Star Wars versus Gustav Holst

This is probably well known, but I thought it would be fun to show you something neat.


See how many sections of A New Hope you can find that link up to this song. The easiest one to find is right at the end. I won't say what it is, but if you can't figure it out, you need to hand in your fanboy license.

 

I remember a music professor in college tried to win over a class by demonstrating how John Williams was ripping off Holst. Problem was, he kept playing tracks that didn't really match up that well. The Imperial March sounds kinda like "Mars" if you give it enough license, but not enough to really stir up lay people to. If he'd played the entrance to the Death Star, it might've worked, but all he really did was confuse or irritate everyone.

I give Williams a pass for his homages to other composers. If you REALLY want to hear music that's patently ripped off of something else, listen to "Decisive Battle" from the "Evangelion" soundtracks, and then the "007" theme in "From Russia With Love". Not that it ruins anything, but it's a better demonstration of one piece of music being closely patterned after another.

 

Imperial March reminds me a lot more of Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights. As for Holst, his influence can be seen across a number of differnte places, but in particular it pertains to the Tantiv IV scene as well as the lead up to the trench run.

 

I heard this on public radio for the first time several years ago and definitely did a bit of a "wait a sec" thing. If I can get past Horner's lifting and still love the Willow score, though, I can certainly live with the Holst influence in Star Wars.

 

Help an ageing Brit out, please... What does it mean to 'give X/Y/Z a pass'?

 

We overlook faults in works because they do something we like, or because something else does it worse, making the first look better.

Horner has made exactly two film scores that I like: Wrath of Khan and Aliens. Additionally, those make up two of the three film scores the man has ever produced, since he seems content to continually recycle and copy his own music over and over. He's also a bit of an egotistic prick to other composers. Look up the controversy over the original score of the movie Troy and what Horner had to say about Gabriel Yared's work before his score was used instead.

 

I agree the ending is similar. However, I feel Holst was an influence on Williams. He did not rip off his work.

 

I'm not saying that he ripped him off, but his influence is really clear. Hans Zimmer is another composer whose work is greatly inspired by Holst. Listen to the battle music in Gladiator and tell me you don't see the similarities. Also, that movie is about Romans, and the movement is about the Roman God of War, so there's that as well.

 

There's definitely some Maurice Jarre influence in Star Wars too, Lawrence Of Arabia specifically.

 

I do hear a lot of Lawrence of Arabia in some of the prequels, especially Phantom Menace.

 

Holst's 'Mars' was used as a temp track for rough cuts of SW/ANH, and was apparently the main theme used in an industry preview of the film. There's no coincidence or 'ripping off' at all, Williams would have composed his own score using the temp track as a bed to begin with. Beyond Holst's 'Mars', I'm not sure of what other temp music GL used.

Same thing happened with Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey - except that Kubrick fell in love with his temp track and ditched Alex North's officially composed score in favour of the existing music. Good call, despite what film score nerds might say - and North's 2001 score is widely available for those who want to compare.

(Without wanting to mini-mod, this could all be a great discussion for the Star Wars and Film Music forum)

 

Holst's Venus is so similar to the Tatooine sunset theme it must have been a place holder track too....

The main theme, too. Without wishing to sound like a muso troll, the SW main theme is exactly the same as the Lawrence overture but with the notes in a different order.

 

I agree. Mars, the bringer of war is one of my favorite songs. It is so iconic that composers are influenced by it and may not even be aware of it.

 

True. I originally started off with the intent of discussing Holst in particular, but it seems thing's have expanded. If you want it moved then go ahead.

With that in mind, Star Wars isn't the only time that the Lawrence of Arabia track has influenced Williams.


Tell me that drum beat at the beginning doesn't sound similar.

 

No worries, moving to Star Wars & Film Music

 

Ahh good, new acquisitions!



I'd say it's much less "vs." and more "cross-generational hugs", myself. Nothing wrong with honouring a predecessor at all.

 

In many ways John Williams really revived, especially for films, the concept of extended themes used to illustrate or represent certain characters, locations, or ideas. Obviously, Star Wars has themes that are very well known to SW fans, film lovers, music lovers, and the general public, but the entire series is peppered with motifs all over the place that are well less known (Boba Fett's got one, for example) yet are used to help tell the story being displayed on screen.

While it is almost impossible to separate the images with the music, one can grab the complete score to any of the SW films and sit down and listen to a story being told. Williams' work certainly does harken back to great classical works and concepts established by earlier composers, such as Wagner. I don't think there is anything malicious with say, Holst's influence in Williams' work. Certainly thematically, Star Wars has much in common with Holst's works, especially his Mars composition. There will come times to that future composers harken back to John Williams, as well.


As a side note, listening to that Lost World theme really reminded me how much I enjoyed the soundtrack for that film. I haven't heard (or seen the film) in quite a few years.

 

The Neptune score is very Star-Warsian.

 

I've often wondered if Williams was inspired by Dvorak's New World Symphony when he was composing SW. Try humming the main theme from the 4th movement, then segue into the Force theme. They go together like chocolate and peanut butter.

Getting back to Holst, his Jupiter theme might have influenced the SW main theme. But Jupiter reminds me even more of the theme from original BSG.

 

End of Jupiter sounds like ET and Venus...I almost felt like Lois Lane (Superman flying me for the first time)



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I usually hear a lot of similarity to Dvorak, Prokofiev and Holst whenever I listen to it.

 

Jupiter has some stuff that also sounds like Star Trek.