# Quick Star Wars music question.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-star-wars-music-question/611926>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [February 6, 2012, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-star-wars-music-question/611926 "2012-02-06T03:00:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\
**Post date:** [February 6, 2012, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-star-wars-music-question/611926/1 "2012-02-06T03:00:53Z")

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What was the old western that had music very similar to parts of the Star Wars OST? It was linked here before by someone but my searching ain’t finding it for me.

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**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-star-wars-music-question/611926/2 "2012-02-07T02:10:01Z")

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The other film is 1942’s _ **Kings Row** _. [Here’s a YouTube comparison of the two.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AokqzpdA3M)

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**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-star-wars-music-question/611926/3 "2012-02-07T03:44:19Z")

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Wow! Ok, that’s interesting as hell, thanks for asking and responding!

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**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-star-wars-music-question/611926/4 "2012-02-07T04:00:22Z")

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It’s not a coincidence. That was amongst the temporary music that George Lucas put to his edit when he handed it to John Williams.

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**Author:** ![carlb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carlb/32/5930_2.png) [@carlb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlb)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-star-wars-music-question/611926/5 "2012-02-07T04:20:19Z")

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…and an awful lot of it sounds like [del]a rip-off of[/del] an homage to Gustav Holst’s _The Planets_. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to the Holst music, but I seem to recall that “Venus” and “Leia’s Theme” sound an awful lot alike.

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**Author:** ![Pitchmeister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pitchmeister/32/3459_2.png) [@Pitchmeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pitchmeister)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-star-wars-music-question/611926/6 "2012-02-07T14:54:06Z")

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Also, the end of “Mars” features a distinctive rhythm of a very aggressive chord, which John Williams used verbatim (in the same key with pretty much the same orchestration, almost the exact rhythm) in Star Wars’ Main Theme.