The Evolving Soundtrack for Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope

In the thirty years since we first heard those thrilling fanfare cascades at the opening of George Lucas’s first Star Wars film, John Williams’s score for Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope has proven to be as transcendent as the movie for which it was composed. An instant hit when it was first released as a double LP in 1977, the soundtrack for Star Wars spawned a host of issues and reissues, repackagings, picture discs, even a “Star Robot System” disco version of the theme by the German synthesizer group, Bang Bang Robot.

According to soundtrackcollector.com, some fifty-four releases have featured or highlighted Williams’s original score; these include not only the German, but also the Danish and Japanese versions of “The Story of Star Wars,” all of which drew dialogue from their respective overdubs of the film. Another thirty-seven compilations included the most popular cues from the film. Some connected Star Wars with Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey and Gustav Holst’s The Planets – a kind of “if it’s out in space, then it should be in here” approach to programming.

But in the end, only three of those previous Star Wars releases can actually be associated with the evolution of Lucas’s original film: the first 20th Century Fox soundtrack from 1977; the 1993 release of the Star Wars Trilogy anthology of soundtracks, which included a bonus compact disc of alternate takes and cues from the three films; and the 1997 BMG release of the digitally-remastered and expanded version of the first Star Wars film.

1977: Gatefold 2-LP Album
The original release contained sixteen tracks and ran for almost seventy-four minutes. Vinyl fans will note that the American LPs were manufactured in what was called “drop sequence.” In this scheme, Side 1 was paired with Side 4 and Side 2 with Side 3; so, when you stacked the LPs on the changer, you would play Side 1 from one record, then Side 2 from the other. Then you’d flip the entire stack to play Sides 3 and 4.

The LP opens with the “Star Wars Theme,” a musical work that lasts three minutes longer than the music that actually opens the film. The resulting piece, as John Williams noted, gives “the beginning of the record the feeling of an overture.”

In that sense, the original release was more a musical suite than a sequential musical retelling of the film. For example, cues from different parts of the story were combined into new pieces – witness “Inner City.” In this track, the music leapt from the moment when the Millennium Falcon arrives at the location of the planet Alderaan, then proceeds to Ben’s revelation that he is Obi-Wan Kenobi, and concludes with Luke and Ben’s journey by landspeeder to the Mos Eisley Spaceport. Likewise, the track “Mouse Robot, Blasting Off” juxtaposes Han and Luke’s effort to break Princess Leia out of the cell block on the Death Star with the Millennium Falcon bursting into hyperspace after taking off from Tatooine.

In their first iterations on LP, two tracks were shorter than elsewhere: “Imperial Attack” was a little over six minutes long and “Inner City” ran four and a quarter minutes.

1993: The Star Wars Trilogy Anthology
Also released on the 20th Century Fox label, this compact disc version of the Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope soundtrack follows the same general order as the original album. Curiously missing from this volume is “Cantina Band,” but three tracks featured “previously unreleased material”: “Imperial Attack” and “Inner City” both gained over half a minute of music.

The gem of the anthology is the fourth CD, which features outtakes and alternates from the first three films – among these, six tracks which hadn’t made it into the original Star Wars soundtrack. There is, for example, the Main Title as it was heard in the film – about three minutes shorter than the “Star Wars Theme.” And along with the first “Cantina Band” cue from the original soundtrack, the bonus CD includes “Cantina Band #2”.

Likewise, cues that did not make it into John Williams’s suite-like adaptation of his score for the gatefold LP find their way here: “A Hive of Villainy,” where Luke joins up with Ben after his home is destroyed; “Destruction of Alderaan”; and “Standing By,” which figured in the final battle from the film.

1997: Star Wars: A New Hope Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
The 20th Anniversary Edition of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, expanded, digitally remastered and reissued by BMG in 1997, was anything but a reissue of the original release. Instead of the sixteen tracks found on the original, this soundtrack – a two-disc set – contained twenty-four tracks and clocked in at more than 105 minutes. All the little suites that Williams concocted from his score for disparate parts of the film were broken apart and assembled into storyboard order, from “Main Title” all the way to “End Title.” Likewise, the track titles refer to where the music occurs in the film.

The bonus track on this release was “Binary Sunset (alternate take),” which featured a 2’19 version of the cue. After 2’41 of silence within the track, music returns at 5’00 with takes 16 and 17 of the “Star Wars Theme.”

In 2004, Sony Classical released the DSD version of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, following the 1997 track order. This is the version presented here.