Writing the script for 1977's Star Wars, George Lucas drew inspiration from late-romantic symphonies by Richard Wagner and Antonín Dvorák and the ravishing film scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood).
He wasn't sure what his space epic would sound like, but he knew he didn't want it to have one of those modernist, atonal scores that had accompanied sci-fi films since 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still (composed by Bernard Herrmann and featuring a theremin).
Lucas' plan was to emulate Stanley Kubrick, who on 1968's 2001: A Space Odyssey abandoned a score by Alex North (Spartacus) in favor of classical pieces by Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss II and György Ligeti.
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