Secrets of the Force

by Edward Gross

  * * *

  Being dubbed as the “Greatest Film Composer of All Time” is no easy feat, yet John Williams thoroughly deserves the title. John Towner Williams was born on February 8, 1932, in Floral Park, New York, to mother Esther and father Johnny Williams, the latter a jazz drummer and percussionist who played with the Raymond Scott Quintet. In 1948 the Williams family moved to Los Angeles where John attended North Hollywood High School, graduating in 1950. He later attended the University of California, Los Angeles, and studied composition privately with the Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Williams was drafted into the United States Air Force in 1951, where he arranged music for the U.S. Air Force Band. After his service ended in 1955, Williams moved to New York City, where he attended the Juilliard School and played jazz nightclubs around the city in the evenings to supplement his income.

  Williams moved back to Los Angeles after he completed Juilliard, where he became a session musician for television shows and movies, working with such greats as Alfred Newman and Bernard Herrmann. Working his way up through the ranks, Williams would eventually become the composer for television shows like M Squad and Lost in Space.

  Williams’s first film credit for composition came in 1960 for the film Because They’re Young. Williams received his first Academy Award nomination for his score for 1967’s Valley of the Dolls, and was nominated again for his score for 1969’s Goodbye, Mr. Chips. He won his first Academy Award for his score for the 1971 film Fiddler on the Roof. Arguably, his career-defining moment came when he was asked by Steven Spielberg to compose the score for his 1975 film Jaws. This prompted Spielberg to suggest Williams to his good friend George Lucas, when Lucas was on the hunt for a composer who had a grand symphonic style redolent of his idols like Erich Wolfgang Korngold that Lucas felt was lacking in the then current Hollywood norm.

  JOHN WILLIAMS

  (composer, Star Wars)

  I have no pretensions about that score, which I wrote for what I thought was a children’s movie. All of us who worked on it thought it would be a great Saturday morning show. None of us had any idea that it was going to become a great world success.

  JOE KRAEMER

  (composer, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and Jack Reacher)

  It’s interesting to contextualize the score to Star Wars in the cultural landscape of 1977. It really was a throwback to a style of scoring that had fallen out of favor. We take it for granted now in 2020 that the music is what it is, and that it works so well, but at the time, it was a risky choice to do a 1940s sort of Korngold score for a science fiction movie.

  People like to point out the similarities in the score to other pieces of music, such as “Mars” from The Planets, or the opening of the second tableau from The Rite of Spring, but these allusions were deliberate—John Williams felt the principal audience for the film would be children and he hoped that the references to the classics would lead them to explore the original pieces he was alluding to.

  George Lucas’s original idea had been to use preexisting classical music as the score, much like Stanley Kubrick had done in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but also like many of the serials from the 1930s that Lucas was inspired by. Williams, concerned that using well-known material would constrict his ability to make the kind of dramatic changes a score would need, convinced Lucas to allow him to instead create original themes for the film. Williams credits Lucas for the instinct that the music for the film should be rooted in the familiar, rather than the exotic, with the belief that the outlandish visuals and “outer-space setting” would be tempered by the classical basis of the score.

  JEFF BOND

  (editor, Film Score Monthly)

  John Williams rightly saw the original Star Wars as a film for children, and working with George Lucas, he sought to find the most emotionally direct approach to support the film’s action and make it understandable to a young audience. Lucas had originally considered licensing Gustav Holst’s classical work The Planets to give the film a larger-than-life feel; Williams took that as a starting point and also took inspiration from the swashbuckling feel of the movie and looked back to the Golden Age of Hollywood and composers like Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Miklós Rózsa, ultimately giving his score a grand, symphonic sweep and power. Williams also took Sergei Prokofiev’s leitmotif approach and composed highly recognizable themes for the film’s characters: a heroic theme for Luke Skywalker, a romantic theme for Princess Leia, and a stirring, noble theme for Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Force. Other science fiction films of the era had concentrated on dystopian visions and often abstract, experimental, “futuristic” music, which intentionally created a feeling of alienation. Williams’s score was instantly accessible, rousing, and memorable, its themes ready to be hummed and whistled by audiences as they emerged from the theater. The score had a vigorous life outside the film itself and transformed movie music, at least for the blockbusters that followed in the wake of Star Wars—Williams and other composers in the following years returned to the grand, symphonic language of classic Hollywood films and created a new era of bold, exciting orchestral film music.

  JOE KRAEMER

  There is a wonderful nod to Williams’s friend, Bernard Herrmann, in the scene where the heroes come up from the smuggling compartments in the floor in the Millennium Falcon when it’s in the Death Star hangar. Paul Hirsch, the picture editor, had temped it with a cue from the score to Psycho, and Williams quoted the first three notes of the cue in his final score for the scene.

  The film has a lexicon of themes, many of which returned multiple times throughout the ongoing saga. There is the Main Theme, considered Luke’s Theme in this film. Ben Kenobi has a theme, which grew to encompass “the Force” as the films went on. Princess Leia has a wonderful Korngoldian theme, which had a special concert arrangement featured on the soundtrack LP. The Rebellion has a theme, as well as the Death Star, both of which are brassy flourishes. The Empire has a theme that only appears in this film—in subsequent pictures, Williams used “The Imperial March” for the Empire instead. The Jawas theme is a delightful piece featuring woodwinds in the forefront.

  John Williams revealed in an interview during the press for The Phantom Menace that he wrote a theme for the Jawas that George Lucas was not totally satisfied with, so he set it aside and wrote a new theme inspired by Prokofiev’s “The Love for Three Oranges.” The original Jawa theme that Lucas had rejected ended up being used as Lex Luthor’s Theme in Superman: The Movie.

  John Williams had a long-standing friendship with André Previn, who in the 1970s was the conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. Previn really encouraged Williams to use the LSO to record the score for Star Wars, and it began a working relationship that lasts for six years, and included the scores to Superman: The Movie, The Empire Strikes Back, The Fury, Dracula, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Return of the Jedi. A wonderful perk of using the LSO was that the British orchestra had different rules about using the music recordings in other contexts, and the soundtrack album was not subject to the same considerations of cost and rerecording that scores recorded in Hollywood were. This meant that the LP could use the actual performances from the film, and could include as much of the score as Williams preferred. The resulting double album was a big success, with a single version of the “Main Title” performance by the LSO actually reaching the Billboard Top Ten.

  4

  EARLY BIRD SPECIAL: SELLING STAR WARS

  “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”

  There is a whole other incredible story to the making of Star Wars that is equally groundbreaking. That is the story of how the film was sold to the world, which was the responsibility of the late Charles Lippincott, then vice president of Advertising, Publicity, Promotion, and Merchandising for the Star Wars Corporation. Lippincott pioneered new ways of marketing the film, by targeting the core sci-fi enthusiast demographic, that had rarely been courted as aggressively as it was by Lippincott and Lucasfilm.

  ALAN DEAN FOSTER


  (author, Star Wars novelization and the sequel, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye)

  You can credit Charlie Lippincott with building awareness of Star Wars. Charles was in charge of advertising and promotion. On top of that, George was a very astute student of Walt Disney and realized that merchandising was important. The film sparks the merchandising and the merchandising helps feed interest in the film and the franchise, which is even more important. Some films lend themselves to that and some don’t. Star Wars certainly did.

  CRAIG MILLER

  (director of fan relations, Lucasfilm, 1977–1980)

  Charles couldn’t really market the film to the general public: “Come see science fiction!” And there weren’t any name stars in it. Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing were well known in England, but Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford were not well known here. So you weren’t going to get them booked on The Tonight Show. So he had to come up with ways to market the movie that was not the typical way. One was to go to the fans who are the target audience for this movie and try to build up a grassroots interest.

  CHARLES LIPPINCOTT

  (publicity executive, Star Wars)

  I really conceived marketing as a different way of handling science fiction. In a sense, it was like pre-advertising. In the early seventies, I noticed the growing interest in science fiction and comic book conventions and the proliferation of stores like A Change of Hobbit, all of which indicated that something was happening in the genre. My thinking was that we should sell to the science fiction and comic book crowd early on. Why not tailor a campaign and build off of that? Do a novelization and comic book adaptation early. The only science fiction film that we had to go on, really, was 2001, which had been sold quite differently. For instance, to build awareness, in November 1975 we sold the novelization of the screenplay.

  * * *

  In actuality, Lippincott’s efforts began a month before the 20th Century Fox board of directors gave the green light to Star Wars.

  CHARLES LIPPINCOTT

  Their decision was based on the fact that 2001 had finally broken even in November of ’75, and we were to do the film for around the same budget 2001 was done. In January of 1976, Fox held the last of their sales conventions, which up until that point had been an industry mainstay where studios invited exhibitors out to Los Angeles to discuss and preview future production. The presentation was called “Twenty-Six in ’76,” and we were one of them, though far down the line. The exhibitors weren’t interested in Star Wars at all. I did a presentation, similar to what I would do at conventions, based on the Ralph McQuarrie paintings and Joe Johnston drawings. I did a slide presentation and they were just bored out of their skulls. However, the younger people in the audience who worked for exhibitors really loved it. Those few thought it was great, but the older exhibitors thought it was terrible.

  * * *

  The film would, of course, be put into production and from that point Lippincott pushed ever forward with the novelization, a Marvel Comics adaptation of the film, and an all-out assault on comic conventions, doing anything he had to do to ensure that Star Wars was in the public zeitgeist.

  CHARLES LIPPINCOTT

  The novel is credited to George Lucas, but it was actually written by Alan Dean Foster. The lawyer for Lucasfilm wanted to put it up for auction, but I wanted to go to the best science fiction publisher and I won out. So we went with Ballantine Books.

  STEPHEN SCARLATA

  (host, Best Movies Never Made podcast)

  In 1975, 20th Century Fox had little confidence in the film and were kind of getting worried, so George decided to have a novelization written and he wanted it to be out six months before the film came out—which would never happen today, because of spoilers. So he got Alan Dean Foster, who was a sci-fi writer. I believe George Lucas was a fan of his, or someone was a fan of one of his books called Ice Rigger. Alan Dean Foster came and had a meeting with George Lucas and he showed him the Death Star and all kinds of concept art.

  ALAN DEAN FOSTER

  I had done several novelizations for Ballantine Books, which became Del Rey Books. I had adapted Dark Star, the John Carpenter film, and was writing the Star Trek Log books, which were adaptations of the Saturday morning cartoon show. I was told by somebody involved with George Lucas that the novel I’d written called Ice Rigger, which came out in 1974, was similar in spirit to what Star Wars was hopefully going to be. So between that and the successful novelizations I’d done, would I be interested? They contacted my agent and I was asked, “Would I be interested in doing an adaptation of this film that George Lucas was doing plus a second original novel?,” and I said yes.

  STEPHEN SCARLATA

  Lucas wanted him to write not only the novelization, but he wanted him to write a [sequel] book that could be filmed on a low budget. A second novel that could be used as the basis for a low budget sequel just in case Star Wars was not successful. They were smart; they held on to most of the sets, props, and costumes so they could reuse them for an inexpensive sequel. It was also rumored that there were going to be three books altogether—two sequel books to Splinter. Which, of course, never happened.

  ALAN DEAN FOSTER

  After I said yes, I was sent over to see Tom Pollock, later head of Universal and George’s lawyer at the time, at his office on Hollywood Boulevard, presumably so they could review me and assure George and everybody that I wasn’t an ax murderer. Apparently, I passed that test, because I was told to go over to Industrial Light & Magic, which at that time was a rented warehouse in Van Nuys, California, and meet George to see if I got his approval. So I went over and had a wonderful day there exploring and didn’t take a camera—there were no phone cameras at the time and probably if there was, would have politely been asked to put it away, but who knows? So I’m bouncing around and there are all these people in this big room putting together spaceships out of cannibalized World War II model kits. And still I’m waiting for George, who’s somewhat busy I guess, and this guy calls me over and says, “You want to see something really neat?” So I go over and he’s showing me this enormous camera setup. It’s the first computer-controlled camera in the history of Hollywood. Then I watched them shoot some green-screen stuff with the original Millennium Falcon model. Then George came out and we had a nice chat; I was really surprised he had any time for me at all to discuss what is, after all, ancillary rights. Spin-off rights, not the film. That went well, he’s showing me around saying, “Here’s the Death Star,” blah, blah, blah. I was approved to write the novelization and the first spin-off, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye.

  * * *

  Considering this was George Lucas before he was George Lucas, such a meeting does beg the question of what he was like in those early days before he became Emperor of his own Empire.

  ALAN DEAN FOSTER

  There were a hundred people in the room at that time and he’d be the last guy you’d pick to be George Lucas. But he was very focused. I know he had at least ten thousand different things on his mind at the time, which, again, I was surprised he had time for me and I’m trying to make small talk. And because I never met the guy before, I said, “If this film doesn’t go, are you going to be all right financially?” and he said, “Yeah, I should have enough money coming in from American Graffiti to be okay.” And I said, “What if it’s a big success?” And he said, “I’d like to do small experimental films.” Many years go by and I happened to catch an interview with him on 60 Minutes. I forget who was interviewing him, maybe Diane Sawyer, and she asked a similar question related to his present circumstances, and he said, “Well, I’d like to make small experimental films.” He never lost that idea. He just kind of got sidetracked his entire life.

  BRIAN JAY JONES

  (author, George Lucas: A Life)

  He’s constantly saying that and has been since the seventies. I love that even Steven Spielberg calls bullshit on him. He’s like, “We’re still waiting, George.” Here’s what I’d love to find out: whether
or not he’s got some weird YouTube channel that’s got like nine subscribers and where he’s been dumping experimental films on it since the 2000s and no one has found it yet. He’s like, YouTube user GreedoShotFirst and he’s got all these little dumb weird films on there. You know, I believe that Marcia Lucas at one point was telling George, “Go make your small art house films. You’re a really talented visionary filmmaker, make those kinds of things.” As I’ve said, though, it’s easy to look back and shit on Lucas, but it’s hard to begrudge somebody for success. It’s like begrudging a band that makes it big and everyone’s like, “You’ve changed, man.” Well, you can give me, again, the dramatic, romantic narrative of, “It’s all about the music,” which is true, but when you succeed, you’re like, “Come on, you can’t begrudge success.” A lot of people accused Lucas then, because Star Wars hit, of dumbing down the market. But that happens regardless. How many people make shitty superhero movies? I love Mystery Science Theater 3000 and watching everybody trying to capitalize on the science fiction craze, and nobody does it well. That’s not Lucas’s fault.