A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Who were other candidates for composing the music of the original Star Wars movie? Besides John Williams? None. George Lucas, who had a keen understanding of the intimate relationship between movie imagery and music, planned to follow Stanley Kubrick’s example in 1968’s  2001: A Space Odyssey  and use different compositions of classical music throughout the film. A little Holst here, a little Wagner there, some Tchaikovsky in this bit, and so on. One of the original ideas that Lucas had for the Star Wars - which was based on his use of rock 'n' roll songs in American Graffiti , was to use different classical music compositions to match the visuals. And in fact, during the early stages of assembling the film after principal photography was complete, Lucas created a "temp track" that consisted of pieces such as Gustav Holst's Mars: The Bringer of War from his suite of tone poems The Planets.  This approach worked well for  2001,  but it’s ...

On Quora, Erik Todd asks: How many Star Wars movies did John Williams compose original music for? My reply: Since 1977, Maestro John Williams has written the original scores for nine films in the  Star Wars  movie series. They are: Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope  (1977) Star Wars - Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back  (1980) Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi  (1983) Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace  (1999) Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones  (2002) Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith  (2005) Star Wars - Episode VII: The Force Awakens ( 2015) Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi  (2017) Star Wars - Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker  (2019) In addition, Maestro Williams composed  The Adventures of Han  for  Solo: A Star Wars Story.  Composer John Powell wrote most of  Solo’s  original score, but he also adapted some of Williams’  Star...

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...

Cover Design and Illustration: Jeff Walker. (C) 1983 Phonogram International B.V. The stars have always figured prominently in the arts of mankind, but at no time in history has this subject matter been used in a way that parallels the creation of recent films about adventures in space. These movies, which were made primarily as popular entertainment, have become the fairy tales and myths of modern times, calling forth responses from deep within us. - William Livingstone, in the liner notes for Out of This World.  In the summer of 1983, when director Richard Marquand's Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and the Steven Spielberg-John Landis production of Twilight Zone: The Movie were still in theaters, Dutch record label Philips released Out of This World: John Williams and the Boston Pops in a vinyl LP record and on audiocassette. It was a sequel to an earlier Boston Pops/John Williams album with a similar theme, Pops in Space and featured music from eight sci...

Cover art by Drew Struzan. (C) 1996 Varese Sarabande Records and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) In 1996, Lucasfilm gathered several authors, artists, and representatives from Hasbro and other licensees to discuss a huge multimedia project that was, in short, everything but the full-fledged filmed version of a Star Wars movie. To kick this ambitious campaign, writer Steve Perry was hired to write an original novel for Bantam Spectra that would be the core of the project called Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire. The novel. Photo Credit: www.mycomicshop.com. (C) 1996 Bantam Spectra and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) The novel would be a stand-alone Expanded Universe novel, the first of the Bantam Spectra series to depict event between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jed i. All the other products, ranging from Hasbro's Kenner action figures to Nintendo 64 cartridges, would use Perry's novel as a starting point and expand the story, sticking to the essentials of the centra...

Cover Design by Howard Fritzson. Photos (C) 1977, 1980, 1983 by Lucasfilm Ltd. (C) 1990 CBS Records Some day I’m going to build a recording studio with a sound as live as if it were inside a cathedral! – George Lucas to composer John Williams after the recording sessions for The Empire Strikes Back score, 1980 Official Sony Classical Video: Star Wars - Main Title In March of 1990, Star Wars creator George Lucas hired 90 San Francisco Bay area classical musicians and created a one-time ensemble which he called The Skywalker Symphony Orchestra. Between March 19 and 20, Lucas, composer-conductor John Williams, and a recording team led by producer Thomas Z. Shepard worked with this unique group of players at the brand-new recording studio in Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch, located in Marin County, California. The result was Sony Classical’s John Williams Conducts John Williams: The Star Wars Trilogy – Star Wars * The Empire Strikes Back * Return of the Jedi, a 13-track compila...

Artwork by William Stout. (C) 1980, 1992 Varese Sarabande Records and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) On May 21, 1980, Varese Sarabande – a record label that specializes in movie/television soundtracks and classical music – dropped the long-play (LP) record and cassette versions of The Empire Strikes Back: Symphonic Suite from the Original Motion Picture Score. This album presented selections of composer John Williams’ music for Star Wars – Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, which had premiered in theaters just two days before. Performed by The National Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of conductor Charles Gerhardt, the one-disc record was intended to supplement – not compete with – the “official” two-record soundtrack released one month earlier by RSO Records. 12 years later, on May 26, 1992, Varese Sarabande re-issued The Empire Strikes Back: Symphonic Suite from the Original Motion Picture Score as a digitally-remastered compact disc (VSD 5353). Like its vinyl “parent,” the C...

Album cover art by William Stout. (C) 1983 Varese Sarabande Records On May 25, 1983 – the sixth anniversary of the premiere of Star Wars (aka Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope ) – 20 th Century Fox released Star Wars – Episode VI: Return of the Jedi , the third chapter of George Lucas’s Star Wars Trilogy. Written by Lucas with Lawrence Kasdan and directed by Richard Marquand, Return of the Jedi chronicled the beginning of the end of the Galactic Empire at the Battle of Endor, the ascension of Luke Skywalker from Jedi trainee to the last of the Jedi Order, and the redemption of Darth Vader – Anakin Skywalker – whose love for his son was stronger than his loyalty to the evil Emperor Palpatine. Because Jedi marked the end of the Luke Skywalker/Darth Vader story arc and no other Star Wars films were planned for the immediate future, many people, including book publishers and record producers rushed to make merchandise with the “standalone” label The Star Wars Trilogy . In...