Q&As About 'Star Wars': Which Star Wars film do you feel has the best music?

Which Star Wars film do you feel has the best music?

In all honesty, I don’t think there is a single Star Wars film that has the best music in the (so far) eight Saga episodes, the Star Wars: The Clone Wars feature film, and two Anthology films that have been released so far. (There is another Skywalker Saga film, Star Wars Episode IX due out in December; composer John Williams has stated that this will be his final score for the Star Wars movie series.)

To me, the music of Star Wars, especially the “core” repertoire composed and conducted by John Williams, is a cycle of musical works that, like the operas of Richard Wagner’s The Ring Cycle, can be enjoyed as individual musical experiences but are all part of a greater whole.

Now, if you were to ask me which is my favorite of the Star Wars scores for the films (the TV shows don’t count), I’d have to say it’s this one:

That is the original soundtrack album released in 1977 by 20th Century Records, the original record label owned by 20th Century Fox until 1985.

I also have this version of it….the 1993 Expanded Edition from The Original Soundtrack Anthology.

And in 1997, I bought The Special Edition album, which was the first recording to present the complete score of Star Wars: A New Hope.

Whether it’s the best of the lot, I will leave that up to musicologists and/or music critics with more credentials than I have. I probably wouldn’t say it’s the absolute best because each new film has new themes and variations that add to the musical palette of Star Wars saga.

It is, however, my emotional favorite.