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Originally Posted by Izunya
Quote:
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Originally Posted by peter eldergill
I have recollection that the Star Wars theme(s) were a rip off of Wagner or someone similar to that. Anyone know about this?
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Dude, Williams rips off everybody. 
That being said, Star Wars doesn't sound a whole lot like Wagner to me. More like Holst. I'm fairly sure he lifted one of the signature rhythms right out of "Mars." And recently I've been hearing shades of Carmina Burana in his work; he's played around a little with eerie choral stuff in the most recent movies, and it's difficult to do eerie choral stuff without referencing Carmina Burana. (A fact that irritates me a little, because the piece has more to it than just the famous "O Fortuna" chorus that everyone knows, but nevermind.)
Come to think of it, he wrote the Harry Potter theme music too, didn't he? The one that sounds just a bit like Prokofiev's Cinderella?
Thing is, I don't really mind. Heaven knows that Star Wars isn't an original concept. And it's not like Williams can "spoil" Carmina Burana for me. There's something to be said for putting old ideas together in new ways. In some ways, I miss the days when movie makers weren't afraid to grab any piece of music that fit and make it their own. I think that the coolest scifi theme ever would be The Rite of Spring . . . it's just that no-one's put a scifi movie to it . . .
8-[ Aaaand it would appear that my music geek is showing. Nevermind. The point is, as far as I know, Star Wars music is a rip off of Holst.
Izunya |
Hey, glad someone else noticed Williams' rip-offs.
Heck, when my wife, son, and I first saw
Star Wars in 1977, during the opening "blockade runner" scene, I leaned over to my wife and said "Sound familiar?" "Yes, but what is it?" she replied. "It's the last few measures of
Mars from
The Planets." "That's it!" she replied.
BTW, another thing that struck me right off re the
Star Wars music was the main theme. It sounded like a speeded-up version (with a few different chord/rhythm changes) of the theme from
Born Free.
Speaking of the
Rite of Spring, I'm doing some sampling so another poster who didn't hear any Stravinsky or Prokofiev in
Jaws will have to be tone deaf not to do so.