the old man tells his story, the Force theme rises quietly in the low strings, and before any explanation the music tells us what he has spent his life protecting. (Departure) When Luke returns home, he finds the farm burned. The music briefly collapses, then rises again, and Luke decides to leave. The most personal turn in the story is handled by the strings alone, without brass. (Cantina) In a cantina in the spaceport town of Mos Eisley, a band on screen plays for itself. Music that the characters themselves can hear is called source music (diegetic music). Williams recalled writing the piece by imagining creatures of the far future who stumble upon swing charts from Benny Goodman’s 1930s band and play them in their own fashion. With familiar swing rhythms blended into strange timbres, the cantina becomes a place at once friendly and alien. (Fortune) Here Luke and Ben hire the smuggler Han Solo and his shaggy copilot, Chewbacca. When the battered freighter Millennium Falcon bursts out through Imperial fire, the music returns to orchestral adventure. (Tragedy) At the same moment, aboard the Empire’s fortress, the Death Star, Leia’s home planet of Alderaan is destroyed. In a short cue (a fragment of music written to fit a single scene), the brass settles heavily downward, revealing the fortress’s might.
The piece played on screen by the band in the Mos Eisley cantina. It paints a world of strange creatures with familiar swing rhythms.
- This is source music (diegetic music) that the characters can hear too. Amid the orchestral underscore, this piece alone stands apart as the sound of a cantina band.
- Williams recalled writing it while imagining creatures of the far future who pick up swing charts from Benny Goodman’s 1930s band and play them in their own fashion.
- Jazz instruments such as trumpet, clarinet and saxophone are mixed with the timbres of steel drum and electronic keyboard. That is why a familiar dance tune sounds somehow off.
- The 2004 expanded edition also includes another piece heard in the same bar, “Cantina Band #2.”
V. The princess in the fortress
(Infiltration) The Falcon is caught in the Death Star's tractor beam and hauled inside. The party hides in the cargo hold, then takes the guards' armor and slips into the fortress. The music here moves as if short cues had been stitched together, swinging between tension and comedy. (Rescue) Luke and Han find Leia in the detention block. Yet the princess they rescue is not one to wait; she blasts her own way out. Nor does the music paint her merely as someone to be protected. Her theme, which flickered past earlier in the hologram, now gains a human face. (Peril) In the trash compactor, as the walls close in (“The Walls Converge” on the 1977 album), the low register rises little by little, creating the sense of a shrinking space. When they swing on a rope across the broken bridge, the tradition of the swashbuckler comes fully back to life. (Duel) Meanwhile Ben goes alone to shut down the tractor beam and at last comes face to face with his former pupil, Darth Vader. In the lightsaber duel between the two old warriors, the music actually holds back, and the clash of blades leads the scene. The moment Luke cries out at the duel's end, the film's center of gravity shifts. The place of the mentor who protected him stands empty, and Luke must now find his own way. (Counterattack) Imperial TIE fighters swoop down on the escaping Falcon. The music leaps from grief to action in a single stroke, and the 1977 album binds the two scenes into one track.
Grief for a lost mentor and the dogfight that follows at once are bound into a single track. It is where the film changes emotion most quickly.
- In the duel the music holds back and the sound of the lightsabers steps forward. Because the music has withdrawn, the grief that follows sounds all the greater.
- In the passage of grief the strings stretch out long. The colors of the themes heard earlier seem to darken and overlap.
- When the TIE fighters appear, the brass drives in with short, sharp rhythms. There is a verve that recalls the music of 1940s aerial-combat films.
- The passage from mourning to action is very brief. It shows how this film pushes the story forward rather than lingering on an emotion.
VI. The last battle
(Base) The party reaches the rebel base on a forest moon. The plans Leia protected reveal a small weakness in the Death Star, and the pilots are briefed and climb into their fighters. Here Luke becomes a pilot in his own right. Han Solo, meanwhile, collects his reward and prepares to leave. (Ensemble) “The Last Battle” on the 1977 album runs over 12 minutes, filling most of one side of the LP. The rebels' short fanfare, the Empire's dark motif and the hero's theme cut in and push one another aside, following the shifting tide of the dogfight. On screen, radio chatter and engine noise take turns with the music in the foreground, and Lucas adjusted their balance scene by scene in the final mix. (Trench) The final attack is a run along a narrow trench carved into the fortress's surface. As his comrades fall away one by one and only Luke's ship remains, a familiar voice reaches his ears and the Force theme returns. The melody that held longing in the desert sunset scene now speaks of faith and resolve. That the same melody can carry different meanings at the beginning and end of a story is the power of the leitmotif. (Turn) In the last few minutes the music changes direction several times. What turns it, we recommend you discover for yourself in the theater. But listen to which chords the brass chooses at that point, and you will know which way the story leans.
A 12-minute piece that follows the final attack, from the launch at the rebel base to the plunge into the fortress's trench.
- The rebels' short fanfare and the Empire's dark brass motif cut in by turns. The tide on screen sounds like a push-and-pull struggle inside the music.
- At the decisive moment of the trench run, the Force theme returns. The melody that held longing in the desert sunset scene here speaks of resolve.
- In the film, radio chatter and engine noise share the space with the music. Only on the album can you hear that the piece is built as one long structure.
- On the 2004 expanded edition, the same passage appears under the title “The Battle of Yavin.”
VII. The throne room
(Ceremony) The film ends with a ceremony in a vast hall. There is almost no dialogue; the music carries the scene. For it Williams wrote a new march melody not heard before. Brass and strings arrive together on a generous stride that recalls Elgarian English ceremonial music. (Recollection) When the ceremony ends and the end credits begin, the themes heard earlier return one after another. The main theme that opened the first scene, the princess's melody and the rebel fanfare follow like a short medley. It is a close that gathers up once more, for the audience, the emotions the story has told. (Echo) Along with the film's success, the album sold enormously. The double soundtrack LP climbed to No. 2 on the Billboard album chart and is counted as the best-selling symphonic album ever. Williams won the Academy Award for Best Original Score, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and Grammy Awards, and in 2005 the American Film Institute named it the greatest American film score. In 2004 it was added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry. (Legacy) Above all, after this music Hollywood began once again to write large-scale orchestral film scores. At the end of the same year Williams's “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” was released, and the 1980 sequel added “The Imperial March.” The catalogue of themes grew for decades afterward, but the starting point was these 88 minutes of 1977.
The piece that links the wordless final ceremony to the end credits. After a new march, the film's themes return one by one.
- The march melody first heard in the ceremony walks at an easy pace, like English ceremonial music. It is closer to a dignified rite than to a shout of victory.
- In the end title, the main theme and the princess's melody return in turn. It is as if the leitmotifs heard over two hours gathered in one place to take a bow.
- On older releases this piece had been played back faster and higher than recorded. The 2017~2018 Disney remaster corrected its speed and pitch.
- It is often played as the finale of the “Star Wars” suite in concert, and has become familiar even to audiences who do not know the original film.
Lesser-known stories
Only John Williams's name appears in large type on the album cover, but several people took part in setting the score for orchestra. Among them, Alexander Courage had composed the theme for the television series “Star Trek,” and Angela Morley was an arranger long active in British broadcasting and film. Having orchestrators turn a composer's sketches into a full score was long-standing Hollywood practice. So it drew no particular notice at the time, and their names survive even now only in the credit lists of the liner notes. The “Throne Room and End Title” that many people heard for decades was in fact a version played back faster and higher than the original recording. The discrepancy was corrected in Disney's 2017~2018 digital remaster. The fact that the familiar sound had not been the original was afterward discussed mostly among audio specialists and devoted listeners. Nor was the recording made at a famous studio in central London. It was completed in eight sessions in March 1977 at Anvil Studios in Denham, west of London, with Lucas credited as executive producer and Lionel Newman, head of music at 20th Century Fox, as conductor. Newman was the younger brother of Alfred Newman, who composed the studio fanfare that opens the film. What topped the American singles chart that autumn was not Williams's original. A disco arrangement of the theme by the producer Meco reached No. 1 in October 1977. While the orchestral album was becoming the best-selling symphonic album of all time, on the popular dance charts the melody was flowing out to a disco beat.
Glossary note 📚🔎
Leitmotif
(Etymology) From the German Leitmotiv. Leiten means 'to lead' and Motiv a short musical idea, so the word means a short melody that leads the story. The Korean term yudo donggi (誘導動機, 'guiding motive') renders the same sense: a motive (動機) that leads (誘導). (In film·musical scores) A short melody assigned to stand for a particular character, place or force. When it sounds, the audience thinks of that character even if they are not on screen. It is like a football match where the supporters sing the same chant every time a certain player gets the ball, so you know who has it even with your eyes closed. In “Star Wars,” the Force theme plays this role most clearly. (Elsewhere) In literary and film criticism, the word is also used for an image or element that recurs within a work and accumulates meaning.
Fanfare
(In film·musical scores) A signal piece in which brass instruments such as trumpets sound short and strong. It is used to announce that something is beginning or that an important figure is entering. The short music that plays with a studio logo at the movies, and the brass signal that bursts out on the first screen of “Star Wars,” both count as fanfares. Like the whistle or bugle that sounds before a race on sports day, it is the sound that tells everyone: we begin now. (Elsewhere) In everyday speech, people also say something was launched 'with a fanfare' to describe a noisy celebration or loud publicity.
Temp track
(Etymology) Short for the English temporary track: a sound track laid down temporarily. (In film·musical scores) Existing music that the director and editor attach temporarily to set a scene's mood before the composer's music is finished. While editing “Star Wars,” Lucas used orchestral works such as Holst's “The Planets” as a temp track. For the composer it is a map of where the director wants to go, but if the director grows too used to it, they may come to prefer the temporary music to the new score. It is like pasting in a similar picture as a placeholder before finding the real photo when preparing a group presentation.
Orchestration
(Etymology) Gwanhyeonak (管絃樂), the Korean word for orchestral music, means music in which gwan (管, wind instruments) and hyeon (絃, string instruments) play together. Orchestration is the work of distributing that music among the instruments of the orchestra. (In film·musical scores) The work of deciding which instruments will play the melodies and harmonies a composer has written, and turning them into a score for performance. The same melody sounds entirely different depending on whether a flute or a horn sings it. In Hollywood the composer often writes sketches and several orchestrators divide up this work. It is like a conductor preparing a class choir and deciding that the sopranos will sing this part and the boys that one.
Cue
(Etymology) The English word cue originally meant, in the theater, the signal telling an actor when to speak a line or make an entrance. (In film·musical scores) A stretch of music written to begin and end with a particular scene in a film. A film score is not one piece running from start to finish but is made up of dozens of cues, some a few seconds long and some several minutes. A soundtrack album is made by selecting, grouping and joining such cues. Like playing one sound effect as the curtain rises in a school play and another as the hero trips, it is a fragment of sound assigned to each scene. (Elsewhere) In broadcasting, giving a host the signal to start is also called a cue.
Source music (diegetic music)
(Etymology) Diegetic comes from the Greek diegesis, meaning the world within the story. It means music that actually exists inside the story world. (In film·musical scores) Music the characters on screen can also hear, such as a bar band's performance or a song coming from a radio. Background orchestral music heard only by the audience, by contrast, is called nondiegetic music. The cantina band playing in the bar scene of “Star Wars” is a classic example of source music. In a game, the song coming from the speakers of a shop the character enters is source music; the background music that starts when a battle begins is not.
Major and minor
(Etymology) In the Korean terms jangjo (長調, major) and danjo (短調, minor), jang (長) and dan (短) mean 'long' and 'short.' The names come from calling a scale with a wide distance from the tonic to the third note major, and one with a narrow distance minor. (In film·musical scores) In general, major sounds bright and firm, minor dark or lonely. Film music often turns the meaning of a scene by shifting the same melody from major to minor, or the reverse. The Force theme in “Star Wars” begins in a minor coloring and opens toward major. Sing “Happy Birthday” in minor and it suddenly sounds like a sad song; that is exactly the difference between major and minor.
Swing
(Word meaning) The English word swing means to sway back and forth. It became the name for a rhythmic feel that makes the body sway of its own accord. (In film·musical theater music) A jazz style that swept America in the 1930s~40s, and the distinctive rhythm that goes with it. Instead of dividing the beat evenly, players stretch the first note and flick the second one short, giving a swaying feel like a walking stride. Big-band leaders such as Benny Goodman are its classic exponents, and the cantina band in "Star Wars" turned the style into the idiom of an alien ensemble. When you jump rope and draw out one of the two hops in each beat just slightly, your body begins to rock naturally — that rocking is swing. (Elsewhere) In baseball or golf, the motion of swinging a bat or club is called a swing.