- 25
- May
On May 25th, 1977 Star Wars entered our collective consciousness. If you're old enough to remember the film's opening day, well, you're older than us; but George Lucas (bless his wookie heart) had at least thirty years of plot tinkering to do, thus ensuring all future generations would drop their allowance on toys you're not even supposed to take out of the goddamned box. ANYWAY, here at Stereogum we're gonna celebrate the only way we know how: by breaking down the sci-fi saga's greatest contributions to music, and not posting a Nerf Herder MP3.
Darth Vader Gets His Own Theme
(Middle of space, Empire Strikes Back)
One of the most famous music motifs of the last thirty years, The Imperial March didn't actually appear until the beginning of Empire. But since then it has been clubbed up, scratched out, and, astonishingly, hand-farted by a guy with way too much free time (oh YouTube, are we reaching the point of diminishing returns? No? Good.). As scenes go, pizza-pie shaped destroyers floating aimlessly in space isn't all that thrilling; it's the perfect, 18-note expression of pure evil that makes it memorable.