How Wagner Landed in a Far Away Galaxy: Examining Film from a Musical Perspective

Abstract

What does music add to drama, or more specifically, movies? Without music, movies today would not be the same. When it comes to creating a film, the soundtrack is arguably just as important as videography or acting. Exploring the roots that soundtracks have in opera and investigating Wagner’s leitmotif will help discover how it influenced modern-day movie scoring. Furthermore, a deeper understanding of filmmaking can be obtained by examining the role music has to play in modern movies. The soundtracks from the original Star Wars trilogy films can be used to demonstrate the application of these things by looking deeply into how each theme is formed and how each one shapes the characters it represents as well as the story that is portrayed in a film.

Keywords

• star wars
• wagner
• leitmotif
• soundtrack
• opera
• movies
• luke
• leia
• force
• theme