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Not as thoroughly as Bernard Hermann ripped off the opera "Tristan and Isolde" for the score to "Vertigo"!
Nothing is new under the sun.
MovieChat Forums > Star Wars (1977) Discussion > [deleted]
So what part of the LOA theme did John Williams rip off exactly, the clashing cymbals ? LOA sounds like a different piece of music to me unless you are pointing to the fact that they are both orchestral.
I’m a huge film score fan & also write film scores myself, so normally when someone says something sounds like something I can catch onto what made them think that, but with this comparison...? I Have no idea.
Maybe post a clip of the William’s “Star Wars” Score that made you think that.
I never heard that John Williams ripped LOA off but several famous classical pieces, because George Lucas had asked him to make his score sound like stuff he had heard.
shareYeah, there's a lot of Holst and Copeland in the original Star Wars score as that's what Lucas wanted. The opening titles are very much "inspired" by a Copeland piece and the reveal of the Tantive and pursuing Star Destroyer are directly inspired from Holst's Mars piece.
shareI don't consider it ripping off. But inspired by unless he's completely taking full measures. But I have found some of his original Star Wars score has similarities to Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker. There's a couple pieces when I am listening to it where I am like 'that sounds like the Jawa music!' or 'that sounds like Leia's theme!' or something like that. I think it's fun when I pick it out.
shareLucas was originally going to score the movie with classical music, so it's plausible that Williams used the would-have-beens as blueprints for the music he wrote.
shareI listened and I don't get it.
But I once watched a video explaining how film composers commonly move up and down common steps in designing their melodies so that many iconic soundtracks have the same underlying structure, and it's how they get to each major note or something which makes the difference. It's very common.
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Holy shit. Never heard that before. Thanks
shareSTAR WARS was meant to be evocative of older adventure serials in general and for the score, Lucas wanted something in the vein of Holst's The Planets as well as the grand, sweeping music of Classic Hollywood (you can also hear bits similar to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring during the desert scenes). I have no doubt LOA was an inspiration (not just in the music, but in some of the desert visuals as well), but Williams isn't stealing so much as paying homage.
Here's an interesting video essay on whether or not Williams is a "thief":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Jc9z-b-Hw
It's similar in tone - just like about 8,443 other movie-scores are similar in tone. But none of it sounds like it was copied for Star Wars. It just sounds epic and majestic.
share