"Princess Leia's Theme" is gracefully light and innocent even when it is boldest. The Star Wars themes work equally well early used gently in "The Moisture Farm" or as a swashbuckling reprise in "Chasm Crossfire". Look at the first yearning iteration of the Force theme in "Binary Sunset" then the finale triumphant overture in "The Throne Room". Williams' skill at thematic development is genius. This is a simple story, brilliantly told through music. In addition, the double Oscar win of Williams on this film and Jaws cemented his position as the premiere film composer of the industry, a position he still occupies twenty-seven years later. This score single-handedly revived romantic film scoring and the "John Williams" sound would set the standard of the modern classics of film music. Star Wars feels comfortably familiar at first listen, full of childlike excitement and recalling a certain nostalgia for classic movies only at a much faster pace. Williams combined the best aspects of Holst, Wagner, Prokofiev, Steiner, Korngold and Herrmann into one coherent whole that had its own identity. While John Williams' music afterwards would quickly become more refined, here he wears his classic Hollywood influences openly. You most likely have a copy of it somewhere and if you don't, then you should as it is one of the basic building blocks of any soundtrack collection. You've heard this score before many times. If you ask George Lucas the one aspect of Star Wars that came out better than he expected, the answer is always "the music."
But outside of the effects and sound people, one creative collaborator would always stay the same: John Williams. He progressively lost his co-writers (William Huyck, Gloria Katz, Lawrence Kasden), his Producer (Gary Kurtz) and his ace editor (Marcia Lucas) all to diminishing results in his sequels and prequels. George Lucas is often revered as a great filmmaker when in truth I believe he is a great producer who at the time had the right combination of talented people working on those two movies. For all of the accolades tossed at the films, the fact that Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back are so uniquely successful is, in the end, a happy alignment of the people involved. Maybe the best, but it is still a B-movie.
The original Star Wars is a great B-movie. But let me ask the dangerous question: does it deserve to be? Not to pull a revisionist attitude, but the allure of the original films faded some for me in the mid 90's. When you ask people what their #1 favorite score is, the popular choice is the OT - the original trilogy. And five stars? That should happen once in a blue moon when a score truly deserves it. Boy, how do you start? I tend to keep my star ratings down so that I rarely get up to four and a half stars.
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