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"Rebel Motif" vs. "Ice Cold in Alex"

1/31/2014

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My thanks to fellow Beatles and Star Wars fan Matt Blick, of The Beatles Songwriting Academy, for pointing out a similarity between John Williams' "Rebel Motif" as heard in Star Wars: A New Hope and Leighton Lucas' score to the 1958 movie Ice Cold in Alex. A clip from the latter may be found below.
This music bear striking similarities to Williams', particularly towards the end, around 1:40 - a transcription of which is provided below.
Picture
Now compare with the opening scene from A New Hope, as heard at the beginning of the third track from the soundtrack.
Picture
Although Alex is fast (a tempo of roughly 180 bpm) and Star Wars is slower (about half as fast), both feature a Mars-inspired ostinato in the lower strings, with a fanfare consisting of two major chords a minor third apart heard in the treble voices. Furthermore, in both, this fanfare opens with a very short anacrusis (think of the "ta" in "ta-da") followed by a long held chord that resolves to the lower chord, which is shorter in duration than the held chord, but longer in duration than the anacrusis.

I think it's a safe bet that Ice Cold in Alex was on John Williams' temp track for Star Wars!
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