Hi Dominic. Thanks for the thought-provoking question! In 2015, I published an article called “Film Music Themes: Analysis and Corpus Study”, where I analyzed nearly 500 main themes from Oscar-nominated scores ranging from the early 1930s to 2015. So when I consider the expressive arc of a theme, I think also of its structure in terms of theme types like sentences, periods, and the like. In my study, I analyzed E.T. as a structure called a “clause”, in which the initial idea of 2 bars is then restated or varied for 2 bars, then varied in a more striking way in the next 2 bars before coming to a cadence or close in the last 2 bars. Some other themes from the same era that have this clause structure are the main themes from John Barry’s Out of Africa, Jerry Goldsmith’s Papillon, and Dave Grusin’s On Golden Pond. Each of these melodies has a clearly highest melodic note, and if you segment them by their number of beats into the theme, as you do for E.T., here are the results for this highest (climactic) note: Out of Africa occurs at 19/32 beats (= 0.59 proportion), Papillon at 28/48 (= 0.58), and On Golden Pond at 38/69 (= 0.55).

All this is to say that I think that the placement of the climactic highest note in the E.T. theme coincides with a general principle in the theme’s structure, namely that the “clause” theme type easily lends itself to a climax around the 60% mark in the theme because that’s the 2 bars of the theme that break away from the pattern of the first 4 bars and frequently produce a climax before coming to a close with the last 2 bars. I’m not saying that Williams didn’t have the 60% proportion in mind when writing the E.T. theme, only that it goes hand-in-hand with the clause theme type, so probably he conceived of the two together, as if thinking “ok, this third time around with the idea, let’s bring it to a climax!”

Although I don’t think he writes to a ‘formula’ as such it’s interesting that the repetition, development and shape of his closed themes seems to correlate with other classic closed themes – and popular ones at that.

What a shmuck

Thanks, Katelyn. There’s definitely a G-natural and A# in the chord as well (the latter in the woodwinds). And I’m not entirely sure, but I think there’s also a G# buried in the middle somewhere (also in woodwinds, but faintly). So in total, it’s a C# diminished 7th chord with G# added to it.

Hi Robert. Indeed the major IV chord can result from a melodic minor scale as you say. In this case, however, that major IV ends the theme’s entire first phrase, so it is a cadential chord, a point of rest. So there is no need for its voice leading to be dependent on what follows since the phrase is already over and a new one can start afresh. This view is strengthened by the vast majority of the Force theme’s statements in Star Wars, Episode IV (but the other films as well) comprising only its first phrase, which retains the major IV at its end without any justification from a second phrase starting on V. I would also point out that even when the theme enters its second phrase after the first, the first phrase always retains the major IV even when the second phrase does not begin on V, as in this statement from Episode IV:

All this is to say that, while I can see how it may seem that the Force theme’s major IV is a result of the melodic minor scale, I think the evidence in the score suggests that it is rather a use of chromaticism that highlights its non-diatonic quality by not requiring justification with a following V chord. I would therefore say that such a use of chromaticism in Williams’ Star Wars scores is generally for the purpose of creating particular emotional expressions, whether it’s the benevolence of Yoda, Rose, and the boy Anakin through their themes’ use of the Lydian II# chord, the longing quality of love through the minor-mode iv and ii chords heard in Leia’s theme, Han Solo and the Princess, and Luke and Leia, or most famous of all, the twisted evil sound of the minor bvi chord in a minor key heard in Vader’s theme.