3/30/2023 0 Comments Lend me your ears 6![]() ![]() The Extraterrestrial, and Return Of The Jedi. ![]() Between 19, he wrote the scores for Jaws, The Towering Inferno, Star Wars, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Superman: The Movie, The Empire Strikes Back ("The Imperial March", the Darth Vader music, may be more popular than the actual Star Wars theme), Raiders Of The Lost Ark, E.T. There's even space-jazz for the extraterrestrial exoticness of the Mos Eisley cantina! At the end of the film, when the medal ceremony march finished, and the end credits were rolling, I was on my feet clapping along with the rest of the audience.ġ977 found Williams in the early stages of an incredible run of musical creativity. every scene has an appropriate soundtrack. The capture of Princess Leia, the escape from the Death Star, the introduction of Ben Kenobi, the battle of Yavin. For every propulsive cue that puts an exclamation point on the action, there's a soft and introspective piece which supports the quieter moments. Williams' score saturates the movie, filling it with mood and drive that perfectly complements the amazing images on the screen. The "story so far" blurb began crawling up the screen. The day-glo "Star Wars" logo filled a screen full of stars. "TA-DAAAA!" Those first brassy chords blasted out of the speakers. The 20th Century Fox fanfare ended, the "long time ago" card faded to black, there was this pregnant pause. And boy howdy, did he make the right decision! I will never forget the moment I first heard the main theme. Initially Lucas wanted to use existing classical music, but Williams convinced him that an original score in the style of the swashbuckling adventure movies of the 1940s was the way to go. Hot off his Oscar win for the score from Jaws, John Williams was recommended to Lucas by his friend Steven Spielberg. Joe Johnston, later to become the director of The Rocketeer and Captain America, designed spaceships and characters that have now become pop culture icons.īut in my mind, Lucas' most important collaborator, the man who put that extra something into the movie, the artist who added the "X-factor" that took Star Wars from being an enjoyable sci-fi romp to a stone-cold cinematic classic, was award-winning genius composer. John Dykstra and Dennis Muren filled a warehouse with craftsmen and pioneered the visual effects team that would become Industrial Light And Magic. Producer Gary Kurtz helped him focus his storytelling. Lucas may have dreamt up the concepts, but he assembled a team of insanely talented people to bring his ideas to three-dimensional life. He was sitting in a small upstairs office in his house in Marin County, filling multiple yellow legal pads with his handwritten scripts, churning through draft after draft of his science fantasy epic as the ideas just poured out of him.Īs creative as Lucas was, however, he didn't make his groundbreaking movie alone. Lucas' imagination was working overtime back in the mid 1970s. Or Jack Kirby, who co-created Captain America, my favorite superhero, and produced some of the most amazing illustrated fiction in the world.Īnd then there's George Lucas, the man who brought forth into the world the galaxy-spanning saga of Star Wars. Or Howard Stern, who gave birth to a twisted "blended family" that has made me laugh for two and a half decades. Gifted geniuses like Freddie Mercury, who made incredible music that still brings a smile to my face. I've got my own personal pantheon of "creative gods". Just walk into an book store or record store or comic book store, and you'll be greeted by thousands and thousands of works of creative passion, all there to be sampled and enjoyed. It's incredible the amount of creativity that's present all around us. Humans are capable of so much awesomeness. I truly believe that's what we're put here to do: to make and share our gifts in ways that provoke emotional reactions from our fellow passengers on Spaceship Earth. We're all born with the ability to be creative. namely, to discuss the "where does it come from?" mystery of creativity. No, this time around I'm going to defibrillate one of my favorite dead horses back to life, only to beat it savagely to death once again. I myself have a row of shelves filled with nothing but books about Star Wars. Over the years there's been enough physical and electronic ink spilled about the franchise to fill an entire library. Now, I'm not going to go off on a slobbering fanboy rant about the history of Star Wars, and how it changed the world, and all that. I was a nerdy eleven year old kid who already loved Godzilla, comic books, and Star Trek, so Star Wars was tailor-made to appeal to a kid like me. When it hit theaters in May of 1977, George Lucas' "little space movie" completely blew the minds of an entire generation. Star Wars celebrated its forty-fifth anniversary this year. You must do what you feel is right, of course. ![]()
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