Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi Music by John Williams Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow Music by Edward Shearmur All from Sony Classical   Reviewed by Tony Buchsbaum	A lifetime ago, back when I was in high school, John Williams joined the very short list of people I knew of who composed music for movies. I'd found John Barry early on, thanks to his work on the first few James Bond movies. But a few years later, when I realized the same man -- John Williams -- had written the scores for The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno and Jaws, I became a lifelong fan. Close Encounters, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark and on and on: His were the scores that shaped my adolescence, and I am proud to say that I can talk about his work(s) the way other people talk about The Beatles or the Yankees or Michelangelo or Shakespeare. Of course, probably the biggest canvas Williams had was the Star Wars films. I was, to be honest, slow to warm to the first film, but its score really grabbed me. It was, I would later learn, a throwback to the so-called Golden Age, when largely European Jewish men provided the music for some of America's greatest and most iconic films: Max Steiner (Gone with the Wind), Alfred Newman (How Green Was My Valley), Miklos Rozsa (Ben-Hur), Bernard Herrmann (Psycho), Franz Waxman (The Philadelphia Story), Ernest Gold (Exodus), Elmer Bernstein (The Man with the Golden Arm) and later, Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams. There was something about the Star Wars music. It was hopeful as well as triumphant. Innocent yet wise. Youthful and aged. It was rife with a unique exuberance that seemed to announce to all the world that this kind of scoring was, indeed, back. Despite its times, in an era filled with spy films and disaster films and serious auter-driven films, Star Wars would become, in so many ways, the New Hope its subsequently-added subtitle promised. For film scoring, it inspired a generation who would take Williams' cue and run with it. Williams himself would run with it, too. He would expand within the universe on the other Star Wars films, released periodically from then to now, and work with directors like Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone and others to create a landscape of film music that simply sounded different from everything else. I've heard arguments that every Williams score sounds just like every other Williams score, but that's no truer than the argument that every Renoir looks like every other. Williams was able to infuse his career with lots of work on film series: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Superman, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter. These films, helmed by different directors, nonetheless have that signature sound, a fully-orchestrated magnitude that makes them even more vibrant. This is what movies are made of, and this is what movie music is made for. Williams's work on the first three Star Wars films -- A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi -- has now been released on the Sony Classical label, bringing the entire Star Wars series to a single home. Previously, Sony Classical released CDs of music from The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, and the score for the new film, Revenge of the Sith, is due this summer. A New Hope and Jedi have their magical moments -- Hope has "Binary Sunset," "Ben Kenobi's Death/Tie Fighter Attack," and "The Battle of Yavin," while Jedi has "Sail Barge Assault" and "Luke and Leia" -- but for my money, the best of this bunch is Empire Strikes Back. While A New Hope first establishes the sound of the universe, Empire expands the soundscape in such a way that one begins to understand that there is nowhere this stuff can't go. There are lengthy cues that follow the action on the Hoth ice planet, the mysterious music that accompanies Luke's training with Yoda on Dagobah, and the rapturous triumph of the music that follows Han Solo's carbon freezing, Boba Fett's escape, and the escape of Leah, Chewbacca, the droids and Lando on the Millennium Falcon. This last, in the cue "The Clash of the Lightsabers," I believe ranks among the best pieces of music in all of film scoring, and it's followed by an entirely different sound, as Luke and Vader trade psychic thoughts about their newly-revealed father-son relationship. If it's even possible, all of this is capped by the stunning End Title music, which ties all of this film's many themes together in one vast piece. As I mentioned, one of the best things to come from Star Wars and the far-reaching contributions of John Williams is the inspiration he has provided to other composers. Among the best of these is Edward Sheamur, who recently provided the score for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Like Star Wars, Sky Captain was borne of the mind of one man, Kerry Conran, who slaved to create a new way to make films, much as George Lucas did all those years ago. Sky Captain, a throwback to the classic films of the 1930s and 40s, uses new techniques and overly dramatic lighting and effects. (Ironically, Lucas' own Industrial Light and Magic helped finish the new film's effects). Like Lucas before him, Conran turned not to an established, big-name composer to create the music for his epic, but to a young man whose musical voice needed a project to help solidify it. Edward Shearmur's work, though not forgettable, hasn't really stood out from its projects, but this time the music and the project are perfectly-matched, and the result is ear-popping. The music for Sky Captain makes the movie sing in even more ways than the brilliant filmmaking does. Just as Williams added a new layer of import to Star Wars, Shearmur's work brings a certain brightness, a sense of gravity and heroism, to Sky Captain. The score CD contains almost an hour of music, and it's all wonderful. From the building majesty of "The Zeppelin Arrives" to the frightening bombast of "The Robot Army," from the quiet mystery of "Manta Squadron" to the romantic overtones of "Back To Earth," Shearmur's work is all over the map, just as the film itself is. Though the score is a bit heavy on military-style marches, if there was ever a showcase for a "new" composer, this is it. Clearly the force is with him. | November 2004   Tony Buchsbaum is the author of Total Eclipse. He writes advertising for a large marketing firm and is building a small book publishing company in Lawrenceville, NJ, where he lives with his wife and sons.	There was something about the Star Wars music. It was hopeful as well as triumphant. Innocent yet wise. Youthful and aged. It was rife with a unique exuberance that seemed to announce to all the world that this kind of scoring was, indeed, back.